# E85 and the 2.0t....



## DJNastie (Mar 19, 2009)

i was sitting on my toilet tonight dropping the cosby kids off at the pool when i had the most outrageous idea. (i do all my thinking the toilet as most guys do)... What if i were to run e85 in my car. I currently have a GIAC 93 oct tune, but if im correct the ecu will self adjust. I live in illinois and we have plenty of E85 stations around and i know the power possibilities are pretty intriguing. I was wondering why no Software manufacturers have tried to do this yet. if im correct all fuel lines need to be steel braided and if may again go out on a limb our hitachi HPFP are ethanol resistant. i would love to use e85 at the track but like i said im kind of hesitant to do so. anyone wanna chime in?


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## Krieger (May 5, 2009)

you would need bigger injectors and a better HPFP and maybe a better LPFP. you need more E85 to get the same amount of energy in every combustion cycle than you do normal gasoline.

if im not mistaken someone ran e85 (rracerguy?) on stock injectors and it was ok till higher RPMs where it sputtered or something.

this has been talked about before, so the info is out there.


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## asrautox (Sep 9, 2005)

DJNastie said:


> i was sitting on my toilet tonight dropping the cosby kids off at the pool when i had the most outrageous idea. (i do all my thinking the toilet as most guys do)... What if i were to run e85 in my car. I currently have a GIAC 93 oct tune, but if im correct the ecu will self adjust. I live in illinois and we have plenty of E85 stations around and i know the power possibilities are pretty intriguing. I was wondering why no Software manufacturers have tried to do this yet. if im correct all fuel lines need to be steel braided and if may again go out on a limb our hitachi HPFP are ethanol resistant. i would love to use e85 at the track but like i said im kind of hesitant to do so. anyone wanna chime in?


None of the chip tuners want to *waste* their time writing an E85 tune.. You'll need 30% more fuel capacity...


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## [email protected] USA (May 17, 2007)

asrautox said:


> None of the chip tuners want to *waste* their time writing an E85 tune.. You'll need 30% more fuel capacity...


It is true in a sense, but not wanting to "waste" our time on "an" tune is a hair off. 

It isn't "AN" E85 tune it would snowball into 10s of thosaunds of E85 tunes because you can't just tune one. If we did the 2006 GTI/jetta file we'd have people wanting the 2007 gti/jetta file which is completely different, if did those two we'd have to do the 2008 gti/jetta file again different. Then what about the stage 2, 2+, 3 and 4 tunes for all those? What about eos, passat, a3 A4?What about 1.8ts? what about VR6s? what about 2.7ts? 

Then another big factor is that tuning for a fuel that requires 30% more is basically like tuning for different injectors, you are almost starting from scratch like you were VW and this was 10 years ago and starting to test some new engine. One of the hardest parts of doing like a stage 3 tune is getting all the cold star right, idle right etc with this different then stock volume of fuel. But you also aren't really starting from scratch you have ot make it work with what exists.

This means it wold be a HUGE undertaking, while one or two people may be willing to pay another couple hundred bucks for it most would not and it would actually probably put a company that put serious development time into it out of business as the market is tiny. 

Also what do you do when you get to an area with no E85? our cars are not equipped to handle compensating for the full range of standard to E85 fuel to cover that roughly 30% difference in required fuel volume. While depending on the type of switching a company does you could go between straight E85 or straight gasoline possibly, that period when it was mixed not much you can do about it. 

I love the idea of E85, there are ways to convert and run it, but as a mass produced software solution in this market, not really feasible.


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## asrautox (Sep 9, 2005)

The scooby and evo guys do it by tuning off of a base map for each specific car. Not feasible for VAG cars, I know, but if I were a tuning company I'd do a beta run by offering a single tune for say all 2006 cars. Since the fueling would require an upgraded HPFP, I'd only offer it as an upgrade for the stage 2+ cars... Users would also need a SPS/+ to be able to swith back to pump gas.. Sounds simple to me..


