Running E85

Man O' War

My great uncles (there were 6 of them) made a bunch of alcohol back when it was very profitable and was never wasted on tractors and such. Two bushels of corn made slightly less than 1 gallon of 100+proof alcohol. They upped this figure by adding sugar to the mix. Even with todays technology a 1 bushel of corn to 1 gallon of alcohol is still a good number.

You do the math... It just don't work. My $.02.

Also, the 20% of the corn crop that goes into ethanol has little effect on food prices.

The real culprit in higher food prices is the fact that the 200% price increase in diesel fuel and gasoline used to grow,process and truck the food to you has everything to do with increased food prices.
Gasoline prices would be even higher if Ethanol did not replace a percentage of the gasoline avalible.

It does NOT take more energy to produce ethanol than it contains, All of the latest generation of ethanol plants built in the last 4 years are showing on average a 30% net energy gain over inputs.

Yes, the price of feed corn has almost tripled, but the price our ethanol plants recieve for ethanol has gone up only a fraction of that amount, no where near the 300% you claim.

As to your statement that gas would be 50 cents per gallon cheaper without ethanol, my state ND has no ethanol mandate. Our 87 octane regular has NO ethanol in it, yet it is priced exactly the same as E10. Why is our ethanol free 87 octane regular not 50 cents per gallon cheaper if what you say is true ??

Kind of debunks the story that E85 will do terrible damage to a non flex fuel engine and fuel system.

Link

However I have always been told that the 15% of gasoline is to keep people from trying to drink the stuff. Have to do that or pay the liquor taxes.

jt

My 2 cents is that any who says it will tear up an engine, fuel system or anyother part of a tractors engine has no idea what there talking about and have no desire to learn the truth about. Remember bad news travels like wild fire and good news does not travel far.

They had water jacket welded up for the carb plate. And also rain the air intake through a shroud over the muffler. Said the muffler was the best deal as it heated up quick. The carb jacket kept the carb from icing up, ethanol takes a _lot_ of heat out as it evaporates.

Worked fine, the ported the jets. Lost a little bit of power, not much. Think they were looking at making use of the high octane next, modify the compression to get the power back.

Fuel prices eased, farmers were switching to diesel power, and I think the program died....

--->Paul

JD A,B,G,60,70,720,730
IH, Well, all of em,, from a Cub Lo boy up to a 806
Olivers, 66,77,88,880,
Case, only one,, a VAI (dont see many case tractors)
and the list can go on and on.

Not one tractor, shares the exact setup as far as jetting and timing, and even if I mix in a little extra gasoline. each is their own song. If you guys think about it for just a second,, most tractor carbs, are jetted so small for fuel economy, they can be running so lean that they can burn up and destroy em on gas. Even if you take your tractor into a shop and they tune it on a dyno, and a good shop will take the carbs apart, rejet em, rebuild em etc etc, and guarenteed, your fuel "milage" goes down, even on gasoline. Todays gasoline, and the antique tractor has to be reset to run on this 4 dollar gas to get the best performance. So either way, your looking at a "milage drop" just by tuning in your engine to its fuel. On a tractor,,, say a M farmall, or a JD G, you wont notice much difference between a gas engine thats been "turned up" and one thats been converted to E85, maybe a half a gallon more per hour more with E85.

Im not in for politics on this subject, what happens is whats gonna happen, right? Most of our resources are being exported to use in other countries anywyas, and we get to bid on whats left over and pay out the nose for the remains, and thats all it is is remnants. Supply and demand? I dont think so, I think our country is trying to make some of its money back from the war by raping us.

In a perfect world, and maybe Im dreamin here, but when ol Uncle Jessie made shine on TV,, you never heard him complain on not having any corn to make that stuff, in fact, if it was really real,,, a person grew the corn, built the still,(however how illegal it is to do so) and ran it in their own cars. I think it was more of a subliminal message, but, if we all did that, and helped ourselves we all might be sitting in the same jail cell all together!!! And for who and for what? So we can plant our fields, drive our cars, and give it all away in the long run, and pay thru the nose to buy it back when needed. Its not big ethanol plants we need, its about a million little moonshiners with stills selling it at a mom and pops farm market for fuel only. It may not what the contry wants to hear, but people before us have done it for generations before us. Whiskey has been around before gasoline,, and who complains about how much Jack Daniels whiskey is made each year from the same corn?? I dont hear any complaints from that crowd do we? Just a thought,,, maybe Im watching too much Dukes Of Hazzard??? ChadS

Timing needs to be retarded more than the stock book specs, and the carb jets must be opened up to let more in. Usually on a tractor engine,, once the conversion is complete,, the engines have about 3-7 more HP over gasoline, I dont care what they say about running it in cars or trucks,,, it does make power in antique tractor engines in any form. Cars and tractors are not the same setup, and nobody rally tries to tune the cars EFI to accomidate the E85,,, and really, not much they do different on a e85 vehicle than the regular EFI vehicle as far as actual parts are concerned,,, other than change the program in the computer chip, and set the fuel rail pressure up another 5-10 psi with an adjustable regulator to make it run properly, and a changed timing curve in the computer.

On the Ford tractor,, try a 50/50 mix,, 1 gallon to 1 gallon, and rejet the carb, reset the base timing. Then once you got the basics down, you can slowly wean the tractor off the gasoline and run it straght.

Many different methods to increase cyl pressure. Shaving heads, increasing ci displacements, are the most common ways. Most have high compression piston kits that raise cyl pressure and can be bought most anywhere. ChadS

I had no trouble with it cleaning out the tank plugging filters or with the carb. Makes me wonder just what shape anyones tractor is in that claim to have trouble. Seems like a bit of fear mongering to me.

It did use more fuel but that is to be expected since it has less BTU's per gal than gas and having to richen the carb. I only wish I had a LP head to up the compression and make use of the higher octane.