E85 and My Car

As I mentioned in my first post, I drive a 2004 Grand Prix GT, with the 3800 Series III engine. This is definitely a non-FFV (not "flexfuel"), but I would like to run E85 anyway, given both high gasoline prices, and I much prefer to give my money support local farmers than OPEC.

So it begins - two days ago, I put five gallons of regular 87 octane in my tank, and then pumped in five gallons of E85 on top of that, which ends up being about 50:50 E85:Regular in my tank (not counting the little bit of regular left in the tank).

Why 50/50? Because in my online reading, there were quite a few posts of people who run 50/50 without any trouble, no check engine light, etc - many more than the two or three that said they run E85 all of the time without trouble. From what I read, most non-FFVs can go up to 50/50 without throwing Check Engine Lights due to the engine running lean.

The American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) actually took apart a non-FFV that was run for 100,000 miles using almost all E85 - and it looked great. No cracked/rotten fuel lines, the engine looked great - anyway, you can judge it for yourself: http://www.ethanol.org/video/

As for my car, so far with 50/50 E85/Regular, I have had absolutely no trouble. It fires up fine every time, and runs like a top. I haven't gotten any Check Engine Lights, or any other errors. I want to say the car runs a little "peppier", but that's not really scientific, so take it with a grain of salt.

I'm going to pick up a new fuel filter and air filter, so I can replace those soon. One universal word of caution: running E85 in a gas tank that has run nothing but cheap gas will kick up all of the crud in the tank, which can start to clog your fuel filter after about 600 miles. I've read this a lot, and the general consensus is to replace the filter after running E85 for 600ish miles.

Going forward, I'm going to run a couple more tanks of 50:50 E85:Regular, replace the fuel and air filter, and then start checking gas mileage. Once I have a baseline for gas mileage, I'll begin increasing the amount of E85 until a) my car dies - hope not, b) I get an error light, or c) I make it to 100% E85 and everything is peachy keen.