E85

hi i have a 81 maxim 600 and i want to run e85 in it does any one run or know to how to run it?
thanks
maxim 600

 

Not sure exactly, but I think OCC made a bike that ran on E85, I know they had to get a custom carb, don't know what else they had to do engine wise.

Why do you want to run E85?

 

basically what you will need to do, and i dont know how easy it will be for these older bikes.....is you will need to get an alcohol carb rack, or a kit to convert your carbs to alky. a lot of atv and dirtbikers are starting to run e85 mainly because its really cheap race gas.

 

By the time you finish converting your bike to run E85, you'll have spent enough money to buy a new bike. Plus E85 is crap anyway - energy negative process.

If you want to be environmentally friendly, buy an electric scooter.
If you want to ride a motorcycle, no one I know of (yet) makes one that'll take E85.
I'd be happy if someone made a bio-diesel one commercially available though!

 

what about E100 or E110. Im pretty sure the bike will run these. I will be making E100 here pretty soon. And I am pretty sure that it will work... You may need to change main jet sizes though...or convert to a EFI.

 

There's no such thing as E110 - how could you have 110% ethanol?

Running E100 means your running a full-on alcohol engine -- talk to some drag racers about what's involved with that.

 

The Phrase E110 or E100 may not exist to you ...but it does....just like there is 100 to 110 proof alcohol. You are right this is the alcohol that most racers use. There are conversions that need to be made....the main concern is rubber gaskets on the engine... there are also products that you can use to fix that. You wouldn't be getting E110 from a pump it is made at a still that you have, or at a plant. 110-190 is a dehydrated alcohol....all the water is evaporated through heat or through the use of a molecular sieve.

 

anhydrous ethanol - is mixed with a little bit of gas to provide the engine and fuel parts with necessary lubrication.

 

Don't do it!
It's all scam to make you feel guilty about the environment.
E85 produces less energy per unit of fuel.
About 15% less mileage/power.
Run only 91+ gasoline and keep your bike tuned!

 

lol that dude is funny...its a scam. It's only a scam if you pay for it...I live in Kansas....we have farmers who make the stuff all the time....drive thier farm vehicles that run on gas off of it.

"E85 produces less energy per unit of fuel.
About 15% less mileage/power.
Run only 91+ gasoline and keep your bike tuned!"

Ok E85 does have these problems...except for power....octane is much higher, and the engine runs much cooler....but it does lack the power vs millage... you can get more horses but less millage ....that's the best way to put it.
If you run 100 - 110 it's much different.

 

Run only 91+ gasoline ........LOL
man look at the price at the pump. Whatever you are smoking is very good. I must try some.

 

Re: E85 - jetting

just for comparison, my ltz runs on oxygenated race gas. the main jet is at 180. an equally built ltz running on e-85 has a 357 main. also required is a bigger fuel petcock, no filter, and a bigger fuel bowl. also the carb needs to be drained after every ride. my pilot is a 52, his is 62.

alcohol will get you less power, and much less mileage. the reason it is used in the racing world is because it runs cooler, and has very high knock resistance so it makes perfect race fuel. the alcohol doesnt give you power, it allows you to run extreme compression and timing wich gets you more power.

 

darkangel, do the math don't be so emotional. 91 octane is 10 cents a gallon more than 89, if you use 15 gallons {$1.50 more} once a week 52 weeks a year thats $78 dollars a year. If you ride all year long and at 35 miles per gallon thats 27,300 miles a year {I wish I could ride half that}. Granted gas is far from cheap but the differants between Premium and Midgrade is not that much.
As for E85, if you need 15 to 20 percent more fuel to acheive the same miles driven then E85 wood need to be 15 to 20 percent cheeper just to brake even. If there was no cost for convertion.

 

No. That's wrong. 110 *proof* alcohol means 55%. Grain alcohol is 190 proof---95% alcohol not 190%. Proof is not percent.

 

"Mother earth" has alot of info on making and running alcohol.
140 proof is 70% alcohol and 30 % water, and is about the weakest stuff you can run a motor on (E140?) The phrase "E110" does not exist for me. A 160 - 180 proof range is the target for a home still for fuel use.

Brasil has been able to convert cane sugar crop into alcohol at about fifty cents a gallon, using, of course, $2 a day labor. In S. Florida, a worker cuts over a ton of 'cane for $5.15 in an hour. That has to suck!

As for jetting- - even the tiny jet in the float bowl may have to be enlarged, and possibly the "air compensator" jets in the carb's air intake may need changing, due to the increased fuel flow in the emulsion tubes.
Expect alot of carb tweaking to switch to E85 or alcohol.

 

My owners manual says to use leaded gasoline 91 oct min. Should I be using a lead substitute? How will using unleaded gasoline affect the valves?

 

where did that come from?

 

kevineleven, thanks for the corrections man....I didn't mean by what I said... thank you for the correction.

 

You should read up on octane. Check out Chevron's website for a good explanation.

A higher octane doesn't make more power, it is used for knock resistance. The only thing a high octane fuel does is allow you to run higher compression and/or more advanced timing without pinging.

Running premium gas in a low compression engine (the XJ's) offers no benefit (nor more power) and is a waste of money.

Bottom-line, you'll get the most benefit from the lowest octane gas you can run without engine knock.

