wondering about E85 what I need to do to my fuel system  

Falcon67 I hear what you are saying as I buy my E85 in South Carolina it doesn't change much but we did fill up a 55 gallon drum of the stuff for that very reason. The seasons almost over so what's left over will carry us over into next season at least until we are sure we are getting the same summer blend. No matter, with an air / fuel ratio meter all that is needed is a minor jet change if the mix is not the same and your right back to making the same or more power as you were on your base line. If you want to stick with methanol that's up to you but I'm not milking up my oil at all or polluting the air we breathe nearly as much and I'm supporting the American Farmer at the same time.  

I prefer to have a technical understanding of things before diving into them. The facts say that E85 will significantly lower your mileage so depending on that you may not save any money at all when switching to it, SO WHY DO IT? I don't understand people when they want to ignore the facts.








Who says he is ignoring the facts? The facts that are influencing my changing to E-85 are, as far as I know, the only place to get 110 oct around here is about 20 miles away near our local strip and costs around $6/gal (last time I checked).
Yesterday E-85 was $2.43/gal where I live. So the pros greatly out weigh the cons.
$2.43/gal.
More power from high comp.
Helps keep the air clean.
Supports local farmers. (not to mention the American economy)

So I am swapping the pistons in my Pontiac as I type, and gonna order that 6-71 pretty soon. And at less than half the cost of 110, I'll embrace that 20-25% decrease in mileage with open butterflies.  

You keep telling yourself its supporting the American economy because it's "support" is insignificant. Grain fuel cannot and won't replace petroleum fuel in this country and currently has very little effect on the entire oil spending "spectrum." I'm a firm believer that local farmers don't really need anymore support either. Here, some large-scale farms receive nearly $100,00 a year in government subsidies. I think there are other classes of people hurting more, but that's a whole other story...

There are several ethanol plants being put up very near to my house and it's very interesting to see how difficult it is for the local power companies to get power to these rural plants. These plants need DEDICATED SUB-STATIONS to function. These are the same sub-stations that power small towns in South Dakota. There are only 20 sub-stations within 200 miles of my hometown yet this plant needs one to itself!

It does not make any sense to me that we would use a fuel that requires THREE TIMES  more volume than gasoline. How logical is the thinking that we are saving money if we grow the fuel but we use three times as much of it. If the country puts more demand on the growing of grains (maybe to actually put a dent in petroleum usage), how is the growing going to be able to keep up? It won't...

I'm not denying the advantages of E-85 to performance rigs, the high octane rating is advantageous but for the everyday drivers it's not practical.  

If you are intested, there is an article in this months Hot Rod (I think it is Jan 07) that talks about ethanol.  

As far as being able to replace gasoline, it probably isn't practical in the United States.  If you look at Venezulea, who use alot of ethanol, they have two growing seasons a year and make it out of sugar cane, which gives a larger amount of ethanol per acre of crop planted than corn.  Another problem is that it requires alot of water in the distillation process, which can make it hard to build plants in places in the southern U.S.  

Even with the subsidies, most farmers don't make any more money, or even as much, then the average american.  Especially when you consider number of hours they work.  And unless you want food shortages or really high food prices, farmers do need support.  But like you said that is a whole other story.  

Sorry it is Brazil, not Venezulea.  

The scary thing is that the price of oil will probably drive up food prices more than a "cut" in support for farmers.

Agreed, small-scale farmers here suffer but the incentives are for large-scale farms. The larger the farm gets, the more government money is given, and the more profit and the less competition.

I can't imagine the hours are too strenuous considering the limited growing season in much of the country...

The energy crisis is definitely a crisis, one that I, or I don't believe anyone else has an answer for. It's interesting you bring up the usage of water distilling corn. With the water usage, electricity usage, and the fact that it takes three times as much for a complete burn can ethanol really get us anywhere? I seem to doubt it, but i guess many disagree with me. The usage here is just so great that I believe we're going to out pace any other natural resource available that could "save us."  

I have seen various reports from companies and interset groups that calculate how much energy it actually takes to make a gallon of ethanol.  The amount consumed to produce ethanol is anywhere from half of the energy that is recovered to 2.5 times the amount recovered, according to the source (funny how that works, almost like they have agendas).  From what I know about farming and looking at these reports, the ones that look the most accurate (in my opinion) show that if you add up all the energy used to grow, transport, produce, and distribute a gallon of ethanol, it takes at least as much, if not  50% more, energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than you get out of a gallon of ethanol.  

That being said, it is being used as an alternative for MTBE as a anti-knock additive in gasoline.  This and as dedicated race fuel seem to be the only economical uses of it if you consider the government subsidies currently given to makers to produce enough of it to warrent flex fuel vehicles.    

I'm not saying that it can't be the answer, but the current technology isn't efficient enough to solve our dependence on foreign oil, even if dedicated ethanol vehicles were produced to take advantage of its high octane rating, which will make it more economically viable.