Hi,

Does or has anyone run a blend of E85 in their XFR? With a custom tune or stock tune?

I come from the BMW N54 community and there are massive gains to be had with E85.

To the more technical people, what would be the main limiting factors in the XFR fuel system? First thing needed for more fuel flow would be fuel pump or injectors? Is there anything even close to being able to be used on these cars without massive custom work?

 

Well $1700 bought me about 50hp and 60ftlb torque. My XFR is a reliable daily driver, and finding gas for it is never an issue. The have list is below with my signature.

 

There is the stock tune for some markets for E85

 

I've now been made aware of this. The Brazilian turn. But are there any performance gains running this tune plus full E85?

 

I'd imagine that without a compression or supercharger boost (or both) performance gains would be minimal.

 

Nice set of mods there buddy. $1700 seems a bit much though now. Eurocharged are offering to ship to Australia the pulley, tune and controller for $770.

This thread and my questions however are directed to people who have a tune specifically for running E85 and those who like to push the limits a bit. It seems there aren't many if any after a bit of digging around but it seems several tuners are working on E85 specific tunes for more power gains than the common pully + tune after a few emails and PMs.

Sounds like interesting times ahead!

 

Unfortunately with superchargers compared to turbos, it's not that easy to just dial up the boost lol

The real benefits of E85 aren't just a higher octane fuel (approx 105 ron) but ethanol's cooling ability, which gives higher knock resistance. You can therefore run more advanced timing, thus creating more power. All this is completely useless however if you cannot run a tune to take advantage of E85.

Running complete E85 also requires higher fuel flow, almost double of what you would need running regular pump gas. Your mileage per tank therefore is also prety much halved.

E85 is not reccomended for daily drivers or those who don't really see the point of pushing the factory components or the envelope of performance on their cars!

 

I ran E85 on my former 2001 Audi S4...Everything you said was correct...I had multiple E85 gas stations in San Diego which allowed me to daily drive the car plus multiple tunes (I could switch back to normal fuel o n demand) when E85 wasn't available. It took 5-7 data logging and remote tuning sessions to nail down the benefits of advancing the timing and raising the boost. In the end, my boost could be raised to 28 psi from the 21 psi (91 octane). I am looking into water method injection (snow performance) combined with a larger crankcase pulley (Eurotoys) to give the car a substantial boost in performance. I'm currently running OE Tuning software without a pulley. It is definitely quick but lacks the big push in the back of a lot of torque. Looking forward to your findings on the E85...hopefully with a big lower pulley attached😊

PS.. the other benefit was the smell in the garage upon startup (with Catless downpipes)..smells sugary sweet....like I making some moonshine in the garage. 😃

 

Thanks for your kind words. Oh yeah, the smell of corn juice! My BMW on E85 is a convertible so you can smell it real good when stopped at the lights!

In regards to the lower pulley, from my research, I haven't been able to find any for the 5.0S. My understanding is that the lower pulley also acts as the harmonic balancer aND swapping or modifying it would be a huge problem. I did see that they were available for the 4.0 V8s.

Also for the upper pulley, all I can find are 1.5psi pulleys. I'd like to go to 3psi like the 4.0 guys. 1.5psi seems so modest! Yes everyone, I'm well aware of all the extra heat that it would generate, but it's not like I'll be WOT 100% of the time!

I like your idea of the water injection. Meth would be of more benefithan but pain in the backside to buy, fill up and implement on a platform so young and lacking any other real mods. People usually turn to meth/water injection far down the development of the platform/their mod list!

 

Eurotoys makes the crankcase pulley for $800. It only upsides the outer ring on the crank case pulley and leaves the harmonic balancing alone. I was planning on getting the Mina intake Y-Pipe/charge tubes and then drill and mount the water/meth nozzles to it.

 

This presumes that the fully advanced timing of the stock tune is not already at the peak/optimum setting for the engine design, meaning that more advance might not equate to more power. Not sure if there's any data to answer that question.

It also presumes that E85 is also substantially higher in octane rating than gasoline. Straight ethanol (E100) is 108 RON, 89 MON and 99 AKI, so depending on the octane rating of the gasoline it's blended with to make E85, all those numbers could vary considerably. Many sources state that E85 as sold in North America is 94-96 AKI, not much better than pump gas.

 

Hmm.. I am not quite sure what you're trying to prove or argue without "data to answer that question" or just say "many sources state". I'm not here to get into an argument with anyone, especially when I'moved new lol

Stock engine management is never EVER tuned to its peak/optimum setting, otherwise if someone put low quality fuel in and went WOT, it would run lean and detonate. Most engines built in the last decade have knock sensing and will retard timing to the safer side.
What the aftermarket is doing is kind of the reverse.

E85 use has been proven time and time again on the dyno, on racetracks and is the only exclusive fuel used in many production race series around the world.

There are still a few out there for some reason doubt that E85 has any real performance benefits and it's bewildering honestly when companies like Koenigsegg build cars with E85 map flash options for maximum power on E85.

 

Good points Mikey. One also needs to consider what type of power adder your running, while turbos are better suited to take advantage of the ultimate benifits of running E85 because of the variable boost options they offer, Supercharged engines because of there norrow boost profiles will not, so unless the question is directed at only the turbo 4 banger XF owners it's kind of pointless. I gotta stop getting drawn into the POINTLESS!..SMH

 

I really don't know what your angle is and I'm kind of curious to know. You clearly have no idea about anything you're talking about in regards to E85. Everything you state is vague, incorrect or with no technical explanation.

I have already mentioned that supercharged engines will not benefit as much as turbos, but this is not limited by the E85, only the ability to increase and constantly adjust the boost pressure.

E85 benefits ALL engines. It gives gives some naturally aspirated engines 10% horsepower gains after a tune. People spend money on K&N drop in filters for less thanot a 3% gain.

Cold you please expand on your comment on what about my questions are "kind of pointless"?

 

Anyways, getting totally off topic as a few of the posts above have absolutely nothing to do with the OP.

If any more of you who have any REAL world experience and information that is ACTUALLY RELATED TO my questions, please let me know.

Thanks to the two forum users who have PMed me with useful information. Looks like a few firms working on E85 tunes as we speak.

 

Don't worry, Mr. Mickey just tries to kill this topic like he has done for many other topics, specially releated with fuels, oils, power adders etc. His God is "Stock" . As we all others know E85 is great stuff for modified cars and opens huge space for high CRs, boosts and very aggressive timings.

 

Up till now I believe there have been NO (XFR) tunes for E85 so no-one has any dynos/etc.

I also think no-one has raised boost so high and don't know what may happen to the various parts of the engine.

Flowing more fuel is fairly easy.

 

Nothing wrong with Mickey's post at all. Forums are for the sharing of information and having a slightly sceptical approach to topics does no harm.

It's when misinformation is spread with nothing more than an uneducated brain fart that it can derail a thread. Those people should just keep sticking their heads in the sand.

 

Nothing real way of raising the boost by much from what I've read so far apart from combining upper and lower pulley upgrades. Nothing short of a supercharger upgrade but that'll be 5 to 10 years away before someone attempts that lol

I'm not after massive gains, but on a platform that's so hard to get any more power than what is on offer, every little bit helps. Even if it's only another 20 to 30 hp, it'd be nice to have by simply just filling up a different type of fuel and flashing a different map!

I'd like a glass of cold beer, but if I can only have a few mouthfuls, I'll take it haha

 

For those of you who actually care, Eurocharged is one of the companies I reached out to enquiring about an E85 map. They said to keep in touch in the next couple of months and they could possibly have something ready.