Only E85 conversion benefits

[mred2nice]

Hello Everyone

I was thinking earlier today about e85. Taking cost out of the equation, would just an e85 conversion yield a substantial hp increase? Or does it need to be paired with other mods to be at it's best?

[JB'sZL1]

Paired, tripled and quadrupled. Search and you will obtain a quick education.

Basically, as E85 requires more fuel, you require bigger injectors. As you're burning more fuel, an intake and headers will allow the engine to breath. To take better advantage of more fuel being used, a cam with fuel lobes will further assist. Obviously a tune(s) and ffs is required, but it's not all that involved if you go in with a plan. One can gain 80-100hp (along with the cooling benefits) with a complete E85 conversion.

[97ChameleonTA]

A cam with fuel lobes?

[RobZL1]

yeah, that's only relevant on an LTx high-side fuel system (6th gen camaro)

[97ChameleonTA]

Yup, didn't want the OP to get confusing info.

[Robmnrd]

I've done a little bit of research on this recently both out of curiosity and also as I plan my first round(s) of modifications. I'm intrigued by E85 because it seems like a very safe way to add horsepower given it's inherent cooling effects and lack of necessitating increased boost, rpm, etc. to achieve said horsepower.

From what I have gathered, the horsepower benefit of E85 increases as you become more modified overall.
Most people do not choose an E85 conversion as their literal first modification, so I had to do some digging both for LSA equipped ZL1s as well as CTSVs that were otherwise stock or very mildly modified.

Without saying it is a hard and fast rule, if your car is *bone stock* (no CAI, no headers, still stock cats and cat back) an E85 conversion will likely net you about 30-40 rwhp (through searching I found one CTSV example and it made about 35 horse. Different dynos/conditions/etc. may read differently, so probably only expect 30, but up to 40).
If your car was modified like mine is (CAI, LT headers, catless or hi-flow cats, but no pulleys, cam, heads, TB, SC porting, etc..) you would likely see between 40 and 50 rwhp. (I found a handful of, once again, CTSVs that were mildly modified like this - some with the ZL1 lid swap making them essentially exactly the same, and some without. A couple ZL1 owners had numbers in the same range, about 40-50 rwhp gain).
If you move into the "bigger" mods - pulley(s), cam, heads, etc., you continue to see larger gains with swapping to E85 because it allows you to use these parts more aggressively. Kind of like a compounding effect. Most of the builds on here, the CTSV forums, etc., with E85 numbers in the 750-850 rwhp range were showing 93 tunes about 70-90 rwhp less, just depending on specific E85 percentage, modification combination, etc.

Not an absolute rule on any of the numbers, obviously. Just trends I noticed while researching.

[97ChameleonTA]

Originally Posted by Robmnrd

I've done a little bit of research on this recently both out of curiosity and also as I plan my first round(s) of modifications. I'm intrigued by E85 because it seems like a very safe way to add horsepower given it's inherent cooling effects and lack of necessitating increased boost, rpm, etc. to achieve said horsepower.

From what I have gathered, the horsepower benefit of E85 increases as you become more modified overall.
Most people do not choose an E85 conversion as their literal first modification, so I had to do some digging both for LSA equipped ZL1s as well as CTSVs that were otherwise stock or very mildly modified.

Without saying it is a hard and fast rule, if your car is *bone stock* (no CAI, no headers, still stock cats and cat back) an E85 conversion will likely net you about 30-40 rwhp (through searching I found one CTSV example and it made about 35 horse. Different dynos/conditions/etc. may read differently, so probably only expect 30, but up to 40).
If your car was modified like mine is (CAI, LT headers, catless or hi-flow cats, but no pulleys, cam, heads, TB, SC porting, etc..) you would likely see between 40 and 50 rwhp. (I found a handful of, once again, CTSVs that were mildly modified like this - some with the ZL1 lid swap making them essentially exactly the same, and some without. A couple ZL1 owners had numbers in the same range, about 40-50 rwhp gain).
If you move into the "bigger" mods - pulley(s), cam, heads, etc., you continue to see larger gains with swapping to E85 because it allows you to use these parts more aggressively. Kind of like a compounding effect. Most of the builds on here, the CTSV forums, etc., with E85 numbers in the 750-850 rwhp range were showing 93 tunes about 70-90 rwhp less, just depending on specific E85 percentage, modification combination, etc.

