Premium Fuel With 6.2L?

[jhbrennan]

On 11/27/2017 at 8:10 PM, youn1033 said:

So my question is: what are the problems with running e85 in a 6.2? If premium 91-93 octane is good, is 105 octane e85 not better? Are any 6.2L engines outfitted for flexfuel or can you retrofit one to be for a reasonable cost? E85 is about $1/gal cheaper than Premium 

Not sure what the design differences are but engines labeled "Flex fuel" were designed to use E85 - the 6.2 is not a flex fuel engine.  When you do your economic analysis of E85 v. premium don't forget to factor in a pretty significant mpg reduction - on my 2006  5.3 Avalanche mpg on regular was 18 while mpg on E85 was 12.  Not worth it in my opinion.

[Cowpie]

On 2/4/2016 at 7:40 PM, SouthpawHD said:

Since you brought up cleaner, that's not necessarily true. The production of E85 actually requires more fuel to produce than it gives, making it an energy negative. Just a little FYI.

Wow, how falsehoods continue to thrive in the world of the internet.

 

Actually for every BTU of energy input into ethanol production.... from planting corn, fertilizer, herbicide/pesticide, harvesting, transportation, distilling, etc, ethanol delivers 1.2 BTU of energy output for a net gain.   

 

Here is the complete report with all breakdown of costs associated with ethanol production....

 

 

and some will say that it is wasteful to use water to make ethanol that it depletes the available water supply.   Well, it does take water, but it also takes water to make petroleum fuels.  Almost as much as it does to make ethanol.

 

Neat little summary of how much water it takes to make various things.....

 

https://web.extension.illinois.edu/ethanol/wateruse.cfm

 

 

Edited December 1, 2017 by Cowpie

[Doug_Scott]

No problems that I've heard of.

If folks consider 91-93 octane "premium", what do you consider 105 octane fuel ? (that's E85 in case you didn't know)

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We call it "Unavailable" in Ontario. I heard stories that there was a station in Ottawa that had it, but they dropped it last year. Even if they still carried it, I would end using the entire tank just to get it. If e85 was really a wonder gas it would more widely distributed.
I expect e85 will go the same route as 3d tv.

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[youn1033]

18 hours ago, jhbrennan said:

Not sure what the design differences are but engines labeled "Flex fuel" were designed to use E85 - the 6.2 is not a flex fuel engine.  When you do your economic analysis of E85 v. premium don't forget to factor in a pretty significant mpg reduction - on my 2006  5.3 Avalanche mpg on regular was 18 while mpg on E85 was 12.  Not worth it in my opinion.

How is it possible a fuel with such higher octane got so much worse of gas milage..? 

[racetrk]

How is it possible a fuel with such higher octane got so much worse of gas milage..? 

Because higher octane does not equate higher fuel economy.

[scott.moody.9401]

How is it possible a fuel with such higher octane got so much worse of gas milage..? 

It has higher octane (detonation resistance) but lower energy content, so it requires more per energy output

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[truckguy82]

5 hours ago, youn1033 said:

How is it possible a fuel with such higher octane got so much worse of gas milage..? 

ethanol just has less energy by volume than gasoline. Basically you just need to inject more of it compared to gasoline. e85 is also cheaper by volume, so it kind of works out.

 

The knock resistance (octane) is just a separate metric altogether

[Cowpie]

Ethanol does have less BTU energy per gallon, but it has other characteristics that make it a very good fuel.  The problem here is that we are talking about naturally aspirated engines currently in production pickups.  Ricardo, a GM engine partner, took a 3.6L V6, beefed up the guts, used turbocharging, fed it E85 and it delivered the same power and fuel economy as a 6.6L Dmax in 2009. They tested it in several 3500HD's.  For some reason, GM never moved on it.  Cummins has a turbo 2.8L inline 4 that uses E85 that delivers as more torque than a 5.7 Hemi and better fuel economy.  Both of these engines, one can find a stack of stuff on them online thru searching.  

 

So when the engine is a dedicated E85 engine that is built to take advantage of the characteristics of the fuel, the full benefits of the fuel can be realized.   With our current flex fuel engines, they are built primarily for gasoline and ethanol is an afterthought, so the engines are not optimized to take advantage of the fuel.

