build a 100% ethanol powered 318

[DanielHStout]

How much would it cost to build... and how long (assuming you'd daily drive it) until the gas savings will pay off the conversion?

I don't think the goal is to save money on gas... It should be to show that we don't have to be dependent on oil. Ethanol is better than gasoline in many ways.

I think this is a great idea! I haope you can make it work.

[ptownTSI]

How much would it cost to build... and how long (assuming you'd daily drive it) until the gas savings will pay off the conversion?

I don't even know if I'm thinking like that. I just want to be cool and odd and put a sticker like "powered by corn" on the back or something. Assuming the engine is built right, it won't cost anymore than a standard rebuild, and new lines for the alcohol aren't too much, an old car might need new lines anyways.

[ivo316]

If you could get hold of a carburated bmw, with normal electronic ignition and distributor, you will not spend much money, you will have to play with the timing a bit, but it will costo you about nothing, I don't know if a computerized cars will have the flexibility to be tuned for alcohol.

[E30 Wagen]

Used cooking oil works in diesels pretty good too. I'd want an old Benz 300d for a beater if I could live with the stink and constant mcdonalds runs for old cooking oil.

A kid in my autotech class picked up a 1980 Benz 300d for $500 that had already been converted to biodesiel. It was a kick ass car. The inline 5 cylinder had over 300,000 miles on it, apparently they're rated to get well over 500,000. The thing was a tank. And actually I remember he said taht the cooking oil chinese restaurants use is much better than anything like a fast food place.

Anyway, I think the ethenol conversion would be a sweet project, I hope you get it working. There are about three or four M10 engines in junkyards around me so this gets me thinking..

[91Saleen#15]

Has anyone seen the movie "Unaccompanied Minors"? They used my car to play the role of the biodiesel mercedes in that movie. I've looked at the trailers for the movie on the internet, but so far I haven't seen it in the theater. When they gave the car back to me it had biodiesel slogans all over it like... "this car is a vegetarian"

[wazzu70]

Ethanol is a lot better of a performance fuel than a sustainable commuter type fuel. Since ethanol runs stoich at about 8:1 rather than 14.7:1 you consume a lot more fuel to go the same distance. Also there aren't very high yields of ethanol per acre of corn (what we use here in the US due to climate). Ethanol is a pretty silly idea to be run in an engine not made for running ethanol because you cant really take advantage of its good properties. Like mentioned earlier in the thread Ethanol has a much higher octane rating which means that for an engine to take advantage of ethanol you should build it for higher compression, more ignition timing, and not required but nice, boost. Lots of people in different communities are building ethanol performance engines with good results, so its not a stupid idea at all. If you really want any kind of decent results you will need to run the engine off a standalone management system to tune the engine to run correctly due to the vast differences in fuel needed for proper combustion.

If you want to stick it to the big oil companies, then a compression ignition engine running on biodiesel is a much better answer. you will get much more miles traveled per acre of plant. For performance though and because the government is promoting ethanol, and it will soon be everywhere, you might as well take advantage of the performance benefit

[trent]

I am going to drive my car double hard just to negate your gains.

[ptownTSI]

exactly!

i don't understand why they make cars "e85 capable" have you seen the gas mileage those things get when they run it?? they are completely not made to run on it efficiently.

the silverado is rated for 17/21 on gas, and on E85 its 12 and 16. thats awful.

biodiesel would be a great thing to roll with, but i don't like FWD volkswagens as much as e30's because i'd start with a TDi golf and just leave it stock, haha.

[nando]

too bad you end up paying higher food prices rather than paying at the pump. Good luck trying to cut back on food consumption.

want to be environmentally concious and save money? Drive less and/or get a car with better fuel efficiency. Using less fuel is the only thing that makes any difference.

the funny thing is ethanol production still needs lots of oil - guess where all the fertilizers come from to grow that corn?

basically, you aren't saving anything by using ethanol - not the environment, not money, and certainly not from oil dependence.