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## [email protected] USA (May 17, 2007)

asrautox said:


> The scooby and evo guys do it by tuning off of a base map for each specific car. Not feasible for VAG cars, I know, but if I were a tuning company I'd do a beta run by offering a single tune for say all 2006 cars. Since the fueling would require an upgraded HPFP, I'd only offer it as an upgrade for the stage 2+ cars... Users would also need a SPS/+ to be able to swith back to pump gas.. Sounds simple to me..



Just using our system as an example.. but the SPS would do nothing to allow you to switch between standard and E85 fuels. 

I see some possible logic in the 2+ only but what 2006? A3, A4? which a4 ecu? eos? gti? passat? which country? 

I can't speak for others but we don't have the resources drop everything which is what that would require to work on it.


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## asrautox (Sep 9, 2005)

I thought you could do map switching with the SPS. As far as models just the A3 and GTI please.. It's pretty obvious that if you buy an A4, EOS, CC, or Passat, you don't really care too much about going fast..


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## [email protected] USA (May 17, 2007)

asrautox said:


> I thought you could do map switching with the SPS. As far as models just the A3 and GTI please.. It's pretty obvious that if you buy an A4, EOS, CC, or Passat, you don't really care too much about going fast..



06 A3 and 06 GTI would require two entirely different tunes. This is really my point.. none of these are the same.. each car, year, transmission in some cases and even state would require starting from the beginning. So we get 6 people just to throw a number out with 06 GTis and regular access to E85 in enough regions to properly test for all conditions over a year period, then if that happens to work we start that ALL over again with each car? I don't see how you think that is a good business plan. 

Depending on application, lets just say 06 gti to focus, switching with an SPS would not accomplish what is needed for in its current state. 

Lets say it COULD do it.. (it sort of could maybe be made to do it).. thats starting from scratch on that too and then again and again for each year, trans, state, etc etc..


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## asrautox (Sep 9, 2005)

[email protected] said:


> I don't see how you think that is a good business plan.


I think it's a good business decision because:

1. I don't believe you when you say two cars would require a completely new, start from scratch, tune. They are the same engine with the same fuel system. There has GOT to be some caryover.

2. Being first to market is always an attractive proposition. It sounds likely that you don't have the extra time to do an official study, but how many stage 2+ tunes have been sold? Is it ~100, 1000? Don't you think there's also a chance to attract new customers with competing tunes?

I realize that this horse is already dead, but when your competitors are out there offering the same thing at the same price, there are only two ways to gain market share. You can either cut margins and reduce your price (likely to start a price war), or you can differentiate your product..


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## [email protected] USA (May 17, 2007)

asrautox said:


> I think it's a good business decision because:
> 
> 1. I don't believe you when you say two cars would require a completely new, start from scratch, tune. They are the same engine with the same fuel system. There has GOT to be some caryover.


So the guy who works for one of the top software tuners doesn't know? They are the same engine, same fuel system, heck they are the same engine management, however to make things fun VW changes the tuning every year. Heck when they go from a software level of 20 to 40 on the same year same ecu ID number and they change it up. So no what works on an 06 doesn't necessarily work on an 07 or an 08, or even different models of hte same year. Sometimes they are the same or close, most of the time they are not. VW does a recall and we basically have to start over. 




> 2. Being first to market is always an attractive proposition. It sounds likely that you don't have the extra time to do an official study, but how many stage 2+ tunes have been sold? Is it ~100, 1000? Don't you think there's also a chance to attract new customers with competing tunes?


You haven't paid much attention to what happens when you are first to market in this industry have you? First to market is met with you rushed it, you cheated, you didn't do it right, you didn't carefully study it enough etc etc.. First to market is not necessarily a good thing. 

Is it good to attact new customers yes, is there money in E85.. nope.



> I realize that this horse is already dead, but when your competitors are out there offering the same thing at the same price, there are only two ways to gain market share. You can either cut margins and reduce your price (likely to start a price war), or you can differentiate your product..


