by capev86 » Mon Nov 29, 2010 5:59 pm
dodge dabbled with E85 cars in the early 90's. the only dodge non-turbo 2.2/ 2.5 with mpi in the states was the flex fuel vehicle (ffv) Spirit. they took a 2.5tbi motor, added the turbo intake manifold and electronics, reworked the engine internals and used more corrosion resistant materials, notably the all stainless version of the turbo fuel rail (have one of these for my k car project). other items were a plastic fuel tank and a special sensor near the tank to tell the electronics what exact mixture of fuel was being pumped to the engine to make for proper running. another cool thing is flex fuel injectors flow the equivalent of +20% injectors that the aftermarket makes for the turbo cars.
what all these "green" preaching people fail to realize is ethanol has 1/2 the combustive energy of gasoline, is more corrosive, harvesting takes a lot of energy, and the fuel has a short shelf life. regular gas lasts for years, but this new junk gums up fuel injectors faster, corrodes fuel systems on older vehicles and gives you less power resulting in the burning of more fuel to get the same amount of performance. it's like spending big bucks on a brand new Prius when you could buy an older 4 cylinder Camry, Civic, etc and reduce the demand on resources. it is counterproductive to replace a vehicle that works perfectly fine (scrapping programs). ok...now i feel like a spokesman for SEMA