After contemplating when I really wanted to make the switch over to ethanol and also getting some inspiration from Brad over at AJPTurbo, I decided to finally make that switch. I still have a few things I’m working on to get even more fuel to the engine, but I think it’s time to get started down that path. Many thanks to @p_coatsofboise, the current 1/4-mile world record holder of the 5th generation Explorer, for continuing to motivate me to push this platform further.
So after getting a starter tune for e85 from Brad, I went to one of our local Shell stations that has some Propel e85 to fuel up a gas can worth (note the sticker that says “MINIMUM 70% ETHANOL”…it will be important shortly):
After getting back to the house, draining the remaining 100 octane I had left in the tank (it will be put to good use in the motorcycle), I filled up with the 5 gallons of e85, loaded the tune and started her up.
All is well as I saw the ethanol content gauge slowly climb from 7% that was in the 100 octane. After about 30 minutes of idling and driving slowly around the neighborhood to get that fuel through the system, the highest I saw my meter was this:
I thought to myself, this meter has to be wrong! I know there is a range that pump e85 is truly at, but at least I was expecting a little over the minimum 70% as it was stated. Well, I decided to test the fuel to verify independent of the gauge:
…and to my dismay, after doing the calculations like 20 times to verify the results, the ethanol content came to measured 66%, not too far off the gauge, so I knew that thing was correct.
That means the station has some poor quality e85. Not sure how to take this as it doesn’t even meet the State-mandated minimum. And not sure where to go from here. I can drive around town to find a better station, which is what I will likely do. Or I can go full-on Simple Jack and just get a hold of some Ignite fuel as it’s accessible where I am and would deliver more consistency…but not sure how I really feel about doing this just yet. I think I will do some searching for some better quality pump e85 around town first.
I went ahead and did some hard pulls just to see how it feels (the starting tune is dialed back so we can ease into the power), and it feels quite a bit different. I’m interested to see where this road takes me…
…and so the adventure continues…
TEST YOUR FUEL PEOPLE!!!
Good resource if you want to do this at home or if you don’t have one of those pocket testers:
http://iqlearningsystems.com/ethanol/downloads/E85test.pdf
I personally like knowing the science behind the calculations, so I prefer this over one of those $15 Amazon test kits…but those work too, I’m sure…
UPDATE: 23OCT2020
Went to fill at a different station and got way better quality ethanol. Looks like I may have found the station to fill at. I took a sample as well and will test it. I think it’s even better than the gauge states as it is being mixed with the poor quality stuff I already had in the tank:
EDIT: Tested it and it came back at 83%…really good stuff! Too bad I had about 5 gallons of crappy stuff in there bringing it down to 75%