taltho

With a conversion kit -- so the claim goes -- my 05 civic can run 100% ethanol fuel.
I'm wondering about the validity of this claim. This forum seems a good place to check.

Here is one site making such a claim. alcoholcanbeagas.com

I've found other sites that have better deals, and I feel a better product, unfortunately I don't have them with me at this time, if anyone is interested I'll post them here in the next few days.

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

well i guess you could but why? unless ethanol costs way less than gas, its simply not efficient enough to matter. gas is a much better fuel.

sdaidoji

iTrader: (1)

WTH?!?
First thing to consider: Where the H. do you plan to refuel (unless you are in Brazil, where 100%of the gas stations does carry ethanol - yes, the flex fuel technology comes from Brazil... i know, i am brazilian). Grocery store ethanol will not do!!! too high water content.
Second, the ethanol albeit cheaper, will have higher consumption due to its nature, so one tank will last less (will still be cheaper in the end and renewable fuel supply).
3rd - ethanol is highly corrosive due to it's higrophile nature, so any alcohol running car will need special treatment to resist corrosion, including the tank and fuel injectors, etc. Flex fuel ones are planned for this so suffers less.
4th - ignition and fuel maps need to be adjusted - ethanol is higher octane and need different timing to work best.
among other stuff, but the first and second ones should already make you think twice. Also, ethanol running cars have monocarbonate emiision higher than petrol when idling.

MindBomber

All gas stations in brazil offer ethanol, that's awesome..

Is it so popular in Brazil, because of the already extremely high sugarcane production?

sdaidoji

iTrader: (1)

since there was already the sugarcane production, but the price of the sugar was not so enticing anymore, they just converted them to ethanol producing facilities.
Some years back in the 80's (?) 95% or more of the car production were ethanol fueled cars.

to the OP, you better off getting a turbo diesel, bump compression even higher, seal it with heat wraps and put whatever you want on the tank. there were some adhiabatic (was that the word?) engines that would burn anything, even normal cooking oil due to the heat and compression. naturally they did not last too long due to heat.
But that's the basis of the biodiesel cars. Diesel engines with high compression. And no spark plugs to replace either :P

DarkSouljur

This guy who owns a 7th gen was telling me once that he put ethanol in the car without realizing what it could do and it completely screwed up his engine, like it started smoking and he has to get a new one lol

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

in the midwest every station has ethanol e85. it used to be almost the same price as gas tho, not sure about right now. and endless corn fields all around you lol. even with a flex fuel vehicle i would be careful running that stuff. no way a normal car would handle it even if the fuel system did not rot out and bust, the engine and ecu was not meant to run on it and wouldnt without massive changes to the engine timing and all that.

MindBomber

taltho

sdaidoji,

I am aware of the hydrophilic nature of ethanol; its nature and tendency to absorb water from the atmosphere. I have spend a significant amount of time studying ethanol, its creation, properties and its behavior. Also I am very familiar with what Brazil has done since the 80's.
My advantage in using ethanol is really twofold:
I can make it myself (with proper equipment)
it is supposed to increase the longevity of a standard engine because it burns cooler and much cleaner than conventional gasoline.

True you do lose about 20-30% efficiency on fuel milage. But, it is said to increase your HP and your torque

Gearbox,
without a conversion kit to tell your engine how much fuel to run through the injectors you most likely will ruin your engine.

I was hoping to find someone who has already done that with a 05 or comparable civic engine to save me the concern. I may need to just do it... I'll do more investigating first and let you all know so civic owners have an example. This may take several months.

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

i would check out ecomodder.com and search around. there are many ethanol related posts and maybe they can help you with a conversion.

sdaidoji

iTrader: (1)

darksouljour...
you got that completely backwards...
putting alcohol in a petrol car will make it loose power, run crappy and in the long term corrode all your parts in contact with it.
putting gas in a alcohol car will destroy the engine in a short time. (higher compression required to burn the higher octane rate fuel).

Steve,

interesting info - did not know it was easier to get that in midwest. Can a minor buy it?!?

sdaidoji

iTrader: (1)

taltho,

it seems you did some research.
I would still try to contact honda (Honda Brazil might have some info on that - no, no ethanol run civics in there), but depending on the oil prices, they mix up to 25% ethanol in the gas... (yeah, bad... but that's my loved country...). Therefore, I suppose the civics assembled and sold in Brazil should have some kind of more resistance for corrosion or an altered ECU program?

