Bioethanol Conversion

[Monkey_beast_182]

Hi,
I was wondering if anyone has converted their Clio to Bio-Ethanol.

I've been looking into it, and it really is beginning to sound interesting. If you convert your car to run on E85 (85% Bio-ethanol, 25% unleaded), you can get a road-tax discount as it is classed as an alternative fuel type. Coupled with that, you get more BHp from your engine (it's 105 RON!).

The problem I've got is the kits I have been looking at use a ECU "shadow" system (they go between your stock ECU and the fuel injectors), and allow for the car to run smoothly on the hight octane fuel.

I've been thinking, if you remap your ECU, would you be able to do away with the shadow box completly?

Confused, and help required.

I've asked Hank at Fastchip, and he's never modified a car running on BE. All in all, it could be really interesting!

 

[Monkey_beast_182]

anyone?

 

[The Hoff]

Question is where can you even buy BE, afaik the RON count doesn't equate to more BHP with BE either.

 

[Monkey_beast_182]

There aren't many places around - Morrisons are the only ones selling it at the moment.( http://www.bioperformanceuk.com/bioethanol_pumps.php )
Fortunatly for me, Swadlincote is right by me, so filling up isn't a problem.

And the website I was looking at - www.bioperformanceuk.com says that you can get "up to 25% extra Bhp"

 

[The Hoff]

Absolutely crazy that you can only buy it from a dozen forecourts. Less MPG too, so more fill ups means it's not worth the bother. Our government is backward.

 

[Monkey_beast_182]

It's all swings-and-roundabouts with it. You do produce less CO2, so can save a bit on Tax. Yes, you get less MPG, but I get pants MPG at the moment anyway as I tend to do short journeys most of the time.

The kit I was looking at allows you to use normal petrol in it... I'm guessing you'd still pay the road tax as if it was a alternative fueled car, even though you're running on normal petrol... - I won't say anything if you don't!

 

[The Hoff]

Ok then, how much is the kit and how much is the tax concession?

 

[Monkey_beast_182]

from the website, kit is £349.
Tax concession is about £30-40 (I think).

Yeah, maths says 10+ years before you break even, but there is more to it than that - petrol prices are going up, Bio-Ethanol prices (should be) coming down, more BHP from engine (attractive for me). Lots of factors to consider.

 

[The Hoff]

LOL And there we have it, oh and the moment our government slashes tax on BE ill eat my own poop.

Unfeasible IMO.

 

[Monkey_beast_182]

LOL And there we have it, oh and the moment our government slashes tax on BE ill eat my own poop.

I might write to Gordon Brown and ask him to do it just so I can see that - that'd be well funny!

 

[GordonD]

Ethanol is higher octane (129 octane in pure form, 104+ octane in E85 form) but less energy dense than petrol. So you could run a higher CR, but only if you were willing to permanently modify your car to only run on E85. You would have to remap the ECU to feed the significantly higher quantities of E85 required to produce the same power.

 

[edde]

Its a good idea if you hve a constant source as such of it would be helpful as such on the turbo engines realy on stock internals as you could run a lot more power.

The problem is you'd idealy need a stand alone ECU to manage it and swop maps.

Massive power gains from it on a turbo though even N/A will get some more power just need to massivly size up the injectros and check the liners etcn adn pump can supply the fuel (stock 1x2 one won't for high power)

 

[Monkey_beast_182]

Its a good idea if you hve a constant source as such of it would be helpful as such on the turbo engines realy on stock internals as you could run a lot more power.

The problem is you'd idealy need a stand alone ECU to manage it and swop maps.

Massive power gains from it on a turbo though even N/A will get some more power just need to massivly size up the injectros and check the liners etcn adn pump can supply the fuel (stock 1x2 one won't for high power)

Yeah - I knew about the injectors - the kit replaces them with uprated ones.

ECU maps is where I really fell over - my knowledge gets a little fuzzy when it all goes electronic! Do you not think that the stock ECU could be reprogrammed to make benefit of it? Or is it really a full ECU swap?

 

[edde]

ECU maps is where I really fell over - my knowledge gets a little fuzzy when it all goes electronic! Do you not think that the stock ECU could be reprogrammed to make benefit of it? Or is it really a full ECU swap?

Stock ECU could be remapped but realy since it only holds one map you'd be best IMo going stand alone so you can have one map for normal fuel one for E85 as such.

 

[wayneclio16v]

my bosses duratec on 99 ron made 256 bhp then had it remapped to run bio fuel and made 284 bhp so it must be good stuff

 

[brisa4984]

government should really think about this..

more hp, less c02, cheaper, renewable energy source ish

 

[Monkey_beast_182]

government should really think about this..

more hp, less c02, cheaper, renewable energy source ish

The bio-etanol part is renewable - it's the petrol blended with it that isn't.

Also, it's CO2 neautral, meaning that all the CO2 you pump out per litre, gets absorbed at a higher/the same rate by the plants.

So you can rag your car around, AND hug trees!

 

[Monkey_beast_182]

my bosses duratec on 99 ron made 256 bhp then had it remapped to run bio fuel and made 284 bhp so it must be good stuff

Its true that you'll get more gains the more powerful your engine is, but then the same is true for Shell VPower or BP Ultimate - anything below a 1.6, and you'll not notice ANY difference running on anything like that. From what I can tell (reading on other websites), with the bio-ethanol, 150bhp is the transition point.