At the ford dealership they said i couldn’t,. i was just assuming that they didn’t want to be liable if it screwed up my engine. It is out of warranty.
Yes, since your vehicle is not a flex fuel vehicle it will not run right on E-85. I personally don’t believe all the hooey about the damage that the alcohol will do to your fuel system, we have had many vehicles in our shop that had been run an E-85 and I have yet to see any physical damage to the fuel system from it. The problem you will have is engine performance, the fuel system on your explorer is not designed for alcohol, since it doesn’t have the BTUs that gasoline has the engine will be running lean, the PCM doesn’t have enough range of adjustment on the injectors to compensate so it will turn on the check engine light. I have seen one Chrysler that melted the pistons trying to run E-85. They are selling kits to run the alcohol in a gas vehicle but I have never seen one so I can’t tell you how well they work.
Yes, there are huge problems with that, E85 is 85% alcohol therefore a greater volume of it must be injected into the engine or else the motor will run lean. Since your vehicle is not a flex-fuel vehicle, the E85 will cause, at the very at least, severe detonation; perhaps even burn a piston. There are some kits available for certain vehicles, but be forewarned that when running the E85 the vehicle will get 30% less miles per gallon and have 30% less horsepower.
So you want to run E85? Your vehicle will run on it, but as said before, there will be performance issues. For a proper conversion you will need to do the following:
1) Install a non-metalic fuel tank
2) Install teflon lined fuel lines
3) Replace all fuel system o-rings with neoprene
4) Install a t504 stainless steel fuel rail
5) have the PCM reflashed to accomodate for the higher oxygenation of the E85 fuel.
The corrosive attributes of this fuel have been blown slightly out of proportion, but fuel system errosion will occur if the vehicle is run constantly on this fuel without proper equipment being installed on the vehicle. On a properly equipped 2003 Explorer V6; proving ground tests show that the vehicle exhibited a 3% decrease in fuel economy and a 10% increase in horsepower and torque. This is because the PCM on this vehicle is tuned to accomodate the higher oxygenation of the fuel. E-85 has an octane equivalency of around 110 octane depending on the base quality of the gasoline used to denature the ethanol. Because the fuel has a high octane equivalency, we were able to alter the fuel map and cam and ignition timing to better utilize this fuel characteristic.
You cannot expect to get these results from a vehicle that is not equipped to burn E85. The performance will be hampered, and the fuel economy will plumet.
E85 can be run in vehicles using a carburetor easier than fuel injection due to the absence of a PCM and the benefit of manual tuning of the engine. The only issue with the carburated engines would be the errosion of the fuel system which would be slight.
Hope this helps explain the technical reasoning behind the use of this fuel.
Leave a Comment
If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.
If your car is not labeled FLEX-FUEL you canNOT use E85. Alcohol is corrosive to gas tank and gas line. So you will have tons of rusting.
Also e85, has only 65% of the energy content (you get much less MPG). So unless you can get E85 really cheap, it is NOT worth it.
Good luck…
Yes, since your vehicle is not a flex fuel vehicle it will not run right on E-85. I personally don’t believe all the hooey about the damage that the alcohol will do to your fuel system, we have had many vehicles in our shop that had been run an E-85 and I have yet to see any physical damage to the fuel system from it. The problem you will have is engine performance, the fuel system on your explorer is not designed for alcohol, since it doesn’t have the BTUs that gasoline has the engine will be running lean, the PCM doesn’t have enough range of adjustment on the injectors to compensate so it will turn on the check engine light. I have seen one Chrysler that melted the pistons trying to run E-85. They are selling kits to run the alcohol in a gas vehicle but I have never seen one so I can’t tell you how well they work.
Yes, there are huge problems with that, E85 is 85% alcohol therefore a greater volume of it must be injected into the engine or else the motor will run lean. Since your vehicle is not a flex-fuel vehicle, the E85 will cause, at the very at least, severe detonation; perhaps even burn a piston. There are some kits available for certain vehicles, but be forewarned that when running the E85 the vehicle will get 30% less miles per gallon and have 30% less horsepower.
So you want to run E85? Your vehicle will run on it, but as said before, there will be performance issues. For a proper conversion you will need to do the following:
1) Install a non-metalic fuel tank
2) Install teflon lined fuel lines
3) Replace all fuel system o-rings with neoprene
4) Install a t504 stainless steel fuel rail
5) have the PCM reflashed to accomodate for the higher oxygenation of the E85 fuel.
The corrosive attributes of this fuel have been blown slightly out of proportion, but fuel system errosion will occur if the vehicle is run constantly on this fuel without proper equipment being installed on the vehicle. On a properly equipped 2003 Explorer V6; proving ground tests show that the vehicle exhibited a 3% decrease in fuel economy and a 10% increase in horsepower and torque. This is because the PCM on this vehicle is tuned to accomodate the higher oxygenation of the fuel. E-85 has an octane equivalency of around 110 octane depending on the base quality of the gasoline used to denature the ethanol. Because the fuel has a high octane equivalency, we were able to alter the fuel map and cam and ignition timing to better utilize this fuel characteristic.
You cannot expect to get these results from a vehicle that is not equipped to burn E85. The performance will be hampered, and the fuel economy will plumet.
E85 can be run in vehicles using a carburetor easier than fuel injection due to the absence of a PCM and the benefit of manual tuning of the engine. The only issue with the carburated engines would be the errosion of the fuel system which would be slight.
Hope this helps explain the technical reasoning behind the use of this fuel.