The New Super E85 Fuel - Must Read!!

I found this while scouring a forum on ford escapes ecoboost engines and the minimum octane recommended usage and a guy posted this about fuel thats in the works coming SOON. Take notice of the underlined sections. Parenthesis are my comments and not of the original post.

QUOTE-
Post was Dated on 12-24-16
FWIW, you're going to start seeing new gas formulations over the couple of years. Ethanol gas will become a dinosaur and isobutanol gas the norm. Iso gas is still an alcohol and is made from the same base materials as ethanol but it does not absorb water from the air and it won't rot out the fuel system. It has just about the same Btus as gas (as in Gasoline) so you'll get more power out of a gallon. As of now, the lowest octane rating is 100. (WOW!) It can be found at some of the Gulf distributors and some marinas. It was tested on the marine environment first as that is by far the roughest on a fuel system. The infrastructure for the manufacture of it on a national scale is being built and should be online in a year or so.
Research GEVO NMMA Testing for info.
_END QUOTE

If this is true already, then we have some super-duper hybrid Ethanol Gas that might make E85 look weak. Iso-gas has similar power as pure Gasoline.... if this Iso-Gas has the same characteristics of detonation resistance that E85 has and at a reduced pump price, then SIGN ME UP.
That means we wouldnt need huge fuel systems to pump in fuel due to the BTU of ISO gas being the same as gasoline.

I dont Know about anyone else but that is going to be one crazy Alcohol/Gasoline blended fuel.

Someone needs to get some of this from the marina in the gulf area and test it out in a MUSTANG!!!!! Lets be the first to let the world know how this Iso-Gas works in a Real Race Car - The Ford Mustang.

LINKS to read:
http://gulfracingfuel.com
http://www.gevo.com

Tell Me what you all think? 04Sleeper is this the next gen E85?

Can I drive my new 2017 stock Shelby straight to the pump and fill up with e85?

sher-bant said:

Can I drive my new 2017 stock Shelby straight to the pump and fill up with e85?

Click to expand...

No. The isobutanol, possibly. Being the BTU's are similar to regular gasoline.

Here is a link for more info from Gulf. http://gulfracingfuels.com/isobutanol-and-going-ethanolfree/

Sounds very promising. Now the question is how they can mass produce this and be cost effective.

Couple misconceptions here I think and I will share my thoughts this being a topic I heavily research. My first thoughts are don't hold your breath, this isn't going to be a magic race gas end all be all replacement that might become more readily available more so it could be a replacement or alternative for premium pump gas.
The consensus is it would be mixed with some petrol and ethanol still to make it similar to current premium gas stoich(93 which is 10% ethanol or e10) and the octane rating may be in the 96-98 range with isobutene blend at a local pump. 98 octane bp petrol has already been replaced by e70,e80,e90 in the racing world in real race cars.

This has been in the works since 2007 when the government put out the energy act for more bio fuels development. At least that's when I first learned about it, right about when e85 started getting peoples attention and becoming more available. I know its been used as a denatured hydrocarbon octane booster long before that. Its one of many hardware store additives racer use to home brew fuel. Butanol is commonly found paint/lacquer thinners. And any hydrocarbon can be added to boost octane and make a few more hp than the competition.

That said its not just the higher octane rating of high ethanol blends that makes for more power its the increased mass. Yes having a higher octane fuel can allow for even more power with more timing (which already can be done with any higher octane race fuel) and the cooling properties when injected for lower iat, but its the change in stoich and more volume that makes more power regardless of additional tuning changes. You need more air to go with this increased fuel volume to make more power and take advantage hence why na applications may only see 5-10hp where a boosted motor may see 50-70hp.

Ethanol and butanol are both hydrocarbons (both made of hydrogen carbon and oxygen) so both release oxygen and hydrogen during combustion for a better burn more cylinder pressure and more hp/tq. As do many other hydrocarbons.

The fact that ethanol has less energy per volume than petrol or butanol is actually its advantage in a boosted application. When your using e85 and supplying 33% more fuel to the motor (33% more yields same energy as petrol for stoich combustion) So yo have more mass of hydrocarbons to create oxygen and hydrogen during combustion. E98 race fuel requires closer to 40% more volume. This increased volume from less energy comparatively is the ticket and why simply changing fuel and adjusting stoich in the tune makes power gains on boosted cars averaging 50-70hp and then more power can be had with more timing and boost due to cooling and higher octane.

To do some rough math, so e85 is 85% hydrocarbon and isobutanol (for easy math lets say its 100% hydrocarbon fuel with no addtives) .

If isobutanol has 98% the energy of petrol we will say 2% more fuel is needed for stoich to make it easy. So we will use 1.0 times 2% which is a 1.02 hydrocarbon "rating". Then for e85 33% more fuel is needed for stoich. So .85 times 33% which is a 1.1305 hydrocarbon rating.

1.02 is about 81% of 1.1305. So e85 is getting 19% more hydrogen and oxygen into the motor during combustion. Isobutane appears to have a octane rating up to 100 octane, e85 up to 108 octane. Butanol has heat of vaporization rating of .43 mj/kg and ethanol has a rating of .92 mj/kg so ethanol removes twice the heat from the air charge and cylinder during combustion. Anyone seeing a trend here? So while it will def be an excellent biofuel replacement or even a great additive with ethanol. I don't see it anywhere near the performance level of higher ethanol blends for boosted street/strip cars or being a "super" fuel ethanol replacement for performance.

Last data point I have is the US produced around 15 billion gallons of ethanol last year with an average e85 price of $1.97 a gallon across the us. Isobutanol fuel production was an estimated 750 thousand gallons and I was unable to find a consumer or commercial cost for sales in the us last year.

Also if your looking for a currently available super e85. Check out ignite racing fuels. They have an e85 that uses 15% denatured hydrocarbon additive to the 85% ethanol. It boasts more power than pump e85. Which makes sense if its using a hydrocarbon additive that has similar energy to petrol. To get the same stoich. As always price is a factor going this route to squeeze more power out the fuel since pump e85 is so cheap.

Thanks for the info and math JeremyH. Thats what I was looking for.