Another point is that as stated above, the higher compression required is the other thing that might botch your plans. In the carbbureted cars, they ran around 10.5 to 11:1.
The FI i think was capable of running 11 to 12.5? they will run happier, but you will not be able to promply change fuel anymore. I remember seeing some running 14:1, but not sure how long it ran.
That also means using 1 to 2 points colder spark plugs as well.

I might be wrong on some of the numbers. Have been a decade i was transferred to US, so not sure of the details and they are not in honda brazil site or any of the other manufacturer sites. No, contacting them directly might not work - they seem to be all in portuguese...

DarkSouljur

Lol thats what some guy told me, i didn't believe it though

taltho

http://www.change2e85.com

These guys claim that my civic will last 3 times as long using ethanol fuel.
They sale conversion kits that will allow my civic to run 100% of either gas or ethanol fuel or any combination of the two.
kinda hard to beat. I talked to a rep from their company and he claimed he has run ethanol in his 98 civic 2.2L car for 4 years and has 250,000 miles on it and it runs as good as new. He had a mechanic change something on his head, I think it was a seal, and the mechanic said it was the cleanest engine he had ever seen.

Of course these are just claims. But, it does back up all my research so far, I think I will go for it as soon as I can.

sdaidoji

iTrader: (1)

good luck.
my comments on downsides still stands...

johndeerebones

True you do lose about 20-30% efficiency on fuel milage. But, it is said to increase your HP and your torque

That is contradictory. Ethanol makes less mpg because it has less BTUs than gasoline and around here it is only like $.30 per gallon less. Big deal. You also cannot run it in anything that isn't designed for it. Obviously you have taken and loved the liberals koolaid. Ethanol is a joke. Especially from corn, not only has it increased my grocery bill, there is more methanol to be had from sugar beets and switchgrass. No Americans will pay a premium for a car that gets less mpg AND MAKES LESS HORSEPOWER.... Tell them to give you a dyno chart that proves that... Same car, year and everything, 2 of them....

taltho

johndeerebones
sdaidoji

You guys may be right. Since I cant find anything to validate the claim on-line I must assume something is up, or at least question its validity.
Although, I am still willing to try it. The reason why is that I can acquire a licence for free and make it myself for about $1 per gallon or less. And, as long as it doesn't kill my car I save $$, sure beats $4.00 per gallon of gas.
True I do need to spend time to make it but, if I can sell it to some friends I'll be doing great and, with a licence it is legal.

genghis1

You should read the book "Alcohol can be a gas" about making you own fuel. Here is a link to info:
http://www.permaculture.com/

taltho

Thank you for the added info. I've been studying this very book for about a year now. I'm glad to see others here are also aware of the book.
I'm looking for living examples to verify its claims.

If you look on my original post I point to the web site. http://www.alcoholcanbeagas.com

Edit: I wanted to add a link to this vid... http://www.ehow.com/video_4754499_conver%u2026 just some extra clarification for what its worth.

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

most of the guys i knew in IL said they preferred running gas to ethanol in their flex vehicles. these were mostly truck guys, but they said it made acceleration worse and gas mileage stayed the same. the only thing the ethanol did was reduce the "black smoke puff" when you mash the gas, which they seemed to think was a negative thing lol. i assume there are other factors you need to consider as well like elevation, humidity, temp, etc. over in the midwest, e85 was just about the same price as gas, usually $0.20 cheaper. but if you can make usable ethanol for $1 a gallon, it sounds like a good idea. sure beats driving to the gas station.

as soon as they come up with a better electric car that goes over 100 miles per charge, im dumping combustion engines forever. its such a waste and there are way too many problems with all the "stuff" under the hood. every year the companies are bent on making them even more complicated. pretty soon if you look at it the wrong way something will break.

Shift-E

The Chevy Volt looks extremely promising as long as it's used for inner city driving and not long trips.