This is a constantly evolving market with new vehicles hitting the streets every few months that require us to already dump all our resources into that and start again. So yes others are offering the same thing at the same price (sort of) but after a few years thee are just minor updates here and there so if you cut prices you aren't really cutting margins as much of the initial investment has been recouped. If you are a company and you can spend 500 hours developing software for a new 1.4 turbo motor that you'll sell 20K flashes for or you can spend 500 hours developing E85 software you will sell only a handful of, which is better from a business stand point?


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## asrautox (Sep 9, 2005)

[email protected] said:


> If you are a company and you can spend 500 hours developing software for a new 1.4 turbo motor that you'll sell 20K flashes for or you can spend 500 hours developing E85 software you will sell only a handful of, which is better from a business stand point?


No need to insult my intelligence, I'm not f-ing stupid. I am actually quite sucessful in my business and have been known to have a knack for realizing gains in emerging markets. It sounds to me like you are just resource restricted, but I'll ask you this, if you had a team of engineers with nothing to do and your existing organization had your new developments covered, what would that team work on?


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## [email protected] USA (May 17, 2007)

asrautox said:


> No need to insult my intelligence, I'm not f-ing stupid. I am actually quite sucessful in my business and have been known to have a knack for realizing gains in emerging markets. It sounds to me like you are just resource restricted, but I'll ask you this, if you had a team of engineers with nothing to do and your existing organization had your new developments covered, what would that team work on?


Settle down dude, that was in no way even remotely an insult to your intelligence. 

Everyone in this market is resource limited and with the constant evolving of new engines and management systems from the manufactures there would never be a team of engineers sitting around doing nothing. If we did or if anyone else did I'm 99.9% sure they would throw them at working on a whole new model line such as BMW or mercedes or even some domestic stuff well before E85 was even considered. The time spent vs the possible number of flashes sold is significantly more favorable for trying to break into a new market compared to E85

If you just want to take existing products we all make as an example stage3, not profitable. Fun, yes, exciting, yes, profitable not really in terms of income vs time spent. For every 100 people on here who say build it and I'll buy it about .001 actually do. Companies like ourselves and others produce it because people want to look forward and dream, it is not a money maker. That however is something people aspire to work towards so they do buy your stage 1 and stag 2 in hopes to one day buy stage 3. There are people who want E85 tunes yes, but between the limited availiblity of the fuel even in the US, the limited global availability, and the fact that only .001 of that previously point .001 would actually come forward and pay for it means it is a known loss. There is no marketing ground to gain from it and there is no profit since you would never recoup your investment. You stated you run a successful business, do you regularly start on projects/products that you know will cost you 10s of thousands of dollars to develop that you know will never be made back?

For E85 to truly be a viable option in this market a very tiny tuner/firm would have to probably work on it. Most of the time they are doing one off stuff anyway and are not trying to stay on top of brand new emerging engines and management systems. They are not trying to cover 100s of applications on a global scale that constantly require updating. The time spent would be great just as it would for any of the larger companies but it wouldn't be time taken away from other more profitable projects. If they were successful simply due to their smaller scale the demand for coverage would be only a fraction of that us larger companies would have. This smaller firm or person though would also be less likely to have a means to go between standard fuel and E85, so E85 would probably be constantly required. 

Someone big may jump out in the future and say here is our E85 tuning, chances are unlikely.


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## DJNastie (Mar 19, 2009)

i think we got a lil carried away with all this.... my original idea was to use this at the track. since a car that is tuned for e85 vs a flex fuel car, the e85 tuned car will always be bettar and more efficient. look at bentley in their gt. you can run straight e85 in that thing and get almost 200 more horsepower. with minimal modifications it seems too. My only reason to run this rather than k-1 race gace (all we have from here and its from marathon) which may i add is 6.65 a gallon here. but when i drive by an e85 pump its almost a dollar cheaper than 93. does anyone get what im getting at?....


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