E54: Facts compared to E85?

[RedVenom48]

Ive been going back on forth on doing a fuel system for my GT500 since I live in Arizona. Per state law, we only get what amounts to E54. Ive decided that I should bite the bullet, as the 91 octane out here wont support the blower upgrade I want to do. (VMP TVS with 2.4" upper and 15% lower).

Since all we have here is E54, can anyone tell me about it and how it compares to E85? I heard E54 has 90% of the anti-knock and octane rating of full on E85. Is there a limit to its performance and the amount of boost I can run on E54 versus E85?

Since there's more gasoline and less ethanol, would I need a return system or could I upgrade my fuel hat, pumps and injectors and stick with returnless?

 

[gimmie11s]

First hurdle will be finding a tuner who will tune it. You'll likely have to run an ethanol sensor and use one of the "flex" tuners like Lund or AED.

That said, i think its a GREAT idea. You'll get most of the benefits of e85 and most of the benefits of gas (better mpg, less worry about corrosion).

Your fuel system wont have to be as "built" as someone running full e85.

Most e85 systems need to be able to support 30% more fuel being burned. Theoretically, yours will only need to support ~15% more.

Sounds like a neat project actually.

 

[Weather Man]

Should be easy to tune, many guys in MN run 2 EXX tunes because of seasonal variability in our E85. Really no reason to go with a return style system until you exceed 800 or so.

 

[RedVenom48]

Im all for sticking with returnless if i can. Are there any reputable tuners that will tune a returnless E54 erhanol tune?

Any returnless E85 pumps you can recommend?

 

[Weather Man]

Im all for sticking with returnless if i can. Are there any reputable tuners that will tune a returnless E54 erhanol tune?

Any returnless E85 pumps you can recommend?

I used a pair of DW200's and a dual BAP on a regular GT to 707 RWHP. Tuner said I had room to go to 800 or so with that setup. Whatever tuner you go with may have some ideas also.

 

[gimmie11s]

I used a pair of DW200's and a dual BAP on a regular GT to 707 RWHP. Tuner said I had room to go to 800 or so with that setup. Whatever tuner you go with may have some ideas also.

This was on e85? Which injectors?

 

[nxhappy]

i say go for it. straight E is going to be much better than 91/93. More adv timing, boost, and cooler engine. Tuning should be similar to e85. Plan on big ass injectors and FP. 1000cc injectors, and maybe twin 255s. Returnless should be fine.

 

[biminiLX]

E54 has nearly the same detonation resistance as E85, there is an SAE paper on it I've found through links on the bullet and turbo forum.
Some may say you'll give up a small amount of peak power potential but I'd say it's not worth the worry. You want a cooler running motor and detonation resistance, and I think you'll make a solid 750rwhp and big torque with a maxed Trinity TVS on E54.
Any tuner should be able to tune it, adjust for lambda and run a 'conservative' E85 tune or a 'ragged' pump 93 tune in regards to timing.
Go for it.
-J

 

[biminiLX]

Also DW400s are new pumps I found at PRI that are out in field testing and DW is designing them to be used in factory pump hats. I called and talked to their engineering and it might include sending in your stock pump hat and they fit the pumps and send back. You'd have 1000hp of pump there easily on E54. It's similar to a Walbro 465 that holds flow at higher pressures.
Ford went with DW in the new CJs I'd have no problem running DW products.
-J

 

[Weather Man]

This was on e85? Which injectors?

ID1000 E85

 

[gimmie11s]

Also DW400s are new pumps I found at PRI that are out in field testing and DW is designing them to be used in factory pump hats. I called and talked to their engineering and it might include sending in your stock pump hat and they fit the pumps and send back. You'd have 1000hp of pump there easily on E54. It's similar to a Walbro 465 that holds flow at higher pressures.
Ford went with DW in the new CJs I'd have no problem running DW products.
-J

Awesome.

 

[JeremyH]

To answer the original question yes the more ethanol you run the more power you will make and more potential to go up there. It's the physics of the increased mass of the fuel that's being injected cooling things down and creating more oxygen during combustion. The volatility and lack of energy in ethanol is what makes it great for power production and boost. Because there is less energy in it, you are putting way more volume of fuel into the combustion chamber prior to ignition. This increased mass with ethanol's properties is what straight up makes more power when stuffing air in regardless of the ability to run hotter iat's or add timing.

Seen a gain in 40rwhp going from e85 to e98 at the same boost and timing level, just a change to stoich in the tune. The 2% gas is only left in the blend at this point for lubricity.

This is not to say there are no benefits to running lower percentages as well for your setup and goals.


On to the second part its volume of fuel your moving which dictates they eventual need for a return system. You can always beef up pumps baps lines and push returnless. But it does have inherent flaws at high volume flow rates.

