"Flex" fuels vehicles

I dabble in embedded controllers, and what embedded controller person doesn't at times think about their car's engine computer?

Ran across this online, figured some would be curious to know how flexible "flex" fuel cars can be...

"Flexible fuel vehicles use a sensor to determine the percentage of ethanol in the fuel mix (which varies not only with the season and location, but also with the relative amounts of E85 and gasoline in the tank at fill-up) and adjust the fuel injection and timing to suit the fuel. Understanding these sensors is the key to using E85 with MegaSquirt."

"The frequency of the signal indicates the ethanol percentage. The output frequency is linear with respect to the percentage of ethanol content in the fuel.

50 Hertz indicates 0% ethanol, and 150 Hertz indicates 100% ethanol."

"The processor inside the sensor is capable of some self-diagnosis. An output frequency of 170 Hertz indicates either that the fuel is contaminated (or contains methanol which it should not), or that an internal sensor electrical fault has been detected. Certain substances dissolved in the fuel can cause the fuel to be contaminated, raising the output frequency to be higher than the actual ethanol percentage should indicate. These contaminates may commonly be water, salt, methanol, or some other substances."

Well, well, so it's "Bio-mass or bust", huh? No Methanol from coal or paper waste or what have you. Only what the Greens decided... or maybe it's an engineering compromise. Aint' sure which.

In any case, your "flex fuel" car won't run on Methanol without some modification. Too bad.

From http://www.megasquirt.info/flexfuel.htm

Gene

My 2001 Ford Ranger pickup is a flex fuel vehicle. You can identify Ford flex fuel vehicles by the little green leaf emblem on the tailgate.

This is my second Ranger. They've been wonderful trucks, I'll probably get another one when this one reaches the end of its life.

-Mark

The usual issue is finding E85 to "flex" with. I like info and E85 locator on www.fueleconomy.gov.

Gene, I was interested in your post. I had not thought how the engine "knew" what mix was in the tank. I know deep (deep, deep) down you are worried about CO2 emissions! Cut 'im, and he bleeds green...

Ive been a big booster of my flex fuel Mazda p/u but now the EPA has killed the price advantage by legislating an ethanol shortage in the form of fuel blending.

It might be an engineering compromise. I have always thought that methanol was a better solvent than ethanol, and it is just possible that methanol would react with components in the fuel system.

More likely is that the properties of metanol differ from ethanol, which differs from gasoline. Table 3-1 of Taylor and Taylor, The Internal Combustion Engine shows that the chemically correct fuel air ratio for gasoline is about 0.0670. For ethanol, it is 0.111, or about one and a half times as much fuel per unit of air. For methanol, the ratio is 0.155, or about twice that of gasoline. The lower heating value of gasoline is about 19,000 btu per pound, that of ethanol is 11,550 btu/lb, and methanol is only 8,600 btu/lb. It takes more methanol per pound of air, but it gives off less heat than gasoline. It may well be that the injection system cannot put enough fuel in to get anywhere near full power out of the engine. Obviously it might be possible to oversize the injection system for methanol, but then it might not work well enough for gasoline.

Thermo1

Guys,
I am constantly entertained by the banter about 'flex fuels' and other oddities. I have a tractor that was built in 1937 that runs on gasoline, kerosene, distillate, methanol, ethanol, turpentine, and a few things I really do not know what they really are. It takes the average boob about three minutes to adjust the system. Spark timing is changed with the turn of a lever and the magneto automatically advances 105 degrees afterward. Intake temperature is changed in about ten seconds with one wrench. Fuel ratio is changed with no tools, in about ten seconds. It ain't got no computer, but it still whips most modern tractors on the dyno and pulling track. It put 21 SAE horses to the ground and 32 horsepower on the power takeoff, on kerosene. Today's tractors use more fuel, per hoursepower hour, and are lucky to get close to those figures on a similar size unit. SAE horsepower is at 1000 RPM and must be done for four hours steady, with barometer correction overlap. The University of Nebraska performance tests are public record for all to read.

