e85

has anybody ever used e85 in there pulling tractors was curious to see how it ran or what it did when pulling? thinking about using it because it is free times cheaper than racing fuel

Alcohol is very harsh on aluminum and rubber parts plus you would need some way to rejet the carburetor since it takes approximately twice as much E85 fuel to run properly. Now IF you add all this up, I think you might not think race gas is so high after all.

(quoted from post at 10:49:38 07/18/14) has anybody ever used e85 in there pulling tractors was curious to see how it ran or what it did when pulling? thinking about using it because it is free times cheaper than racing fuel

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At the last antique tractor pull I attended, I'm pretty sure ALL of the pullers were using E85. Didn't need to talk to any of them. All I needed was to smell the exhaust.

Rubber fuel lines have been able to handle ethanol fuel for at least 40 years now, and there is nothing else in a tractor carburetor that can be affected.

E-85 will create considerably more torque than gas. It made a big difference in my stock cube, fairly low compression (8-8.5:1) tractor. You may have to increase float needle seat, idle and main jet sizes to get enough fuel. This is where it is nice to have a carb with removable jets to do necessary mods and tuning. The trouble is that quality of pump E-85 varies widely (if it is available at all). It is not user friendly below 50 deg and watch for oil dilution.

run it in mine only thing it hurt was cork gasket on sediment bulb made new one out of cow ear tag

i use it. loves compression, makes good power. i use it as octane booster in my favorite pump gas. alot, wanna run it straight, and can have issues, but, never have when mixed with 93 octane.
not many fuels avail to where you can find the perfect octane. burns cleaner and cooler which helps in hig compression situations where a lil cooling effect from the fuel can bring down engine temps.

E85 is great if you know what you're doing when you
try and run your tractor on it. Obviously it is a
lot cheaper than race gas and is nearly as high in
octane, but it takes a lot of time and experience to
make a tractor run well on it. There is a guy here
in MN with a nasty 300 that runs E85 and he said it
took years of trial and error to get it right. His
work has now payed off, but he told me if he had to
do it all over he would have run race gas.

It does not take double,about 40% more,but carb needs a lot of modification to work well with pure E-85,idle circuit is where most problems are,drills can fix jets,but other areas need work too.Timing needs adjustment,compression helps,it is not methonal.

Check out this info on different fuels...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_gallon_equivalent
That first column is how many gallons of whatever fuel it would take to have the equivalent energy of a gallon of gasoline. It makes it pretty obvious that E85 does not have as much energy "per gallon" as regular gas. BTW: The higher the octane on gas, the lower the energy per gallon as well. Octane only raises it's flash point or ability to resist detonation. E85 is very high octane, higher than a lot of "race gas", but you don't get as much energy. Now, if the E85 is about 30% lower price (or more) then it will be cheaper to run than "race gas" (maybe not after converting everything over). However if the years of race motor building I've been a part of, I've always run the lowest octane I could get away with (without detonation), the lowest weight oil I could get away with (while maintaining proper pressure)(lowers internal friction and drag), and the hottest running temperature I could get away with (without damage)(heat is energy). These are a few things that are often misunderstood by racers/pullers/hot rodders and the like.

So, would I run E85? Heck yes. I love the fact that I'm supporting local economies with my purchase, and if I built my motor to utilize E85, you'll make way more power than with regular gas, possibly more than a built motor with "race gas", but not as much as a diesel.

Hope this helps!

Thanks for reading!