Ethanol

[Craig Childs]

Hey guys



My Trac is capable of running E-85, and I have a couple of E-85 ethanol stations out where I live, and at 40 cents cheaper than unleaded (give or take) I would really like to switch over to save a few dollars per fill-up. I am curious as to what, if anything, I need to do to make the switch over to ethanol, or E-85, whatever the correct term is. Do I need to do anything differently than on a usual fill-up of unleaded, or should the computer recognize that ethanol is running through it?



Any help or thoughts would be appreciated

Thank you and Merry Christmas

 

[Benjamin Feinstein]

You do not need to do anything different for E-85. However it will burn faster so you will probably end up paying the same over time.

 

[shawn stonbraker 2]

As Ashaman said, you don't need to do anything different. The computer of the ST will notice the difference and adjust. The downside is you get worse MPG's out of a tank with E85. May save you money, may not.

 

[Michael Cacioppo]

Craig E-85 has less energy per gallon than straight gasoline. It may be cheaper to use straight gas if the mpg differential between the two, Alcohol is just a farm subsidy.

 

[Jim Luttrell]

Hi there,

I've been using E85 for monthes now. You don't have to change anything at all. I do use the Xcal2 with E85 tunes from Mr. Torrie. It improves the way the trac runs on it, but it's not essential. If you're going to run E85 to save money, your going to be disappointed. You WILL spend more money in the long run, even with the better tunes. My trac got about 17 MPG on gas, with the E85 I get about 14MPG. That's almost all highway miles too. Money is not the reason to use E85. Anyway, I hope you try it & like the idea, but don't bother if you want to save money. It's actually more expensive.

 

[Michael Cacioppo]

jimstarcn, what are you really saving with E-85? It is my understanding that E-85 is not piped around the country because of some technical reasons. That means that is is shipped via tanker which uses gas or diesel fuel. To make and harvest corn we use a lot of petroleum products. Food prices are higher because of the conversion of corn to ethanol. If you really add everything up I believe you will find that more petro is used in making E-85 than you supposedly save.



I'm not against alternate fuels, but E-85 is not one of them. It adds up to a farmer subsidy.

 

[Gavin Allan]

E-85 takes more BTU's to manufacture (often from burning fossil fuels) than it delivers. It is just a subsidy for BIG CORN, just like the corn sweetner BS that the government forces upon us.



Did you know that the US Dept of Agriculture is the LARGEST FEDERAL AGENCY in terms of # of employees and # of square footage of office space? Did you know that agriculture accounts for 2% of the jobs in the United States?



Farmers are getting screwed by their own government that siphons all the profits off and gives it to the middlemen.



We all get screwed by this huge waste of government spending.

 

[Brad B]

Do your homework on ethanol. It wastes one resourse to save another. I'm talking about WATER. Where I used to live in Kansas, the ethanol plant used more water per day than the town of 5,000 where I lived. They added on to the water storage capacity and the water treatment plant to accomidate them. How stupid. For 40+ jobs. The government is so blind about this whole program. The water lost in production doesn't even make sense for the environment. Ethanol will NEVER compete with oil in the production of gasoline. It takes too much acreage to produce the grain. None of it makes sense if you look into it. My guess is that in 5 years ethanol will be a thing of the past. If you want to be green, we need to look for another energy source.

 

[John Turner 3]

I agree with the others...as much as I like the Sport Trac (107,000 miles and counting on my '01 Job One), if you want to use alternative fuels you'd be better off buying a diesel and using bio-diesel. E85 is a huge scam. People will say "but it works in Brazil" and that is true, but only because Brazilian E85 is made from sugar cane, not corn.



Also, by using E85, you're just driving up the price of corn, which in turn drives the price of food up. Corn is in everything most people eat.



Unfortunately, in Blue Oval Land, "diesel" means "Super Duty" which means an additional $6,900 for the PowerStroke option.



The F-150 is getting a diesel for 2009 MY, though. From what I know, it is not going to be a Navistar diesel, either, so maybe it won't cost an extra $7,000 to get it.