If you decide to run E85 in your Fit most likely you'll throw a code 45(like me) because it's running too lean. While it's nice that E85 has a octane rating of about 105, the energy contained in ethanol for a given unit is less than gasoline. You'll notice that your fuel economy will be lessened but of course it'd be nice if you are going to go the FI route and have the ability to add fuel when needed plus the advantage of the higher octane.


Time to fill up with regular 87 and clear the code before I head off to CRXPO this weekend.

~Alex

 

without a proper fuel system, you cannot run E85 for long without detrimental effects to your pump/lines/motor/etc

Plus, you would need almost twice the amount of E85 to equal one part gasoline. So you'll be using twice as much.

 

I don't think there is a magic bullet out there waiting to be discovered. All of the different alternatives (including E85)to fossil fuels have their merits, and I think that they will all find a place.

As a previous poster said, The internal combustion engine's days are numbered. Until then, bring on the alternatives.

FYI: They are building an ethanol/bio-diesel plant in a closed brewery a few miles from my house.

 

Stanford University prof. Mark Jacobson did a study using L.A. that shows E85 emissions will be more detrimental to humans than gasoline fumes.

More details on Green Car Congress for April 18, 2007. Prof. Jacobsen's study brought some controversy, but he had solid rebuttals for all comers.

I like this thread & ECO Fit in general. Wish my own Dodge Caliber website had as many environmentally concerned drivers as ECO Fit has.

As 5thstreet says the internal combustion engine's days are numbered. The electric motor is 3+times more efficient than the ICE. On top of the 3+times more efficiency, my Washington State produces equivalent electric power(kilowatts to Horsepower) with only 4% of the pollution of ICE. With the quickly mounting interest in Wind, solar, tidal, wave & other forms of renewable energy production, other states have my state's pollution reductions to aim at...if you so desire.

So let it be your desire & petition your states' gov'ts & utilities to aim high to place your pollution levels in freefall till they gain on my state's minimal electric pollutions.

 

Nah, that's based on David Pimentel's research from over a decade ago, and has been discredited. He continues to rely on outdated data (that was questionable to start with anyway) to make this "negative efficiency" pronouncement. Other studies have shown ethanol production to have a net energy gain.

 

According to the expert on a program I saw on the discovery channel, Its about a .4:1 ratio for Corn, .2:1 for switch grass. And they are carbon neutral sources.

 

For me E85 is not a real eco fuel.
Source is "bio", but that's reject many Co2 and you consume more. = Big Co2 rejection.

E85 is good for racing (octane).


The real good next green energy is hydrogen. Look Honda FCX. Accessory, you produce electricity at home.
Honda Worldwide | Fuel Cell

 

Agreed, Hyrdrogen will be the next revolution. Hydrogen goes hand in hand with electrical power which has been gaining momentum.

E85 is also not very good because it requires huge crops (which probably should be used to feed the starving masses of the world instead).

 

If I may throw a little tidbit into all this global warming E85 nonsense, just recently when they had the global warming summit in Bali, the oh so holy fighters for the green earth cause, flew planes to Balie that put out as much pollutants as 80000 vhicles do in one year . . .and, there was a group of British scientists who also went there and were barred from the conference after they had ACTUAL proof that global warming is a crock of sh*t and they very little effect we have on mother earth has nothing to do with what is going on and she is going to do whatever she wants to do . . .also adding information of the global trends that the earth was actually hotter the past 200 years prior to the 21st century. Yet another tidbit of info is that 98% of the harmful gases in our atmosphere are from swamp gases which we have no control over because our planet is natually supposed to be a hot, humid, muggy, tropical planet. Alas, what do I know, I am just another cog in the wheel of misinformed people I am sure. . . . . .prolly not. Most people just want a wagon to hop on to make themselves feel better about that they are doing something good for the greater cause of there fellow humans as they drink there 8th cup of starbucks coffe a day. I would imagine nowadays, we can't even begin to stand up to the amount of pollutants that were put out during times like the industrial revolution and other time turning periods of our oh so short existance. All in all, what I am saying is, LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE, and I don't mean the past 100 years. We have been raping old mother earth from behind for quite some time. Bare in mind . . .I don't pick either side of any debate on glabal warming because I don't like to live my life in fear like the other 99.9999999999% of the United States.

