Party is that it's something that can be done within the short term to remove our dependence on foreign oil. Brazil this year is now totally self supporting with E85 and domestic oil production.

I’ll be filling up my truck with B20 on Sunday with my trip through Ft.Worth.

 

I believe a lot of cars are this way nowadays - the ECM makes adjustments based on the type of fuel being run. If you put regular in they will retard the timing to prevent knock - resulting in a reduction in power but preventing engine damage, but on premium they will make their full power.

 

Exactly, and even though the MPG are worse, you'll still be saving money because it's cheaper.

 

Race cars that spin to 15,000 RPM do not seem to have any issues with the "slower" burning rate of high octane. And they run HIGH octaine.

That argument makes no sense.

 

This happens provided the cars are designed to run on octane higher than 87.

If the engine is made for 87, putting 89 or 91 or 93 will not add any benefits to the engine since it already runs at full power on 87. In Theory anyways.

Although I did shave off 2 tenths and gained 1 mph in the 1/4 mi when I ran my Z28. It was already filled up with 94 octane, and i just added octane boost (3 bottles of it). On an engine that is designed to take advantage of 91 octane, no more. Go figure.

 

I would say that is coincidence then, because the LS1 only has two timing tables that I am aware of, one for its recommended octane gas, and one for low grade stuff.

Required octane rating largely has to due with the engines effective dynamic compression ratio, something that doesn't seemed to get talked about a lot. I don't know where the slower burn myth seems to have come from, but higher octane rating on a gas simply describes its tendency to resist autoigniton from heat and pressure; nothing more.

 

Those 15K RPM motors are designed and built with adjustments to allow them to achieve more power from the higher octane fuels. Remember Octane has a lot of energy locked in its 7 C-C and 24 C-H bonds but more bonds to break requires more engery to get the bonds broken, therefore more ignition and pressure is required to take advantage of it. Also remember how Octane is calculated, it is on the pumps afterall, it is the lowest octane number in the batch plus the highest octane number in the batch divided by the mean or average of the bunch. So Octane requires more energy to break the bonds and more engery has to be delivered in such a way that it breaks the bonds. Lets also remember that the required amount of oxygen must be present or you will get an incomplete reaction.

Your "argument" ignores the reactions and the things nessicary to get those reactions going. Also if you have more bonds to break then it takes more time, lets remember diesel which has MUCH more energery than most gas or ethanol based fuels but requires MUCH more energy and O2 to be added before it can be combusted properly.

 

Talk about getting owned, lol.

 

The only explanation I have is that before the additives, the engine stayed at the timing table for 87 octane, and only switched to higher octane table after.

 

Reagrding the calculation, it is based on the 'equivalent' mixture of n-heptane (with a score of zero for preignition resistance) and 2,2,4-trimethylpentane (with a score of 100). Gas with octane rating of 93 would be like 93% 2,2,4-trimethylpentane mixed with 7% n-heptane. Technically, what is displayed on the pump is '(R+M) / 2', which is the average of the research and motor calculations of octane for that fuel.

That myth comes from the fact that the flame front does move slower through the 93 octane that you will buy at the gas station as opposed to the 87. Octane rating does not quantify this (nor is it meant to), but it is a real effect.

 

Speaking of biodiesel... did anyone catch Mythbusters last night? They took a Mercedes diesel and ran it on filtered used cooking oil and the dang thing ran without a hitch. The only noticable difference was that it got 33mpg on diesel and 30mpg on used cooking oil.



I can see it now... pull in to a McDonald's, "I'll have a quarter pounder with cheese, large fries and 15 gallons of fry-oil please."

 

Even better than that, you might be able to get McDonald's to pay you for the waste disposal.

 

More discussion - fuel for the fire so to speak, on how E85 is more than viable as a next generation performance fuel as well hellping American farmers and the environment.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show....php?t=1389042