Four valves per cylinder was standard in 1917 on Twin City machines. Lean to rich intake systems were married to that same engine. It was like dual overhead cams; a gimmick that looked good on paper. Two plugs per cylinder and dual offset ignition were offered from the twenties until 1989. Using waste heat to pre-heat liquid fuels was done by all in the twenties. Until recently most good fuel systems all used recycle pump systems and multi pass filters. Today's heavy trucks all do it. My Mother's 1967 Jeepster even had it. We dumped anything into the tank and it ate it. Again everything old is new again.

American Bosch developed self adjusting fuel/ performance ignition in 1935. They toyed with anti-knock in 1937. It worked well but the public thought it was unnecessary and refused to pay the twenty bucks extra for the system.

With all the modern technical innovations today; it amazes me that manufacturers can get away with the crap that they just 'can not do it' when it comes to fuel economy, performance, and fuel differential. They even cry about corrosive liquid fuels and cold weather problems. Perhaps they should go to a few museums and see how they did it long ago. The public is gullable or Detroit is really that stupid.

Most flex fuel systems, from what I read, monitor the exhaust gases and engine performance too. They then modify perameters to get the desired results. I beleive the American military will only accept this type of system. Look at the M1 tank, Osh-Kosh trucks, and heavy haul Texas trucks as examples.

Today I spoke to a fellow, in Gnadenhutten Ohio, that told me how he had to loan an external oil pump to AGCO corporation, so they could reverse engineer the thing. They did not have to worry about rights. AGCO is the company, that buried the company, that designed and built the pump, in the first place. From what I was told, AGCO burned seventeen trailer loads of prints from MM, Oliver, Allis, and other bygone relics. MBA logic rules. Yay...........

I neglected to mention that Minneapolis-Moline Twin City made most all the buses in the midwest too, with hall those features that they can 'not yet' perfect today. Perhaps computers and plastics hinder the thinking processes of Engineers?

Charlie Biler
www.molineparts.com

To me the simplest way to run any fuel with injection would be to use multiple injectors(probably one larger than the other), 2 per cylinder, the engine would fire both injectors for methanol, and one or the other for ethanol or gasoline. Figuring out exactly what fuel is in the tank...hmmm

Bill

Funny this pops up now. Just read a blurb somewhere in the past two days that stated "Ethanol production would hurt the water supply." This due according to the article because quite abit of water was needed in a process I think was referred to as "Wet grinding".

Because of this, water shortages blah, blah, blah would start to be a problem in the Midwest USA. Needless to say, I just shook my head. I tell myself you just can't win, too many people who have nothing to do but run around telling everyone the sky is falling!

Reminds me of the treehuggers that cried about diapers a number of years ago. Can't toss them away in the dump, don't use them, they cried, they take up too much room in the dump and they will stay around a hundred years causing problems.

But on the other hand, you can't use the old washables because then you would use too much water to clean them. Their idea was to just let the child crawl, walk or whatever and just drop the mess anywhere. I guess they figured that what the fly's were for? Chuckle!

Perhaps some of you good folks could light the way for me on a few questions? I happen to watch a program devoted to making sugar a while back. The last 15 minute segment was devoted to Brazil and their growing of sugarbeet. Part of the production was devoted for fuel in cars, the rest for sugar and rum I suppose. They pointed out how the auto producers were all down there building cars merrily along that used the both types of fuels.

My question is two fold, first, why is it that only corn is discussed when talking about other fuels and not sugarbeets. And two, why is it we don't see the same big companies(Ford, GM) pushing for the same thing here in the states?

Archer-Daniels-Midland is big in growing corn...

To make sugar beets price competitive, the import quotas and price supports on sugar would have to be removed. Many soft drinks (Coke for one) now use ADM corn syrup rather than sugar for sweetening. Go figure.

Charles

Brazil ethanol is from sugar cane, not sugar beets. Sugar cane requires warm temperatures, and can only be grown in Gulf Coast states and Hawaii. Sugar beets can be grown as far north as southern Canada.

