d-man

I like diesel.

I still don't believe in the whole ethanol thing though.

t_cel_t

doesnt that new M5 5L v10 have no throttle,i think it just has continuesly varying lift and timing of the valves to rev it?

also i read the new honda motors, when at light load-low throttle, the ecu opens the throttle all the way and then reduce the lift on the valves.

TorganFM

Sugar prices have stayed relatively the same over the last 50 years, so as gas continues to go up making Ethanol from sugar becomes more feasible. I'm either going to jump all over that ---- or acquire some property to grow feed corn or something, but then that mash requires enzymes and pH balancing and ----. Sugar alcohol is straight up gangsta.

What makes diesels more efficient isn't actually the fuel, it's the cycle. The whole cramming as much air in as possible then injecting the fuel at the last second and having it controllably spontaneously combust is where the magic happens. If you can do that with something like alcohol, which you can run super lean because of the cooling properties and the oxygen being in the molecule, you get a ton better efficiency with a different fuel, and you probably won't have outrageous EGT's either. Ethanol ftmfw.

bluerex

Has there been a whole lot of any demand for sugar for ethanol production in the last 50 years? Do you seriously expect those prices to stay relatively steady?

I know around here they just had to close up a brand new (less than a year old) biodiesel plant due to soybeans skyrocketing to an unheard of $10/bu - and that's with a perfect season and large harvest.

TorganFM

No, there hasn't been. Usually corn is used for Ethanol. I'm not saying our economy is going to be based around sugar based alcohol, it will always be from corn because we can grow corn here and we can only grow cane sugar in a few states. What I'm saying is I would like to make my own alcohol for fuel for everything... my cars, my trucks, my lawnmowers (especially the racer), possible home heating, etc. I need to sit down and check how much it costs vs other fuel costs. I wasn't saying at all our country will make alky from sugar, I was saying I wanted to personally. If I end up where I want to in my older years I'll be able to grow my own damn sugar cane.

Current avg price = $.43 a lb for sugar. From 100lbs of sugar you can get about 10gall of alcohol/water you can use as fuel in an auto. So $43, plus some cheap yeast, plus some lumber to heat and distill, plus reusing the left over sugars = at the very most expensive you pay $4.50 a gallon for high detonation resistant alcohol. And that's buying sugar at retail, and yet it's so much cheaper than buying "race fuel alcohol" from your local speed shop or whatever. The most expensive part of the setup is making the still, but even that can be done with ---- ungalvanized steel barrels.

TorganFM

Also what's so tight about alcohol is you don't need to run at stoich. You can push that ---- seriously lean and not risk detonating or melting stuff, you can correct most of the lost fuel mileage.

bluerex

Enjoy your cheap E85 while it lasts. I wouldn't bother making corn ethanol - it's not going to be cost effective. Now if you're talking biodiesel and algae, we're going somewhere.

TorganFM

Corn prices have already shot through the roof. Maybe this will be more incentive to get America back into farming, since a lot of American farms have failed recently.

bluerex

Explain. I don't know of any farm land round here not being planted with corn or soybeans.

Bottom line: biofuels from corn or soybeans = tough-gay

tman6919

yeah I cant really explain how, but I can guarantee you ethanol is here to stay. The rular/farmer vote means everything in this country and politicians will bend over backwards and take it up the *** to make them happy. All that means to me, the end consumer is that there will be a lot of cheap/subsidized ethanol available for at least the next decade. I dont really care about net carbons or corn/celluloce/sugar ethanol, It's cheap race gas, and it could possibly be more efficent than gasoline with the perfect engine

check out this 300hp/975lb torque detrioit diesel ethanol conversion that gets 60% the millage of the diesel engines, better than gasoline though
http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/pdfs/adm_cs.pdf