Currently the turbo'd Honda was running 14 lbs of boost on 91 octane pump gas (that's premium in KC) and even at 14 lbs I had to pull a ton of timing out the motor from about 5250 RPMs and higher. In fact look at the dip down on this timing table. This is the secondary table for when VTEC kicks in, only a portion of this table ever gets used hence the small area modified
![Image](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-VlhvwP5EfcU/UOiZHIAAd1I/AAAAAAAACDw/QC2EXUbrmbQ/s1280/timing-vtech.jpg)
I'm going to install water/meth injection in the next few weeks so I can add timing back in and turn the boost up but figured hey why not go put in some E85 and see what that's all about.
So I threw a couple gas cans in the trunk, grabbed my laptop and headed off to the gas station. Filled up my two cans and proceeded to drive around the city and burn out the remaining gas. Who would have ever guessed the dang car had such a huge reserve once the fuel gauge hits the E red line. Granted it gets over 30 mpg but sheesh took me over 100 miles before it ran out lol. So by now it's 9pm at night and I finally strand myself on the side of the highway in the middle of no where. A very uneasy feeling not knowing if I can even tune a car for E85 or not. So I dump the E85 in the tank and break out the laptop and much to my surprise it was really easy. I just added 40% to my fuel maps and the car started right up and off I went. Wow that was just to easy. I quickly noticed it was a little on the rich side because it was still mixed with some 91 so I had to pull about 10% fuel out.
Immediately I could tell a difference. wow the car pulled really hard on e85. I use boost by gear and rpm so I can get traction in all gears and it was ripping the tires in 2nd and 3rd on the same boost settings. I added the timing back in I had previously pulled and bumped the boost from 14 lbs to 18 lbs wow did the car come to life. Also not the slightest hint of detonation as monitored by my J&S Vampire. I was really impressed. I can definitely see why people love E85 for performance cars.
I also noticed after hard highway pulls when I let off the car is about 170F where as on 91 it's always around 180F this time of year (about 30F outside) so it runs cooler too.
After I burned off that bit of mixed gas I filled the tank on E85 and had to add about 12% back into my fuel so I'm spraying about 42% more fuel on E85 than I did on 91 pump gas. Over here in KC on that night 91 cost $3.22 and E85 was $2.72 so that makes E85 only 15% cheaper than 91 but it burns 42% more so that makes it 27% more expensive to run E85 over premium. I think in the long run for a daily driver the water/meth on 91 is the way to go.
So anyhow wondering if others play with E85 too? It's definitely great stuff.