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

that was a purposeful fail on gm's part. they made it to prove that hybrids don't work so they can go back to making gas engines instead. its way overpriced, who would buy that for $40k lol even with the tax rebate its still well over $30k and most people would buy any number of better cars in that price range. sure it can go all electric for a very short distance, but the gas engine still turns on every so often otherwise it would go dead like leaving a car sitting for weeks in the garage. the tiny gas engine is less efficient than most cars on the market now. so you are still using gas even if you only drive 20 miles a day. it does have some cool technology in it, just bad implementation. gm was able to build the EV1 over 10 yrs ago and that was an awesome car. people were lining up with cash in hand and no complaints. it was fast, looks decent, good range, no parts to replace except the tires, brakes, and suspension. too good in fact that gm was basically told, get rid of those cars if you know whats good for you and stop all the research. i wont get into the details but gm screwed themselves big time back in 1996 and they are doing it again today. no progress will ever be made so long as they are afraid of the big oil companies watching.

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

the gm EV1 was even light years ahead of the first honda insight, which was pretty good in itself. this car goes completely all out, it has the lowest CD of any modern car including the prius, it was designed with pure aero in mind, the technology they put into this thing is better than anything we have now including the huge fail from nissan. the ev1 is a technology marvel esp for its time. if they stuck with it and improved it, i cant imagine what their latest model would be like, since the car was already near perfect back then. and their stock wouldve been thru the roof. look at just some of the features this car came with. solar glass, electric brakes, heated front windshield, heat pumps, i mean this car had stuff on it i never even knew existed. and it was using lead acid batteries! imagine what the car could do now with how light and aero it is using a new lithium battery pack! scrapping this car was biggest fail ive ever seen in my life.



before anyone knocks the looks, which imo are really sleek, everything was done with a purpose. a CD of 0.19 would be unheard of on any car today. i bet that thing glides on the freeway and sounds like youre sitting in the garage with how quiet it would be. i highly recommend watching the movie, "who killed the electric car" and you will be even more upset about this than i am.

taltho

Well, ethanol is still a viable option until the big Corporations quit usurping America from "We The People".

The technology available today is far beyond the internal combustion engine period.
All "We" can do is make due with the available resources "We" do have. Ethanol is a great direction to go in in ascertaining our Freedom with what 'We" are are given by "Them".

Controversial I know but, it's not "electric" because "They" have successfully taken that away from us... just watch Who Killed The Electric Car.

I hope this has not offended anyone... all I'm saying is use what you can to free yourself from the burden of big oil corporations; all they want is power and money... from "You" and from "me".

Shift-E

There are so many technologies (Not just in cars) that get scrapped because they are too good to give people. Stuff that is literally mind blowing, no one will ever get to see because the higher powers do not allow the people to know just how capable they are.

But hey, maybe that's just the conspiracy theorist in me :P

taltho

Maybe its not a theory. Humm...

While I'm getting political; VOTE RON PAUL FOR PRESIDENT 2012! And make ethanol work for you. I'll figure it out and be an example.

Shift-E

Maybe..

sdaidoji

iTrader: (1)

ahhh, the flex.
the problem on them is that they are made to run gas too, so there is just not enough compression to run ethanol properly :P
corrected that, they will need to run only higher octane fuels, though.

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

anyone remember firestorm spark plugs? ofcourse not because all the plug manufacturers shat themselves after finding out they last forever and never wear out. not to mention +50% mpg increase if you tune the engine to run lean with them, which is entirely possible since the plugs are so good.

sdaidoji

iTrader: (1)

not true, if the compression is right and the fuel/ignition map is right, they do make more power but consume more. Less energy per weight of fuel means they inject more (cause of worse MPG). But the stechyometric ratio is different as well, and since they have higher octane ratio, they NEED the higher compression to run well. If they do not have these 2 items, they will not run at its optimal condition.

heck, don't even know why i am explaining this. I just searched in wikipedia and they are saying the exact same thing anyway, so here goes the link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol...-based_engines

Oh, yeh, here goes one quote of the wikipedia:
"The Brazilian 2008 Honda Civic flex-fuel has outside direct access to the secondry reservoir gasoline tank in the front right side, the corresponding fuel filler door is shown by the arrow."


1980's article on the full-ethanol cars being developed at the time:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green...ered-Cars.aspx