 

Is that a Research Octane Number (RON) of 91? That is the same as a Pump Octane (R+M/2) of 87.

Overseas they use RON and in the States we use R+M/2 just to add to everyone's confusion.

You don't need to add a lead substitute.

 

For ethanol fuels, the E number is percentage ethanol, not proof rating - that only applies to alcohol for drinking.
E85 = 85% ethanol, 15% gasoline

Many of the early manuals printed in the US were marketing tools - THEY LIE. You do NOT need lead in these engines - none of them, not even the older XS engines needed it. They were printed to say that so the US buyers wouldn't be scared off by the "Unleaded fuel only" in the days when leaded fuel was the rule, and unleaded harder to find and more expensive. And it didn't hurt the engines any, just wasn't required.

Jim_Vess has the right idea of octane -- because there's two different calculations for getting the octane number, 91 can equal 87. Me - I split the difference and fill with the mid-grade stuff all the time.

You did know that gasoline manufacturers only produce two kinds of gasoline, right? Regular and Premium? The difference is in the additive package. Most (if not all now) pumps are 'mixer' pumps - they get mid-grade by just mixing the two together when pumping.

 

Right... Gentlemen, the whole "proof" deal was not stated correctly. I should have provided facts like many of you did...but You all proved my point. There's nothing wrong with using Ethanol. But for those of us who choose to use it ....understand there are some conversions, and there are some losses and some gains... that's my only point.

journeytoforever.org actually gives more information than any web site that I know dealing with biodiesel, and ethanol.

 

Running a higher octane fuel than what is recommended for the stock engine can actually be detrimental to performance, as higher octane fuels have a slower burn rate (that comes as part of the additional pre-ignition resistance). In effect, you will be retarding your ignition timing by a small amount.

If your engine doesn't knock, then the fuel you are using is fine. In fact, you actually want to use the LOWEST octane fuel that doesn't result in engine knock....you get the quickest burn rate (after ignition) that way. Quickest burn rate = more fuel burned. More fuel burned = more energy extracted. More energy extracted = more power. And less unburned fuel = fewer emissions.

Zookie's explanation as to why racers like to use alcohol is exactly correct....they are using a lower BTU energy fuel but compensating for it via much higher compression ratios, etc. to extract more of the usable energy that is there. It takes alot more money to be able to extract an equivalent amount of energy from gasoline (due to its tendency to be unstable and pre-ignite); in fact, once you get past a certain power output level, racers give up on "gasoline" and go to more exotic fuels, i.e. nitromethane.

Ethanol is simply a political measure and makes no sense as an energy, emissions, or fuel-saving measure. Its main benefit, and one which cannot be understated, is that it makes certain politically powerful groups (and a few lucky farmers and grain commodity speculators) richer at the expense of everyone else. In a politcal climate of "let's use government policies and programs to steal from others in safe and legal ways" it can certainly be characterized as a very successful idea.

 

Not to mention a boon to the Viton rubber manufacturers of the world!

 

I have little knowledge of the physics in this thread but as a person living in the Ethonol capital of the US, South Dakota, I see the politics and waste of this industry. The industry WILL NOT tell us how much it acually costs to produce a gallon of ethonol. The Hospital I work at is across the street from a plant that floods the community with burned corn smell. There is also a large plant only a couple of miles from my home. Farmers are not seeing a boon from this industry maybe a few cents a bushell. The big problem is that alot of the corn crop that was directed to food production is being diverted to ethonol production therefore helping to drive food cost up. The owners and developers of this industry are becoming fabulously rich because of governmental money being thown at them.

I think there may be some promise in cellulosic ethonol production because it uses the whole plant, certain prarrie grasses and even lumber waste can be converted from this method but the technology has not caught up to this yet although several universities in this state are working on it.

I do know of a few farmers that have small scale stills and run some of there farm fleets of this as well as other using biodiesel. I think biodiesel has more promise then ethonol or hydrogen but American still have a hard time getting their teeth around diesel in general. I did read Dielsel Power Magazine just tonight that BMW has built a prototype dielsel motorcycle.

On a related matter: Did you see that the top finishers of the 24 hours at LaMans were all Diesels? Audi and Peugot.

I think its pretty cool that someone wants to persue this venture

 

Yes like I said it's a scam.
Growing corn to make fuel is a waste of food and drives up the price of corn flakes.
Your XJ was designed to use gasoline!
E85 is not for us!

 

The one case where I would see E85 as being benificial in our bikes is if you are really hotrodding it. E85 has a 100 octane rating and is cheaper than any other race gas in the world. If you take advantage of the 100 octane, you won't see a decrease in performance (actually increase due to running a 13:1 or greater compression ratio) and the fuel milage can also be made similar by taking advantage of the extra power. Plus the added compression would make cold starting a lot easier.

$4 a gallon gas has driven up food prices more than anything since all prices are going up considerably (milk cows receive very little corn if any) plus the only food that directly uses a lot of corn is soda (pop in some parts of the states) since it is sweetened by corn syrup as the result of Cuba nationalizing the sugar farms.

 

corn is used in EVERYTHING! you would be amazed at some of the things that have corn in it.

i bought a bag of Frito's today.....went from 1.75 to 2.69 in the past month.