I don't know much about current farm programs and sugar. I believe sugar and tobacco are the only crops with production quotas. This changes the availability of raw sugar for ethanol production.

Starch based ethanol (corn, wheat, barley, milo)got the jump because the infrastructure already existed to supply the starch. Also, Americans have been making ethanol from corn for over 300 years. Have to acknowledge the established practices, it is just a question of scale.

Raw material for starch based ethanol can easily be stored year around, and kept for years. Sugar cane and beets don't store well, and need to be processed almost immediately. This requires a huge investment in equipment that sets idle for 9 months per year. Brazil's tropical climate allows for more year around harvest.

Check out this hybrid motorcycle...

Fueled by baked beans!

Charlie,

Those technologies that you speak of were all developed in an entirely different era. Back then, small firms had a chance and could raise capital to put behind a new idea. Comeptition was firece and there was a lot of experimenting going on... not just to find the best engineering solution to a problem, but also the best marketing solution too.

Out of this peroid we have inhereted some "winners" and those guys are the only ones surviving. They were able to take the solution that was best at the time and use it to kill off there rivals. Then, once "destructive" competition was taken care of, they could focus on tweeking thier solution to the max... but with competition gone the insentive tin innovate was lost.

Perhaps when China finally decided to let thier currency float, and stops buying gobs of US debt (ie when the finally decide to spank our lazy asses) they will be kind enough to allow us to compete and perhaps even regain some of our former glory.

Until that time, true competition, like there was in the early 20th century is not likely to resurface. We are all just too comfortable... or rather, we are just to willing to be comfortable,and not really interested in doing the hard and scarey work of true innovation anymore.

B

Morse,

Too darn funny!

Charlie,
That tractor wouldn't happen to be Rumley Oil Pull would it?

Thermo1

Gbent,

Thanks for the info, never occurred that the sugarcane would have a short shelf life.
I perhaps misunderstood the program I seen on sugar as I thought they used the sugarbeet in the same manner as cane but now I think of it,I must have missed the part of just sugarcane they used in Brazil for ethanol production.

Thanks for the info!

I saw a news program this morning that highlighted Brazil's ethanol production. They said Brazil is totally independent of foreign oil due to their ethanol production. They produce it from sugar cane and it supplies 50% of their auto fuel requirement.

They have been working toward this goal for 20 years according to the program.

Bernard

I posted this to point out that the technology seems to only favor ethanol. Methanol is considered a contaminant. While you can make anything out of "syngas" methanol is pretty easy, probably easier than ethanol.

Thanks for the energy content post, Thermo1.

I wonder how much BTU per volume you'd get from methanol versus the more explosive hydrogen? The Greens favor hydrogen because it doesn't have any evil carbon, but I know from personal experience that little molecules leak easily and hydrogen likes to rise up and collect - where it can form explosive mixes in air.

I think methanol is a fuel for the future, at least until the battery technology gets good enough and cheap enough to replace IC engines.

In the "old days" vehicles could run on a wider variety of fuels. I'd heard about some tractors running on terpentine, "spirits" and low octane gasoline. Possibly one could make an engine "smart" enough to adjust to whatever you put in it. I don't know, I don't work with that kind of stuff.

Gene

Rusty,

Good questions ("My question is two fold, first, why is it that only corn is discussed when talking about other fuels and not sugarbeets. And two, why is it we don't see the same big companies(Ford, GM) pushing for the same thing here in the states?" ).

There was an interesting news piece the other day about Vinod Khosla's crusade to get Ethanol down around $1 a gallon or less. Khosla was a founder of Sun Microcomputer, then a successful (as in worth a billion) venture capitalist. Smart guy, probably hopes to simultaneously make more money and help free the country from Arab oil. Bottom line: preliminary research suggests just about any plant matter can probably be used with about 4x the yield of today's processes. Most efficient approach might be to put ethanol plants where they can use the waste products from other processes (e.g. use the rinds from orange juice processing, the waste from paper processing etc.).

