Originally Posted by
Tinker1980
However, when gas costs $4.50 a gal and E85 costs $2.90 a gal... the E85 comes out noticeably cheaper over an entire tank. As for performance, the truck's engine pings a bit under load with 87 octane, but absolutely doesn't ping at all, ever, on E85, and it has noticeably more power.
Wow. Yeah, if E85 is THAT much less expensive, I would run it in my (flex-fuel) vehicle too. I don't pay much attention to E85 costs because I don't have a flex fuel vehicle. But I think it is nowhere near that much less expensive than 87 octane E10, around here. I'll try to notice next fuel up.
However, I question your buttometer. If the E85 gets "more worseter" mpg than 87 octane, my instinct (which could be wrong) tells me the E85 should be yielding less power too. However, there could be an exception. If your vehicle is pinging / knocking on 87 octane, it could be retarding timing to lessen that and it will lose power due to retarded timing. It might be that you'd have to run several tanks of 87 to work the timing back to advanced. Or it could be that it may never run full advanced timing on 87.
But an interesting post, in any event.
7milesout
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View my fuel log 2020 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 42.4 mpg (US) ... 18.0 km/L ... 5.5 L/100 km ... 51.0 mpg (Imp)