Omega Owners Forum
Omega Help Area => Omega General Help => Topic started by: capoMV6 on 05 June 2009, 01:51:51
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I need your advise. Here in the Philippines ALL unleaded fuel contain 10% ethanol. By 2010 it is said that all fuel will contain 85% ethanol. My question is how safe is ethanol for our Omegas? My ride is an Omega MV6 3.0 V6 Automatic.
Appreciate your feedback. Thanks and cheers.
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Not sure what affect it will have on an Omega but it delivers a lot less power:
'Ethanol has approximately 2/3 the energy content of gasoline. Vehicles running on E85, a mixture of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline, routinely see a 20-30% decrease in fuel economy/gallon'
I started looking around the internet on this and opinion is somewhat divided! The green camp is shouting loudly that any car can run on E85 , that its good for the environment, but that we shouldnt use it as it takes up crop growing space.
Then we get to the science bits. Depending on what you read any fuel injected car will/wont run on it and will/wont be damaged. So basically there doesnt seem to be a clear answer for this one.
There are cars specifically designed to run on E85 , from what I can tell they seem to have uprated injectors and a different ECU map.
I think a quick email to Vauxhall/Opel is the only way you will get a definitive answer
One thing that many agreed on was that running on up to 10% ethanol was no problem, but E85 they couldnt agree on
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Actually you can get more power out of ethanol because it has a higher octane rating meaning you can run higher compression / boost IIRC. An engine designed for petrol won't gain from this though.
You have to pour much more of it into the engine due to the energy content, as you rightly say, being lower.
To run properly on E85 a car needs to have a totally different fuel and ignition map. Furthermore, because it can end up running on a variable mixture of fuels depending on where it is filled, E85 cars are normally fitted with a fuel quality sensor which alters the fuel delivery depending on the amount of ethanol detected. They will also typically have faster flowing fuel injectors to cope with the increased fuel demand.
Certain materials in the fuel system react badly to ethanol so it might be necessary to change hoses, pumps, fuel rails, even the fuel tank.
I don't doubt that it'll run on E85 unmodified, but it'll be a very disappointing drive at best, and run dangerously lean, melt valves, leak fuel, etc. at worst.
Kevin