This past month I've received many letters regarding E85 (ethanol). Ethanol is similar to the grain alcohol you may have spiked the punch with back in college. In its E85 form, it's a 15-percent-gasoline/85-percent-ethanol blend that can be made from many renewable resources, such as corn, sugar cane, wood chips, corn husks, and other agricultural waste. Unlike gasoline, it reduces carbon emissions by more than 80 percent, while eliminating sulfur dioxide emissions, which lead to acid rain. Currently GM, Ford, and Chrysler have over 5 million flex-fuel vehicles on the road, and the Department of Energy predicts that ethanol could put a 30-percent dent in America's gasoline consumption by 2030!
If you haven't already noticed, GM has a big push on right now, "Go Yellow." If your vehicle has a yellow gas cap, it's a flex-fuel vehicle that can run on both gasoline and E85. Remarkably, the ECU can sense the ethanol content in the fuel being used and change the calibration to accommodate it. Unfortunately, ethanol (or alcohol) has a much lower BTU content than gasoline, so you'll consume more, getting less mileage, than running on petrol. However, for us hot-rodders; ethanol has an octane rating of 105! Wow! At 105 octane you could raise the static compression to squeeze that ethanol to extrapolate greater heat out of the fuel. You could build a smaller engine to consume less volume of fuel. Between the smaller engine and squeezing it harder to get more power, maybe we could have our cake and eat it too. Will these engines be flex-fuel? No, but they claim that the infrastructure is going into place to make E85 readily available across the country, and the price is coming down. Just think, we won't be considered those pesky hot-rodders who don't care about the environment with our clean-burning, powerful engines. What a concept!
To find out if your vehicle can run E85, or to locate E85 stations near you, go to e85fuel.com.
Weenie RoastQI recently had an engine built for my street-driven '63 Chevy Impala SS. My problem is that I'm getting spit-back through the carbs during initial take-off, usually around 1,000 to 1,500 rpm. Eighty percent of the time the spit-back is black smoke, the other 20 percent there are flames. I have rejetted the carbs until my spark plugs burn a light chocolate-tan, reset the intake manifold twice with new gaskets (I don't think it is a vacuum leak with 5 inches of vacuum at idle at 750 rpm), compression-tested each cylinder (showing 132-136 psi across all eight cylinders), and have the timing set at 10 degrees initial with a total of 34 degrees at 3,000 rpm.
Here are my engine specs: '79 350 four-bolt 0.030 over, 10.1:1 Lunati pistons, standard crank, Lunati 00013 solid cam with 256/270 degrees duration at 0.050-inch lift, and max lift of 0.500/0.515 inch. I have Lunati 1.5 roller rockers lashed to 0.028 inch at operating temper-ature. The heads are stock steel with 2.02/1.60-inch valves. I'm also running a Weiand Tunnel Ram mani-fold, Hedman headers, and two Holley four-barrels (0-9776 450 cfm with mechanical secondaries, 0.062-inch jets, and 6.5 power valves). I'm also using an ACCEL electronic distributor with a matching coil.
All of the above parts are new, the carbs are rebuilds from JEG's, and I'm utilizing a B&M 3,000-stall torque converter. The trans is a TH350 with 3.73:1 gears in the rear, running on 93-octane Exxon pump fuel. Any thoughts?George MunasWheeling, WV