Winter blend gas and E/85

SHOnUup

New member
As I read that the refineries start to switch over to winter blend mixes no later than September 15th it should be reaching our pumps now if not already.

My question is, could adding say 2 gallons to a fill up (well adding the 85 first as to mix it better) be a good way to combat this?

Rich

Edit: gas has dropped about 30 cents a gallon here in last week. Leeds me to believe it's here. KR has went up since this drop in price also.
 
Josephm said:
I am doing it. In a 2012. I'm starting small at 16%.
I was thinking something small also. Not for added power, just to battle the less quality gas. Thinking a 10-15% area.

Rich

 
Ya a gallon in a half or so in each tank. I did a gallon last tank and still saw 22mpg which is good for a flex
 
Hope none of you run into issues, it's not wise to randomly experiment with e85 especially if your car isn't even rated for it.
Each state has a different blends of winter fuels, including e85. Do your research on what it is in your state as you may not be doing anything other than running too much ethanol in your vehicles and not even achieving the octane rating you are trying to achieve
 
Airbornemaikai said:
Hope none of you run into issues, it's not wise to randomly experiment with e85 especially if your car isn't even rated for it.
Each state has a different blends of winter fuels, including e85. Do your research on what it is in your state as you may not be doing anything other than running too much ethanol in your vehicles and not even achieving the octane rating you are trying to achieve
This issue is quite overblown as quality and consistency has increased tremendously over the years. Find the msds sheet for your supplier and it will tell you what percentage e is in their winter blend. There is a study in the E-85 section with a nationwide study of over 130 stations across the country. That was in 2009 and I expect things have gotten even better since.

The one area where there are still issue has to do with vapor pressure which is a non issue in the winter when most of your fuel is straight gas.

2013 plus are rated for e-15. Other than the lpfp, the fuel systems are the same from Gen 4.1 to 4.2.

I have put almost 15 k on the car experimenting with various blends all the way to 55%. Not one dtc, emissions code, nothing. I gained 4/10ths in the quarter stock.

Our di system is Bosch DI Motronic. Feel free to research it and its capabilities. K think I may have dropped links in one of the E-85 threads.

 
I agree with what you're saying about e85. That doesn't change the fact that different states use different blends of winter fuels, including e85. I'm not saying e85 during the summer months isn't e85, I'm saying it's not e85 in the winter months. I know for a fact it's e75 here in my state during the winter months. I don't know about the SHO, but I thought even you mentioned not to run it in a pre 2013? So my entire post was make sure your vehicle can handle it, and also check to see what the winter blend even is or you may be running 20 ethanol and still only achieving 90 octane
 
Is what I'm saying incorrect? I see 2011-2012 year vehicle signatures here. I guess maybe I shouldn't post any words of precaution? It seems like my post is being entirely disregarded as misinformation. Again, be careful running e85 if your vehicle isn't even rated for it, and make sure and find out what your states winter blends are or you may be running extremely high levels of ethanol and still not achieving a certain octane rating. Idk maybe I'm wrong.
 
Airbornemaikai said:
Is what I'm saying incorrect? I see 2011-2012 year vehicle signatures here. I guess maybe I shouldn't post any words of precaution? It seems like my post is being entirely disregarded as misinformation. Again, be careful running e85 if your vehicle isn't even rated for it, and make sure and find out what your states winter blends are or you may be running extremely high levels of ethanol and still not achieving a certain octane rating. Idk maybe I'm wrong.
i don't think you're wrong at all for suggesting caution. I think everyone should do what i did, research, verify, and increase blend slowly while monitoring the vitals of your vehicle. I'm just giving some results of my research combined with a lot of miles of real world usage.

You are 100 percent correct about winter blends and i was merely giving folks the tools to verify what their blend is. Mine also drops to 75 in the winter.

I'm sorry if you thought I was being dismissive of your post, not my intention.
 
Thank you for this. The thing I like about this community is most of us do our own real world testing, and I have myself asked you questions about the e85 subject as I know you have experience with it. This forum also isn't full of people who give out careless misinformation, in general I believe we all want everyone's vehicle to not only perform well but be safe to not cause any harm either. So to these guys with sub 2013 model year vehicles what would be your advice? Also I'm fortunate enough to get my e85 from Stinker, who I believe is very good at putting out the information on their fuel blends, where I have had to really really dig to find others info. That and there is a big corvette scene here so lots of those guys have already done the research and made it available to the rest of us in my area.
 
Airbornemaikai said:
Thank you for this. The thing I like about this community is most of us do our own real world testing, and I have myself asked you questions about the e85 subject as I know you have experience with it. This forum also isn't full of people who give out careless misinformation, in general I believe we all want everyone's vehicle to not only perform well but be safe to not cause any harm either. So to these guys with sub 2013 model year vehicles what would be your advice? Also I'm fortunate enough to get my e85 from Stinker, who I believe is very good at putting out the information on their fuel blends, where I have had to really really dig to find others info. That and there is a big corvette scene here so lots of those guys have already done the research and made it available to the rest of us in my area.
I have also been blessed with high quality corn and high quality 93 within a couple of minutes of my house.

I won't give advice, but I will say this. We have considered a used SHO and it could be a Gen 4.1. I would not hesitate to drive the crap gas out and immediately do a partial tank blend at 25 percent. Partial tank so if I did have an issue, i could fix it quickly by adding 93.

I played with it stock for quite a while so I am familiar with how it should behave.
 
Airbornemaikai said:
Is what I'm saying incorrect? I see 2011-2012 year vehicle signatures here. I guess maybe I shouldn't post any words of precaution? It seems like my post is being entirely disregarded as misinformation. Again, be careful running e85 if your vehicle isn't even rated for it, and make sure and find out what your states winter blends are or you may be running extremely high levels of ethanol and still not achieving a certain octane rating. Idk maybe I'm wrong.
Not at all. Appreciate it also. Quite busy today. Precautions definitely are being looked into.

Rich

 
The gas cap and manual say nothing above e20 or 20% ethanol. I've started at 14-16% and seen nothing but good things.
 
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