So, why aren't we moving? Look at the top companies on the Fortune 500 list, starting with Exxon (oil), then Walmart (uses oil to move cheap stuff from far away places like China, which in turn are often made of oil -- plastics), through GM, Ford, more oil companies, etc. Even GE, at #7, has many business units somewhat dependent on oil (aircraft engines, power generation, plastics, railway engines etc.). We've had an oil-dominated economy for a century and it's ingrained in our thinking -- especially with the current administration.

Now is the time for a bit of political leadership (like, can you believe it, Brazil). We're stuck in a Catch 22 where the oil companies don't want to screw up their quarterly profits and bonuses; and no one wants to convert production to Flex cars, until there is demand. And there won't be demand until there is both more ethanol and stations that pump it. All fairly quickly solvable problems, given that Brazil is already doing it somewhat cheaper than gasoline, and folks like Khosla think we can improve the economics 4 to 5x.

I'm sad and angry about our present path -- every barrel of oil we buy has a cost to our balance of trade, quite literally selling the ground under our feet, lives in Iraq, and increased risks of all kinds from oil-dependent politics.

There are still issues with green house gases and global warming with Ethanol -- perhaps slightly less than oil according to one source. Maybe some here knows the entire set of pros and cons of moving fairly quickly to ethanol while working on conservation and other alternatives?

A little reality check about Ethanol...

You have inputs and outputs. Most farming in the US involves petrochemicals and fertilizers. These will be part of the inputs. Period. That saw grass and other stuff won't plant, cultivate, harvest and process itself. Someone has to do it, and we HOPE that they are mechanized. More inputs.

We also have "biodiversity" issues, land set asides, environmental impact. Gonna tell the Greens that the Spotted Prawn Snapper is gonna have to go extinct so Junior can drive their SUV? I don't think so!!

Much of the US has changes in seasons. That limits crop production.

In Brazil there is a fraction of the vehicles that there are in the US. Of that fraction less than fifteen percent are flex fuel cars. They are near the equator and have long growing seasons.

Much of the sugar cane in Brazil is harvested by hand. Like they've done for centuries. Anyone reading this list up for a career change, to manual agricultural laborer? Be easier to pick berries alongside the illegals than to harvest sugar cane.

What we're facing if we do it Brazil's way; Fewer of us driving, more of us straining in the fields like our ancestors did hundreds of years ago. The average person sitting on their sofa watching TV is not gonna cotten to this sort of future.

Meanwhile, the US has billions of tons of oil shale and coal, just sitting in the ground. Nobody is talking about liquifying that into usable fuels. The Nazis with their butts on the deck were able to make fuels from coal. So were the Afrikaners when nobody would sell them oil. I refuse to beleive that the US can't lead the way in fuel synthesis.

Oh yeah, I forgot... anthropogenic global warming. Two centuries ago it was Phlogston, today it's Gaia going crazy over "Greenhouse gases". It's all based upon computer models, the "Butterfly effect" and other junk science. Weather people can't tell you the track of a hurricane with certainty two days in advance, but these characters know that your SUV is gonna submerge NYC in 2100.

Of course nobody looks at who is bankrolling the Sierra Club and other "environmental" organizations. Big banks and Corporate Foundations. No conflict of interest there, no sir!!


Sorry, I hate to be scathing... I really think that the Ethanol boosters have NOT been thinking this one over. Growing ethanol from Corn. Keeping the price of ethanol high with a fifty four cent tarrif on every imported gallon. Mandating its use. S-C-A-M. The joke is on all of us.

We'll "do something" about the fossil fuel problem. I don't beleive that the Earth is going to grow bigger so we have more arable land, or that our growing season is gonna grow longer, or that some scientific miracle is going to get 100 percent ethanol from every ounce of plant material.

Ethanol isn't "the answer", it's not even a serious player. Just my opinion, and the fact that we've had access to ethanol for 10,000 years but never once used it for an industrial fuel on a large scale. For good reason.

Gene