e85 ethanol conversion?

[mrdozer2you]

Ok, so just wondering. Is it possible to make our bikes run on ethanol? Thet do make flex fuel vehicles now ( thankfully my leases are up in a year) my next 2 Suv's will definitely be flex fuel. Im not just asking this because of fuel prices, but because of the fact that I'm sick and tired of being drug around by my balls by the oil companies and the middle east. I currently run synthetic oil in all my vehicles and bike, to not give them money on that. I think it would be awesome if I could cut them out of my wallet completely.

[06xb9r]

You know..I think you can also make more horsepower burning e85. It's like alcohol so you would have to put ALOT more fuel into the engine to keep it from running lean. Can't imagine you'd get too many miles on a frame-full but hey, it's a sportbike, right?...and if you don't ride far...

[mrdozer2you]

So basically one would need the direct link system to manage the air fuel and program the ecm for the ethanol, yes? I guess my question then is what needs to be done to the motor or fuel line if anything. I thought that ethanol can destroy fuel lines, or maybe I'm thinking of bio-diesel destroying the lines. That would be sweet if it ran on E85 as is. Basically all you would need to do is tell your ecm to dump more fuel than it normally would. I could care less about mileage as long as the Sand People aren't getting my cash.

I'm also ASSUMING that this would void my warranty.

[bahamasair]

You will need to be able to inject about 60% more fuel so will need a longer pulse rate and if I remember right ethanol is conductive so you need to do something with your fuel pump. Let me look and Ill add it to this post.
Well that was easier to find info on than expected. Here is a sample from wikipedia
E-85 ethanol is used in engines modified to accept higher concentrations of ethanol. Such flexible-fuel engines are designed to run on any mixture of gasoline or ethanol with up to 85% ethanol by volume. The primary differences from non-FFVs is the elimination of bare magnesium, aluminum, and rubber parts in the fuel system, the use of fuel pumps capable of operating with electrically conductive (ethanol) instead of non-conducting dielectric (gasoline) fuel, specially-coated wear-resistant engine parts, fuel injection control systems having a wider range of pulse widths (for injecting approximately 60% more fuel), the selection of stainless steel fuel lines (sometimes lined with plastic), the selection of stainless steel fuel tanks in place of terne fuel tanks, and, in some cases, the use of acid-neutralizing motor oil. For vehicles with fuel-tank mounted fuel pumps, additional differences to prevent arcing, as well as flame arrestors positioned in the tank's fill pipe, are also sometimes used.
Here is a link to the page with some more info.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E85

[mrdozer2you]

Nice, thanks alot. Now i'm sure this would definitely void my warranty, I might give it a go after im out of warranty. Or buy a broke $500 bike and try it on that. Still very cool. I wonder if anyone else has tried this yet?

[DucattiRacer1018]

Haven't tried it on my bike yet.

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[hottoddy69]

I might be incorrect but, I believe that less horespower is derived from a gallon of E85 than a gallon of Gasoline.
Also, I thought that Synthetic oil is not syntheticyet, a higher grade of lubricant.
Am I correct on both or either issue? Todd.

[BuellPartsGuy]

I am not entirely sure on the E85 thing. I havent had much experience with it in this pollution controlled state I am in. Synthetic oil though, is entirely man made. There isnt any crude oil in it at all if it is a full synthetic. It is made to be superior in ways crude oil based oils cant. There are some oils that are semi-synthetic, that can be regular or higher grade oils mixed with a synthetic additive package to make the oil perform better.

Harley's versions of all three

20w-50 - crude oil based standard oil

Formula + - Semi synthetic blend with wet clutch additive

Syn 3 - well I hope we all know what that is :p

[DruAdams]

e85 gets much worse mileage than regular gas, we have a Chevy Tahoe here at work and have dropped from about 16-18 mpg to 10-12mpg. Granted we have a fuel card, so we dont check real close, but the one time i did our mileage was terrible. on the plus side the octane rating is something like 103+ so if you were to be using it to race it might be worth it.