Alcohol fuel conversion?

[GrendelShooter]

Assuming you had a still, and the material to ferment, would it be possible to convert from gasoline (5.7) to alcohol as a primary fuel? What all would it take, if possible?

 

[ScLeCo]

People have been running on alcohol for a while now.
Some of us almost exclusively.

You're going to need an unlocked ECU and a tune and eventually fuel lines that can handle alcohol.
If you're boosting you'll need a fuel pump and injectors.

 

[GrendelShooter]

Wow, asked and answered. Thanks!

So is there a shop known for doing these tunes? Like a mail in sort of thing or hook up HP tuners and start messing with tables?

 

[Wild one]

Wow, asked and answered. Thanks!

So is there a shop known for doing these tunes? Like a mail in sort of thing or hook up HP tuners and start messing with tables?

Get ahold of Rick Tapp at Tapped Performance and get him to help set up your fuel system,odds are you'll need new higher flow E85 compatiable injectors /fuel pump etc.
Odds are you'll get more advice on the hi-po Ram facebook pages ,as that's where the guys running E85 hang out more,i know you're talking pure alcohol ,but not to many guys are running straight grain,lol. Try High Performance Rams and Tuned Rams on facebook

(6) Tapped Performance | Facebook

 

[RedSRT4Me]

With bolt-ons you can run e85 on the stock fuel system.

Anything more than that and your going to need to upgrade the system.

 

[kurek]

When I lived in the southwest I added conversion kits to 2 different vehicles to run on E85. The kits just consist of little boxes that intercept the injector harness, modify the pulses and forward them on to the injectors.

On my 4.3l S10 Blazer that was literally it, the normal window of operation for an OBD2 fuel system is plus or minus 30% enrichment to account for elevation, fuel grade and wear so the little brain box (from FuelFlex) added a bit of length to each injector pulse so that the window was more like -15 to +45% and let the closed loop fuel metering otherwise take care of itself. Really no problems with that system it had a little trouble firing on cold mornings with a tank of E85 but otherwise it idled smoother than on gas and felt an awful lot faster on acceleration. Obviously got a lot fewer miles per gallon but at the time the cost per mile was comparable with premium petroleum gasoline. Of all the horror stories that internet know-it-alls wanted to warn me about there were zero other drawbacks, no corrosion or leaks or any other faults appeared in over 100k miles.

On my 2.3l Escape I needed to replace the fuel injectors with slightly larger ones. I forget exactly what the difference was like... 17lb/hr vs 19lb/hr or something like that. And it used a similar brain box (also FuelFlex) which clipped in between the injector harness and the injectors. This one was newer and had a temperature probe that would alter its timing or enrichment or something when cold so it started easier on cold mornings. Still smelled like vodka until the exhaust heated up, example backing out of the driveway through my own cloud of it. Again no mechanical problems of any kind across years of use.

I was going to add a similar kit to my wife's Mustang as she wanted to run E85 and I'd do the same with my Ram now that it's out of warranty - we found a newer kit that also includes an inline fuel sampling probe like factory flex fuel vehicles have - but we moved to the inland northwest and everyone up here seems to think ethanol is the devil or something & won't be convinced otherwise so the nearest E85 is a couple hours away, not worth pursuing. I know everyone thinks rain when they think northwest, and moisture may be a problem in some seldom used ethanol engines but it's a desert in eastern Oregon and Washington, there's really no humidity to speak of and only gets 2x as much precipitation annually as Phoenix. 2x a small number is still a small number

 

[RedSRT4Me]

When I lived in the southwest I added conversion kits to 2 different vehicles to run on E85. The kits just consist of little boxes that intercept the injector harness, modify the pulses and forward them on to the injectors.

On my 4.3l S10 Blazer that was literally it, the normal window of operation for an OBD2 fuel system is plus or minus 30% enrichment to account for elevation, fuel grade and wear so the little brain box (from FuelFlex) added a bit of length to each injector pulse so that the window was more like -15 to +45% and let the closed loop fuel metering otherwise take care of itself. Really no problems with that system it had a little trouble firing on cold mornings with a tank of E85 but otherwise it idled smoother than on gas and felt an awful lot faster on acceleration. Obviously got a lot fewer miles per gallon but at the time the cost per mile was comparable with premium petroleum gasoline. Of all the horror stories that internet know-it-alls wanted to warn me about there were zero other drawbacks, no corrosion or leaks or any other faults appeared in over 100k miles.

On my 2.3l Escape I needed to replace the fuel injectors with slightly larger ones. I forget exactly what the difference was like... 17lb/hr vs 19lb/hr or something like that. And it used a similar brain box (also FuelFlex) which clipped in between the injector harness and the injectors. This one was newer and had a temperature probe that would alter its timing or enrichment or something when cold so it started easier on cold mornings. Still smelled like vodka until the exhaust heated up, example backing out of the driveway through my own cloud of it. Again no mechanical problems of any kind across years of use.

I was going to add a similar kit to my wife's Mustang as she wanted to run E85 and I'd do the same with my Ram now that it's out of warranty - we found a newer kit that also includes an inline fuel sampling probe like factory flex fuel vehicles have - but we moved to the inland northwest and everyone up here seems to think ethanol is the devil or something & won't be convinced otherwise so the nearest E85 is a couple hours away, not worth pursuing. I know everyone thinks rain when they think northwest, and moisture may be a problem in some seldom used ethanol engines but it's a desert in eastern Oregon and Washington, there's really no humidity to speak of and only gets 2x as much precipitation annually as Phoenix. 2x a small number is still a small number

I've run E85 on stock fuel system and bolt-ons. It works exactly as expected. Power gain with the mpg trade off loss.

Went from like 14mpg down to 10-11. Makes even more power with boost like everyone else already stated. Poor man's race gas is what I call it.

I did not use a kit to run E85. I simply paid for the tunes from my tuner and flash the maps accordingly.