no
e -85 is 85% ethanol & 15% gas

 

I have heard that you can do an E85 conversion on your existing engine for a few hundred dollars (not sure which vehicles they were talking about though). They say you have to put in stainless lines, get rid of rubber fittings and change the sensors. Once they start building filling stations to where it's not a hassle to fill up with E85, I'll definitely look into it.

The cool thing though with E85 engines is that you can also run regular gasoline in them if you can't find an E85 station. Funny you mention this topic... Autoline Detroit (SPEED Channel) has a show on E85 this week with a couple of folks from GM. I hope Toyota will get on this Flex Fuel bandwagon. Wouldn't it be cool to have comparably priced fuel, support the local farmers, have less emissions, the same if not better performance and not have to buy oil from the Middle East?

E85... :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

 

No, but it looks like most all of the 07 Chevy line-up is from the commercials they have been running.

 

I have heard that you can do an E85 conversion on your existing engine for a few hundred dollars (not sure which vehicles they were talking about though). They say you have to put in stainless lines, get rid of rubber fittings and change the sensors. Once they start building filling stations to where it's not a hassle to fill up with E85, I'll definitely look into it.

The cool thing though with E85 engines is that you can also run regular gasoline in them if you can't find an E85 station. Funny you mention this topic... Autoline Detroit (SPEED Channel) has a show on E85 this week with a couple of folks from GM. I hope Toyota will get on this Flex Fuel bandwagon. Wouldn't it be cool to have comparably priced fuel, support the local farmers, have less emissions, the same if not better performance and not have to buy oil from the Middle East?

E85... :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

Yeah, but then what happens when a can of corn/soy beans cost us $2.50, huh, then what. Then everytime a twister hits the midwest and a cow breaks wind E85 Prices will go up.

Midwest +1
Middle East -1

 

I'm not going to go off on a rant here. But, suffice it to say, I believe wholeheartedly in the FlexFuel thing that GM is doing... and has been doing for years. They just haven't advertised it very well until now. Growing enough corn to replace a sizeable amount of our oil dependency sure would be a nice way to get all of the broke tobacco farmers back on track.

 

i'd stay far far away from a conversion kit until you're out of warranty, at least.

i've seen a Ford Windstar van with a conversion kit, and it seemed to run alright, but it had a VERY difficult time with cold starts. this is due to the lower volatility of ethanol when compared to gasoline.

short answer: no, you can't run E85 in your Tacoma as it comes from the factory.

-Mike

 

They can make the ethanol out of several different crops. But if the price did sky rocket, I'd much rather that extra money go to the farmers in the Midwest instead of the oil sheiks in the Mideast. But if the price did get out of hand, the tradition oil market would probably bring it back down seeing as how these vehicles can run on either fuel. Maybe if they have a bad harvest year, they would cut it back to say E50.

 

i'd stay far far away from a conversion kit until you're out of warranty, at least.

i've seen a Ford Windstar van with a conversion kit, and it seemed to run alright, but it had a VERY difficult time with cold starts. this is due to the lower volatility of ethanol when compared to gasoline.

short answer: no, you can't run E85 in your Tacoma as it comes from the factory.

-Mike

If there were an E85 near my house, I'd do it tomorrow if I could find a good conversion kit. Are you sure the van you talked about was running E85 and not pure ethanol or some other alternative fuel source? That's why they put 15% gas in it... for the cold starting problems you mentioned. I'm sure if people did start running into cold start problems in extremely cold environments, the fuel companies would just adjust the ethanol/gas mixture until they fixed it.

 

This says there are no certified kits available to convert an unleaded vehicle to E-85 compatable. It can be done, but not legally.

http://www.e85fuel.com/e85101/faqs/conversion.php

Apparently the converted vehicles emit too much pollution. A requirement is the converted vehicle can only emit as much as the before the conversion, and simple kits have failed.

 

A company tried to build an ethanol production plant near my parents. I learned a lot about this industry and let me tell you it is not as pretty a picture as the politicians are painting. Even some farmers are against it. They use a lot of water, put out a lot of emissions in the process, and have by products that my not be able to be used in other industries/waste.

I like the idea but am not sold on it yet. We cant produce enough corn right now to make the amount of gas we use.

