if there was a way to reasonably tune these engines I'd run e85 in mine. ethanol is so much cleaner. it more or less douches the engine simply with use. e85 use does require a higher volume of fuel, roughly 30-35% more. it was cheap enough near it's inception to be cost efficient. now is not the case. i think e85 is awesome. boosts tq and gives the ability to feed more timing before detonation. burns clean and could potentially lessen the dependence on oil.

 

It also requires 10 gallons of fresh water to produce 1 gallon of E85. Not to mention the cost of produce will sky rocket since more and more farmers will rather grow corn.

 

i think the cost of production being so expensive regarding farmers is our own fault for running the farms out. no farms no food. if there were more farms there would be less of an impact when we need these farmers to do something different.

 

The Heep needs some fine tuning, still runs a little rough. I had been pumping low grade station gas (read habeeb stores) for a while. I had recently switched over to Chevron regular and noticed an improvement in engine idling, performance and milage. I just topped it off w/ Chevron premium Thursday and noticed a slight improvement over the last grade gas. Jeep seems happier too. But, I have no intentions of running 100% premium; maybe topping off ever other month or so. But, I think it's good for mid grade.

 

I have a 98. No lift and 30.5 all terrains. I went through this and while the higher octanes feel like the engine is making more power, the mileage numbers don't show an increase. I drive an 80 mile route every day and the cheapest way to run the route is with 87 octane Shell. No name gas and the mileage goes down. Higher octane gas costs more but doesn't pay for itself. It also loves Chevron but it usually costs a bit more.

If I drive the route and have to spend a lot of time sitting in bumper to bumper traffic the "number" drops into the 14's. Usually it'll hang somewhere in the 15's. 250 mile each way road trip it was around 19.5.

My advice: download the fuel log app-or better yet pay for it, its only a couple of $-and track every fill up yourself. Log every kind of gas and compare the numbers. Try three or four complete tank fulls consecutively and that way you'll know for certain.

What I've observed is that its mileage number is more indicitive of how much time it spends idling rather than what kind of fuel I feed it.

 

Casey's 89 octane. 347 miles per tank. BP 187 miles per tank. Stupid ethanol.

 

?? I run bp in mine and get over 400 miles per tank if I let it get low enough.

 

Strange, must be a Kansas thing. I cant figure out why but its the same story in my wife's car. The BP gives her crappy gas mileage and she has to use premium. I normally use QT, but it wasn't as good as the Casey's.

 

Funny you guys mention Chevron. They're a provider in the TOP TIER program, and their Techron additive is well known for cleaning crap out. You can pick it up in bottles and run it like any other off-the-shelf fuel system cleaner.

Not to mention in a lot of (all?) cases there is actually greater environmental impact from North American corn-based ethanol due to the heavy amount of processing required (try telling the hippies that the process is net-negative for energy, the corn slurries are cooked with natural gas and coal). Burning food AND fossil fuels to create a half-assed fossil fuel replacement is a HORRIBLE idea. If you want ethanol go to Brazil IMO.

For what it's worth, somewhere around here there is a thread where the dude built himself a turbo on his 4.0. Part of it involved moving to E85 for the high "octane rating", but it burnt so clean he was able to "modify the emissions system" and tune it to run better than a stock XJ! Pretty slick

Found it http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1031285

 

 

Plus ethanol cannot be shipped by pipeline thereby requiring transport by polluting trucks on already overburdened highways.

The only conceivable beneficiaries of the use of ethanol as a motor fuel are the truckers that haul it, the corn farmers and clowns such as Al Gore and Ed Begley, Jr. who have made millions promoting its use as a deterrent to "global warming".

 

i use 87 sunoco for the 5 cents off with cash and sometimes marathon. and stay away from any 10% enthanol stations. redmuck runs crappy with it and burns it fast. i can get around 300 miles from a full tank mostly highway.

 

you're forgetting that e85 offers the equivalent to 104ish octane. which is great for those of us on the performance side of things that either wish to use forced induction, n2o, or simply a high compression engine. ethanol is better for an engine and the environment. i'm no tree hugger, please understand that lol. not to mention, the clean cars burning ethanol to "dirty" trucks burning diesel ratio would still have a huge impact on the ozone regarding emissions. and i'm a truck driver so...job security. it would be a step in the right direction for engines and environment, the rest of it...eehh i'm not sure. if it was given a full bore production like gasoline a lot of the production and delivery methods would certainly be fine tuned. i'm guessing bulk delivery would be handled by rail, as opposed to pipelines.

speaking from an enthusiast standpoint, I really like ethanol. it burns clean, offers the potential to make more power (safely), and can be born, raised, and sold reasonably within the us borders.

 

Precisely.

 

My jeep doesnt like ethanol at all but thats all we have around here. I had a chevy with a built 4.3l v6 that I ran strictly on 200 proof shine because I used it more for mud drags and strip drags lol