 

Ricardo EBDI engine:

 

https://newatlas.com/ebdi-ethanol-engines-surpass-gasoline-engine-efficiency/10929/

 

Cummins 2.8L E85 engine:

 

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2014/07/20140714-ethos.html

Edited December 3, 2017 by Cowpie

[Ky Belser]

They should have the technology by now to make em run good on lower octane. If enough people would complain by not buying anything with that engine until they did it, it would be solved quickly. Alot of people on here obviously woukd not protest if they charged $10 a gallon or $100,000 for the vehicle. I have a 5.3 and would love to jump to a 2500 with a 6.2 but I'm not going to until they make it run on regular or get 23 Hwy ( or preferably both which they can).

[pronstar]

They should have the technology by now to make em run good on lower octane. If enough people would complain by not buying anything with that engine until they did it, it would be solved quickly. Alot of people on here obviously woukd not protest if they charged $10 a gallon or $100,000 for the vehicle. I have a 5.3 and would love to jump to a 2500 with a 6.2 but I'm not going to until they make it run on regular or get 23 Hwy ( or preferably both which they can).

The question becomes:
Does GM attract more customers than they’d lose by dropping the octane requirement, and losing 15 hp in the process?

I dunno the answer, but you can bet the bean counters have looked at this.


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[TJay74]

1 hour ago, Ky Belser said:

They should have the technology by now to make em run good on lower octane. If enough people would complain by not buying anything with that engine until they did it, it would be solved quickly. Alot of people on here obviously woukd not protest if they charged $10 a gallon or $100,000 for the vehicle. I have a 5.3 and would love to jump to a 2500 with a 6.2 but I'm not going to until they make it run on regular or get 23 Hwy ( or preferably both which they can).

 

 

They do have the technology, all it requires is to drop the engine compression ratio down to around 10:1 and pull the timing back and then you can run all the 85/87 octane you want to run, but dont gripe when the vehicle only has 325hp and 350tq. Who the heck owns a truck is worries about fuel mileage as a end all be all reason for owning the truck. If fuel mileage is that much of a bother but a economy car or if you need a truck with true towing/pulling power buy a 2500 with a diesel in it. 

We are about at the cap for what a gasoline engine can produce powerwise and still be able to get over 20mpg unless we have 10spd or more auto transmissions and trucks that only weigh around 4500lbs.

[Ky Belser]

I have contemplated this forever and have always had a pick up. I would not mind a diesel at all if fuel did not outrageously cost more than gasoline when it costs less to produce it just because of taxes. I guess I will stick with the 1500 with the 5.3 for a while longer at this point.

[hammong]

Around here, for most of the year, diesel costs about the same as premium unleaded gasoline.   The difference is the trucks that burn it produce 100%+ more torque.    Of course, there's that $7000+ cost differential and necessity to move up to 2500 to get it.   LOL. 

[Doug_Scott]

20 hours ago, Ky Belser said:

They should have the technology by now to make em run good on lower octane. If enough people would complain by not buying anything with that engine until they did it, it would be solved quickly. Alot of people on here obviously woukd not protest if they charged $10 a gallon or $100,000 for the vehicle. I have a 5.3 and would love to jump to a 2500 with a 6.2 but I'm not going to until they make it run on regular or get 23 Hwy ( or preferably both which they can).

Just because you can say it does not mean it can be done.  I have lived/worked through all the ways they have tried to get the power while meeting fuel economy and emissions numbers that were dreamed up before the technology required to meet those numbers existed.  I don't think the majority reading this remembers how it really was in the 70s.  Cars and trucks at times were just downright scary to drive in temps below freezing.  It was quite the experience when you would step on the gas at 30 mph and if you were not careful you came very close to bouncing your forehead off the steering wheel. 

The power and mileage are what we see as consumers, we do not see emissions.  VW proved that.  I still don't know how they managed to fail emissions with their diesels.  You never saw or even smelt the diesel. The early VW diesels were loud engines, the now gone current models were very quiet, that actually provided power and mileage numbers. 

[Black02Silverado]

Why automakers just don't make every vehicle FF capable and let the consumer decide what they want to run is beyond me.  The Technology is there and the cost is minimal if non existent.  For the most part the ECM already has the FF tables and the only thing missing from the vehicles is the sensor.  Heck the prices are already high considering for a new vehicle anyway.