I've seen YouTube videos of people running non flex fuel vehicles on E85. These are fuel injected engines.
The fuel cap on my mower says not to use anything above E10.
I haven't seen E85 in awhile around here. Not sure if I could even find it if I wanted to. There are some conflicting sources on the internet as to where to get it.
The question is, if a non flex fuel vehicle can run on E85 what would happen if you ran E85 in a lawnmower? OHV engines with an 8.5:1 C/R.
I know pure alcohol has an octone rating of 114. Don't know about E85.
I know engines with lower compression ratios don't like high octane fuels.
It's my understanding that ethanol is not what's hard on engines, it's methonal or wood alcohol that damages rubber parts.
Ive been running my carbed vehicles on E10 for years with no problems. Even my old 68 Ford will run on 87 E10 .
Looks like a project for that Project Farm guy on YouTube.
My son and I build a 9 sec 1/4 mile Eclipse Awd. It was fun but a real pain to tune. You can not tune a lawn mower engine like a car engine. You will be wasting your time and an engine.
Edit:
We had to replace every price of rubber fuel line in the car. From the fuel tank to the injectors. E85 is hard on fuel lines. We also had to clear the E85 out of the system if it sat for over 14 days. We lost a few sets of injectors before we figured that out.
Besides making the fuel line "alcohol proof", the stoichiometric mixture ratio for E85 is 9.7 as opposed to 14.7 for gasoline, so you need to somehow increase the fuel flow in the carburetor for the same amount of air flow. This is why it's easier to do with fuel injectors. Alcohol also tends to absorb water from the air and cause corrosion.
