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6/28/12, 3:13 PM   #2
Re: Technical/Scientific Question about Ethanol
darnall
darnall is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 773
 

Without giving you specific numbers......start with methanol....it burns at about half the BTUs of gasoline...thats why a racecar on methanol burns more fuel than the same car on gas....it takes nearly twice as much to get the same power...

methanol makes an engine run cooler than gas due to the burn properties...plus the volume of fuel coming in the engine has a bit of a cooling effect, kind of like water flowing thru the cooling system...

E85 is going to fall somewhere in the middle between gas and methanol as far as BTUs, volume used, and cooling effect (or lack of)... therefore all things being equal an engine should run cooler on E85 than on straight gasoline, but will be much warmer than an engine running on methanol....

As for flex fuel street cars.....the computers in them regulate so much of the engine management that you probably won't see a difference on your water temp on E85 versus gas, but it should run cooler on E85 than on gas. Unfortunately street cars nowadays are intended to run super hot.....215-225 is pretty common in my 2007 chevy cobalt on hot days, and in the dead of winter it runs above 195-200 within 2 miles of taking off.


The problem with the silver crown cars is that the cooling systems were designed for methanol, and now they are using a hotter burning fuel. Many open wheel cars have way more cooling capacity than they need to run methanol, and you see lots of radiators half covered with duct tape....you won't see that with cars on E85.
 
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