E85?

[woodside783]

what do you guys think of the e85. Some of the treads in here say that you can make more hp on it. How good is it on your seals and other parts?

[jtzako]

Since our cars are not designed for it, you would probably cause problems with seals etc. As for more HP? I've never heard that one.

[PoorMansCamaro]

We got a v6 that just switched to e85 and got a tune for it. i believe he gained about 30hp. don't remember the specifics. i think the tuner is still tweaking it. check out the v6 bolt on section if you want to get more info.

[JUISSD]

On a stock car E85 isn't going to do much. You can get more aggressive with the tune because of the higher octane rating. It's great for cars with power adders though.

[upflying]

Ethanol has lower thermal efficiency. It requires a richer mixture to run and will lower your MPG in cars designed for "flexfuel".
E85 has higher octane due to the ethanol. Timing can be advanced, hence the assumption it creates more power.
I would not run E85 just because of the politics behind making it. Issues such as "gas from food", taxpayer subsidy to farmers and the fact it takes more than a gallon of gas to make a gallon of ethanol.

[pennor]

Most new GM cars, though apparently not the Camaro have been E85 compatable for several years. Sometimes certain models have had the "flex fuel" badge stuck on at the factory, but most have not. In spite of the badge, the computer was programed to use any mixture of gasoline and alcohol. So deduce from this, that since GM is not known to make lots of different parts when they don't have to, that E85 will not harm your fuel system in any way. As far as an answer to whether you will get more power... I doubt it unless you can somehow raise the compression in the engine to take advantage of the alcohols higer octain. What you will probably notice is some decrease in gas mileage due to the lower energy density of alcohol.

With all of this said, I have anecdotal evidence from a friend who install an after market E85 conversion kit on his Chevy HHR, that his mileage remained unchanged after the switch.

So in my mind the jury is syill out on converting a Camaro to E85 or event trying to run E85 in a stock Camaro.

One last comment: Politics aside, I would personally use E85 if I could for two really good reasons: 1. It's often cheaper and at least in my state, there are tax advantages to using it. 2. It doesn't come from countries thate hate us and the money for the most part stays ine USA.

I would be really interested to hear any real world stories though.

[woodside783]

ya i agree with you pennor.

[casanova69]

I could have sworn that i read that the revised 2012 v6 engine will be E85 compatible. Correct me if i'm wrong.

[zandron263]

I have been running E85 in my Silverado for about 6 months. It is a flex fuel engine and I do not notice any adverse effects or any real performance gains. MPG's are lower than gas however about 3 MPG per gallon. It's about .60 a gallon cheaper than gas where I live so I think the savings off set the MPG right now.