 

My 2001 chevy s-10 4 cyl. was able to burn E85 but the owners manual stated that you would get reduced mileage and had to follow the "severe condition" service schedule. I only saw 1 station near Chicago that sold it and it was over a dollar a gallon more. On a side note the first time that truck left me stranded it was 3 days old and had 280 miles on it, even had to arrange my own tow to the dealer. Glad Im in a Tacoma, 300 miles and its still running.

 

I heard that E-85 has less power than regular gas, therefore less MPG, which kind of cancels out the $ you save by using it.

 

Not to highjack the thread, but just as cool as E-85.

Did anyone see the segment on 60 minutes about the fuel made from vaporized coal in montana? it was very interesting. But I'm an engineer... so I find geeky stuff interesting... haha

 

Not to highjack the thread, but just as cool as E-85.

Did anyone see the segment on 60 minutes about the fuel made from vaporized coal in montana? it was very interesting. But I'm an engineer... so I find geeky stuff interesting... haha

Yes I did. Good stuff I thought too. I was suprised that Germany had many vehicles that ran off of it during WWII. Didn't realize how long its been around.

 

Yes I did. Good stuff I thought too. I was suprised that Germany had many vehicles that ran off of it during WWII. Didn't realize how long its been around.

That lady pissed me off though, saying that it is creepy using the technology just because the Germans did in WWII.

If we could get this to work it would be awesome. I wish i could get a diesil tacoma in the US.

 

I'm not going to go off on a rant here. But, suffice it to say, I believe wholeheartedly in the FlexFuel thing that GM is doing... and has been doing for years. They just haven't advertised it very well until now. Growing enough corn to replace a sizeable amount of our oil dependency sure would be a nice way to get all of the broke tobacco farmers back on track.

Let's not give GM too much credit here - Chrysler was first to do it in '98 with the 3.3L in their minivans, then Ford followed suit in '99 - GM didn't start until '00.

 

Flex-Fuel/E85 may not be so rosy when you consider:

Milage will be less.(drop of 6-8mpg)
Cost will be greater.($800-$900 more annual fuel cost)
Environmental quality contribution ?????

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/byfuel/FFV2000.shtml

And yes, there are a number of vehicles tested on this site comparing gasoline and E85.

And GM...well, where ya gonna fill up will less than 100 stations nationwide.

Plus the cost of making E85????

By the way, I have this outstanding, high tech Sony Betamax for sale. Anybody interested?

 

Flex-Fuel/E85 may not be so rosy when you consider:

Milage will be less.(drop of 6-8mpg)
Cost will be greater.($800-$900 more annual fuel cost)
Environmental quality contribution ?????

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/byfuel/FFV2000.shtml

And yes, there are a number of vehicles tested on this site comparing gasoline and E85.

And GM...well, where ya gonna fill up will less than 100 stations nationwide.

Plus the cost of making E85????

By the way, I have this outstanding, high tech Sony Betamax for sale. Anybody interested?

When oil starts trading for $80+ a barrel... it will be a better alternative.

 

Flex-Fuel/E85 may not be so rosy when you consider:

Milage will be less.(drop of 6-8mpg)
Cost will be greater.($800-$900 more annual fuel cost)
Environmental quality contribution ?????

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/byfuel/FFV2000.shtml

And yes, there are a number of vehicles tested on this site comparing gasoline and E85.

And GM...well, where ya gonna fill up will less than 100 stations nationwide.

Plus the cost of making E85????

By the way, I have this outstanding, high tech Sony Betamax for sale. Anybody interested?

I have a Laser Disc player for sale as well. Hell, I'll even throw in the Minidisc Walkman, no charge.

I like the idea of E-85 but it really needs to catch on strong and quick if it's going to make it. The "Go Yellow" commercials aren't doing it for me. Maybe when a gas station within 200 miles has it, I might buy into the hype. The price needs to come down and they better do it soon while people continue to bitch over the price of gasoline. The mpg figures really kill its appeal.

Still not buying a GM or any of the other cars mentioned that currently support it.

 

Let's not give GM too much credit here - Chrysler was first to do it in '98 with the 3.3L in their minivans, then Ford followed suit in '99 - GM didn't start until '00.

Yeah. I only mentioned them because of the current ad campaign.

E85 has some issues that could be resolved if we started funding research for it with some of the money we are spending on foreign oil. It's not perfect by any means. But, it has potential.

 

I drove an E85 ford ranger for 6 years before getting my Tacoma. After 100k, I never found an e85 station anywhere.