 

[RedVenom48]

@JeremyH So essentially, upon compression the extra volume of e85 or flex fuel helps increase combustion chamber pressures during compression? In a very round about way its like Nitrous in that regard. Interesting.

I suppose my big hangup about returnless flex fuel on BAPs is that my stock GT500 pumps are connected to a port in the hat via plastic hose. Would ethanol at higher pressures with a BAP eventually destroy those internal hoses?

***EDIT*** If I upgraded the pumps to DW400's and upgraded the internal plastic fuel hoses to fuel hose grade lines, would I even need to run a BAP?

 

[biminiLX]

Correct with DW400s no BAP
-J

 

[BLOWN9646]

@JeremyH So essentially, upon compression the extra volume of e85 or flex fuel helps increase combustion chamber pressures during compression? In a very round about way its like Nitrous in that regard. Interesting.

I suppose my big hangup about returnless flex fuel on BAPs is that my stock GT500 pumps are connected to a port in the hat via plastic hose. Would ethanol at higher pressures with a BAP eventually destroy those internal hoses?

***EDIT*** If I upgraded the pumps to DW400's and upgraded the internal plastic fuel hoses to fuel hose grade lines, would I even need to run a BAP?

Plastic fuel hoses are fine. I've been running em for 3 years now in factory modified hat (340lph's) on E85

 

[JeremyH]

The stock system is compatible with ethanol use. Since the government passed the clean air and fuel act in early 2000's and 10% ethanol started getting put into regular gasoline, and flex fuel incentives were issued auto manufactures started making the fuel systems fully ethanol compatible (same for injector manufactures). AFAIK since the 2004-2005 time frame almost all manufactures across the board were compatible.

 

[JeremyH]

I will list the basic steps for upgrading the gt500 fuel system while maintaining it return-less this is from years of testing and doing fuel stuff on dozens of gt500 setups. I will list these in order that makes the most sense benefit as well as money wise and they also compound or support each other.

-First thing to do is upgrade the oem 12awg power wire to the relay with a 8awg wire. This mod costs about $20-25 will lower duty cycle and extend your fuel system 10-12%. Its one of the most often overlooked things when beefing up a fuel system since pumps loose flow the more current they pull and the hotter they run. Its also key if/when you add a bap or bigger pumps later since they both will pull more current.



-Next step is to upgrade to 8an feed line and filter from hat to rails. This mod alone will drop duty cycle 25% on stock pumps at the 600hp level. And make it so any future pump flow upgrades can make it to rails better and are more effective. Again this is often overlooked. This mod gets you similar range if not better as a pump upgrade or bap would. To run the Fore stuff 8an line/fittings and their filter plus the specialty efi adaptor fittings runs about $250-275.



-From there your looking at a bap or bigger pumps, which one you go with is a matter of preference for you. A standard 16-18volt bap will get you about 20% more range or about 100hp. Do not run more voltage than that if your car sees regular street use, even the aftermarket pumps are only rated to 18volts. You can run a expensive dual bap which is simply two 20amp baps in single case. Or run a single 40amp bap which is cheaper. The bap should be wired post relay and pre fpdm's so the pcm can still control the extra voltage properly to the pumps via the fpdms (ie. the pumps only see the extra voltage when needed.) To wire the single bap you just split the bap output so it feeds into the input of each fpdm. Again if you hadnt't done so already you want 8awg wire from power source to relay and from relay into the bap. Out of the bap 10 or 12awg is adequate. Depending on which bap you go with you could spend $200-400 here.


-The largest pumps the pcm/fpdm can effectively handle through the boost power range and are proven as of today are 320-340lph pumps. Your best options is the dw300m pumps as they are direct fit on the g500 hat plug and play. Other versions of these pumps require work and modification to the hat to fit. I modified a few gt500 hats with walbro 400 and 465 pumps for testing and had issues with pressure spikes as the flow rates and on ramp of fuel was too great for the feedback loop to handle which led to pressure and afr control issues at higher boost levels. I do not recommend trying this and your tuner will hate you. I have not tested the new dw400 pumps but since its a flow thing and the system is constantly adjusting pulse width to maintain pressure I surmise they will have similar issues when two are run together as you push them, just too much flow to properly handle and ramp up and down. A single 400 or 465 does work properly on a GT setup. Its not to say you cant get the setup tuned to work, things just get squirelly in the datalogs at those higher boost levels. So you effectively cant even push those pumps up to what they are supposed to flow properly, hence why a 320-340lph pump is a much better bet in a dual configuration. The two dw300m pumps run around $325.



-And the full boogie return-less upgrade would be all of this wire, line/filter, bap, pumps upgrades. Anymore than this and returnless starts to have issues and you knocking on the edge of needing a return system anyway.

 

[biminiLX]

Sounds like excellent info from experience.
I went with a complete triple pump Fore return system.
Anything else I should do other than install per instructions?
-J