ViVa La Revolution!

 

Ahhh... it's an endless cycle. We use more farmland to make more Ethanol to get less MPG resulting in making/using more Ethanol, slashing more rainforest to make more Ethanol. Well, Ethanol may burn cleaner, but the Brazilians seemed to have slashed a big part of the rainforest to get enough fuel which offsets the amount of oxygen produced by the earth. Someone needs to break the circle and find a better solution. I'm not against using Ethanol, but I don't belive it should be a backbone to solve the problem. Natural Gas Batteries looks very interesting right now but I don't think that can hold up by itself either. I belive Hydrogen is doable, but it's going to take a whole lot of work to achieve it.

 

i am wondering why the Government and other companies are backing corn in order to produce Ethanol. alge is much more efficant then corn when try to convert it it ethanol but you do not read anything about that.

 

i dont know how it is in other states but in california, at every pump i see a sticker that says "this gasoline may contain up to 10% ethanol.

as for the downfall of the us economy, i have faith in genetic engineering and i believe that we will be able to come up with a strain of corn that has more sugars in it to optimize the distillation of ethanol. our economy is based on forigen oil trade but we are trying to change our infrastructure from the inside out with as little adverse effect as possible.

we are deff. living in strange/interesting/exciting times.

 

why recreate the wheel?
it is a waste of money to create and then grow genetic engineered corn when agle does a better job cheaper?

 

Looking at the Motor is just a small view of the system.........

Do you know the efficiency of the average electric power plant, including the transmission and distribution to get that power to your house and than the loss of energy in the battery chargers? to replenish car Batteries?

I hate to bring you bad news, but if you look at that side, with real data, you'll find that is no better that that low eff ICE.

Here's some reading to help better understand the misconceptions.

http://www.npc.org/Study_Topic_Paper...Efficiency.pdf

Diesel vs. Gasoline

and this one

The Battery Powered Car

The fact is most don't consider or understand the true efficiency of converting that fossil fuel into the power used to change a car battery. They just look at the new power plants and do not consider all the losses between the plant and the battery. By far the majority of generation in the North America is 30 year old low efficiency and dirty emission units. Another detail is fossil fired power generation is king and will be for some time. Cost to build new power generation drive this. Solar and wind are a trivial few now and by all real predictions into the future.

 

not many pumps around here offer the e85 and we love our BIG Hummers and BIG gas guzzling trucks around here

 

maybe it's already been posted here, but i heard on the news a few months ago that when you factor in the tractors used to harvest the corn, and the energy used to process the corn, it turns out it takes 1 gallon of fossil fuel to make 1.3 gallons of ethanol.

 

They just passed a law in Missouri about that, regular gas must have up 10% ethanol. Then they gave St Louis a waiver againt the mandate because the E10 ethanol causes more smog. Kansas City applied for a similiar waiver.
www.kansascity.com | 03/31/2008 | KC awaits Blunt’s waiver of ethanol blend mandate

What's going to happen if E85 becomes more prevalent?

 

Sadly, our fuel efficiency will drop like crazy. That's what's going to happen with E85 for sure. I noticed when California switched to E10, my efficiency dropped by at least 3 mpg on my old car. Also, most engines being used today aren't able to handle more 10% alcohol blend. All the car companies are going to have to pour more money into R&D into new engines. Also, ethanol hasn't been used long enough to know the long term effect it's going to have on the older engines. But if you just throw in a mandatory E85 law out of nowhere, people are going to get screwed left and right because old cars will basically become obsolete causing almost everyone loosing the current value of their cars. Or, they will have to spend money to reconfig the engine for E85.

 

Ethanol for fuel from food crops, like Corn, is a very very bad move and if you are watching how that effects the food chain (world-wide) you might agree.

I hope they figure out SOON how to make it from bio-mass as that would be excellent.

 

they could grow the corn using hydroponics in vertical chambers. At the same time they could control the quality of the corn to suit the needs of use.