Now that I traded up, what happens? The Indy 500 goes ethanol, E85 starts showing up all over the news as this "new thing". A shell station on the way to work shuts down and is replaced by a local shop that sells only e85 and biodiesel.

If there were a legit way to make the change, I'd do it.

 

E85

Brazil is moving to a mostly ethanol vehicles for several decades now. They have kits marketed in Brazil to allow regular fuel vehicles to run on E85. These are availble in the US, although they are not certified by the EPA but then again there is no doubt that an E85 vehicle is cleaner than a regular gasoline vehicle. Here are manufacturers that I have found:

http://www.abcesso.com/

http://xcelplus.com/e85/e85informationcenter.htm

They list many models for their product, but for some reason they list no Toyotas. Is there something unusual about Toyota fuel injectors? I have been trying to find out why these devices would not work with the injectors Toyota uses but have found nothing on them. Anyone know why?

I have been doing some reading on the corosive nature of ethanol on different substances and it seems that gasonline is more corosive on plastics than ethanol, so all the plastics shoule be fine. Neoprene seals are listed as being suceptable to ethanol, as well as aluminum (although I am not sure why).

BTW, Toyota will start manufacturing flex fuel vehicles in 2007 (mainly for Brazil).

 

Ethanol & Neoprene

Brazil is moving to a mostly ethanol vehicles for several decades now. They have kits marketed in Brazil to allow regular fuel vehicles to run on E85. These are availble in the US, although they are not certified by the EPA but then again there is no doubt that an E85 vehicle is cleaner than a regular gasoline vehicle. Here are manufacturers that I have found:

http://www.abcesso.com/

http://xcelplus.com/e85/e85informationcenter.htm

They list many models for their product, but for some reason they list no Toyotas. Is there something unusual about Toyota fuel injectors? I have been trying to find out why these devices would not work with the injectors Toyota uses but have found nothing on them. Anyone know why?

I have been doing some reading on the corosive nature of ethanol on different substances and it seems that gasonline is more corosive on plastics than ethanol, so all the plastics shoule be fine. Neoprene seals are listed as being suceptable to ethanol, as well as aluminum (although I am not sure why).

BTW, Toyota will start manufacturing flex fuel vehicles in 2007 (mainly for Brazil).

OK, did a little more research and found that neoprene is chemically inactive with ethanol. So I do not know why neoprene seals would be a problem. In fact, fuel lines are made of neoprene (not rubber anymore) so they should not be a problem. Ethanol vapors might have affect vacuum accessories, but I have not found any aritcles that consider this a real problem. I am still looking into corrosion of metals. Obviously stainless steel should be fine, but I am not sure on the others.

 

Metals & Ethanol

Brazil is moving to a mostly ethanol vehicles for several decades now. They have kits marketed in Brazil to allow regular fuel vehicles to run on E85. These are availble in the US, although they are not certified by the EPA but then again there is no doubt that an E85 vehicle is cleaner than a regular gasoline vehicle. Here are manufacturers that I have found:

http://www.abcesso.com/

http://xcelplus.com/e85/e85informationcenter.htm

They list many models for their product, but for some reason they list no Toyotas. Is there something unusual about Toyota fuel injectors? I have been trying to find out why these devices would not work with the injectors Toyota uses but have found nothing on them. Anyone know why?

I have been doing some reading on the corosive nature of ethanol on different substances and it seems that gasonline is more corosive on plastics than ethanol, so all the plastics shoule be fine. Neoprene seals are listed as being suceptable to ethanol, as well as aluminum (although I am not sure why).

BTW, Toyota will start manufacturing flex fuel vehicles in 2007 (mainly for Brazil).

Another update, they only problem with metal corrosion is when you have excessive water in the fuel mixture. I do not know why this would be a problem, unless the fuel gets contaminated. The fuel coming out of the pump should be very dry as water is removed from ethanol before mixing with gasoline. Most information I have read says that the exposed metals were removed from cars after 1988 to allow for the use of 10% ethanol fuel (which is all that is offered here in Illinois).

The only problem that I so far have run across is if the Toyota fuel pump in the tank will arc in the alcohol mixture.

I pulled my fuel injector plugs to see what they look like, and they appear most like the Bosch EV6 plugs depicted on the Flextune website. Am I right? I do not know which ohms or polarity they are at this point.

 

Price of oil

When oil starts trading for $80+ a barrel... it will be a better alternative.

I looked it up. It is just over $72 per barrel. Is that close enough?