No not for a drag car ( obviously... being tpi ), just to have for precautionary measures if oil gets too expensive/scarce. What all would it take as far as fuel delivery? I've got a spare lb9 I would rebuild and have as the power plant under it. All I'm really looking for is what would be necessary to deliver the fuel, would 10:1 compression be enough with the lb9 cam, would the 02 sensor still work. I know it would be a nightmare to tune but is it possible to retain the efi?

 

Alcohol has roughly half the heat content of gasoline by volume; so you'd need to be able to deliver about twice as much. 36-40 lb/hr injectors, twice as much fuel pump and lines; and of course, all would need to be made of a material that is impervious to alcohol.

Yes the O2 sensor would still work.

More compression would be possible and desired, but not necessary.

A gas tank that would hold twice as much fuel would be good to, so you don't have to fill up twice as often.

Given all of that, I don't think tuning would be too tough.

 

And remember that alcohol combustion creates a bit more pressure than gasoline combustion, albiet at a lower heat. Like a hydrazine engine that creates almost no heat (relative to gasoline), alcohol combustion byproducts produce a greater volume of gasses than gasoline combustion, therefore raising cylinder pressure via a different method. Because of that, you can safely raise the compression pressure to levels that would be unhead of for pump gasoline. And you would need to do that to get peak efficiency from the alcohol and keep the necessary fuel flow volume low enough to be practical. Like RB said, you'll be using more liquid fuel for the same utput power without tailoring the engine to alcohol, and even then liquid flow will be a bit higher.

Too bad we can't throw a little hydrazine in the mix. Then again, being able to breathe is always an advantage.

 

Where can you even get alcohol at? I know tracks usually sell it but how much is it a gallon?

 

So I would assume that this conversation would be relevent for E85 too?

I would like to be able to run E85 here as it is usually 10-20 cents cheaper than 87 octane.

So from a TPI perspective, would the fuel system handle it? What seals would have to be changed?