Not an absolute rule on any of the numbers, obviously. Just trends I noticed while researching.

Absolutely correct. I picked up ~96RWHP with just the E85 conversion but I had supporting mods (in sig). Below is my dyno before and after.

[silversleeper]

It is worth doing on its own. The only downside is all the support it requires. Bigger injectors, more fuel pump, sensor and tune.
The good thing is that it will "autotune" that way and won't ruin your engine like tuning for methanol injection and having that not spray once and boom goes your engine.
If you are limited to 91 octane and have more boost then it helps even more.
E-85 only (with supporting mods as above) is a reasonable hp upgrade without doing headers cam and porting.
I might do a cam later but for now my mods are tune, CAI, E85, unlimitedflow cats, and pulley when I get around to installing it. It's keeping me entertained without the pulleys at the moment.

Why? It self tunes if you run more or less % of E85 and it should pass a visual and OBDII reading smog check.


I especially enjoy that big block midrange type of torq pull. The positive displacement supercharger does this; and look at the 3000-4500 torque increase from the E85 on the dyno charts like above !

[fluxzl1]

theres a you tube channel called the tuning school, they did a test on a bunch of fuels( 93,vp race gas e 85 meth injection octaine boost) on a

supercharged c7 stingray they made a chart with all the results... very cool.
the biggest thing i got out of it was the big gain in average HP and torque you gain from e 85...

[silversleeper]

I think I saw that, it beat out the race gas. IIRC they got most of the gain running as low as 50% ethanol if your pump and injectors aren't quite enough to handle 85% ethanol...


Another thing to consider is a big cam will not help you much until you get near and past 6000rpm. The E85 gives you similar top end bump but also up to 100-140 foot pound torque bump in the midrange. On the street which would you enjoy more if you chose one and not both?

[mred2nice]

Thank you all for your responses. You all sure do know you stuff. So would something like Ted's 75hp pkg work well with an e85 conversion?

[StreetRage320]

I have been on the fence on this issue for awhile now. All stated above is accurate. There's two things that sort of scare me:
1) I like to keep thing simple, clean, reliable, etc. there are add-on pumps you can buy that will provide the additional fuel flow/pressure. I don't really like that. I would much rather just increase the fuel pump displacement as needed. However, that requires either dropping the fuel tank or cutting a hole in the back seat.
2) lastly, I do not daily drive my car. I have read stories about E-85's ability to pull in moisture (water) and leaving the E-85 sit for extended periods of time in the injectors causing potential injector issues.

All in all, I think it is a great mod for the reason mentioned above, and I will probably move in that direction if for nothing else I do not like the smell of catless 93 octane, better cooling, more HP, and burns cleaner..

[fluxzl1]

Originally Posted by StreetRage320

I have been on the fence on this issue for awhile now. All stated above is accurate. There's two things that sort of scare me:
1) I like to keep thing simple, clean, reliable, etc. there are add-on pumps you can buy that will provide the additional fuel flow/pressure. I don't really like that. I would much rather just increase the fuel pump displacement as needed. However, that requires either dropping the fuel tank or cutting a hole in the back seat.
2) lastly, I do not daily drive my car. I have read stories about E-85's ability to pull in moisture (water) and leaving the E-85 sit for extended periods of time in the injectors causing potential injector issues.

All in all, I think it is a great mod for the reason mentioned above, and I will probably move in that direction if for nothing else I do not like the smell of catless 93 octane, better cooling, more HP, and burns cleaner..

this is why im going with the 4 innovations twin pump set up with fuel rails..
i dont want to drill a hole in my gas tank, pulling the tank is not that hard,just takes awhile.

[mred2nice]

Can you elaborate on what you are talking about with the twin pump and fuel rails? What does that setup do as opposed to another?