I'm never getting away from E85. Its too good.
What I've found on MY CAR ( believe it or not, my fuel needs exponentially higher than a stock turbo car due too boost, rpm, and power I can not run more than E40-E45. At the current power level, I have the fuel system running at full on blast death kill murder and I can't ask for more than a 12.5 AFR at 6500rpm. If I do.... Say I ask for 11.00 ( which I have logs that show this ), I still get 12.2-12.5 AFR. It just can't keep up with that much E85.
Now with the extra fuel from the wmi, I fan ask for 11.0 and I get.... 11.0 with the fuel trims reducing output, not fighting to meet it. This is mostly to do with running a ratio of E85-80% and 20% water. I also saw no gain in power ( it actually lost power, which is what you'd think ). But what it does... Is it frees me to use say.... E50-E55, maybe E60 ( if I wanted to live on the edge at the track or something ), and the direct injection can handle it, and the gap will be filled in by the WMI.
It also means.... I have to monitor my 5500rpm+ AFR's more closely than I have been.
If the system fails.... If the tank runs dry, it will go lean and the stock fuel system will try and fill in the gap. I'd likely fall into the 13.5 AFR area, which is would prob just get hot, knock, pull a little timing and i'd say "WTF, why is it suddenly pulling timing" and I'd see it in a long. The real danger with a WMI system on this car will come when pushing the pump gas cars to the limit of 93oct, then pushing them to the limit with timing/boost on WMI. If the system fails in that case, the car will try to pull timing to save its self ( and prob would the first 1-10 times ), but its a much worse fate than running a little lean for a single gear pull ( unless that gear is 6th gear, lol ).
The X factor for me right now is.... Methanol.
Meth is actually much less fuel than E85 ( the same way E85 is actually much less fuel than Gasoline ), if you get what I'm saying. So while I'm filling in the gap nicely on E85, will it still "fill in the gap" on meth ? I've actually never seen this, but I've been told that running meth can actually MAKE YOU RUN LEAN. Sounds stupid, right? I guess the theory was that it reduced the charge temps so greatly, that the car ran LEANER via the cooler charge temps, then it did ran RICHER from the amount of meth injected. Crazy right...? IDK know about that. I don't expect to see that. But if I do... I have a big ace extra nozzle now, lol.
The idea behind this is.... 2 things for me.
#1 I can only run E40-E60 through the direct injection. Direct injection seems to really shine in the lower rpms, and all through the mid-rpms. It controls knock extremely well in those areas, essp with E30-E60 fuel in the tank. It seems to me.... That its not as perfect ( as least on this car ) in the higher RPMs where running it on the edge seems to expose some control issues. Fogging in all this fuel seems to have REALLY smoothed those issues out. HiJinx and i have been battling "spark blow out". Without a cooler plug we can use, and the gaps already down on the stock plugs, we have been kind of just waiting for an alternative spark plug. This morning ? Perfect. I have not felt the car run this smooth at 6,000rpm since it was stock turbo on OTS cobb tune and 2 gal on E85. It went from fairly consistent spark blow out, to perfectly smooth. My theory RIGHT NOW, is that its acfually not spark blow out at all. Its simply been mis-fires ( not knock ). Not a back fire. Just incomplete or failed ignition. Why its happened, I can't say. What I can say is... Its completely gone. The new Porsche GT3 runs direct injection to 9,000 rpms. But that's Porsche, thats a GT3, and its not turbocharged. I think maybe our injectors can't control its injection timing or something. Keep in mind... I'm really pushing this fuel system with setting and because of the amount of E85 I'm using. Its a ton of FLOW. Others may not have seen or experienced this because everyone else just throws in $14 per gal race fuel, and that fuel does not require an increase in fuel flow. It actually doesn't require any changes in the fuel system, minus making up for a little extra boost.
#2
The most E85 I can run through the direct injection is E45, right? How much E85 can I run through the WMI fogger ? 100% E85 !! Lol. If my direct injection fuel system could run E85, would i run E85 ? Heck yes. Maybe not all the time. But there would def be a finely tuned "E85 tune". But I can't. Running E85 through the fogger nozzle i'm getting 100% E85, not E45. The more of my fueling I get from the nozzle, the more of the total fueling comes from 100% E85, instead of E45. Understand what I'm getting at ? Right now, I'm seeing a peak of 17% of my fueling coming from the nozzle. That's a little too much for my liking. But the methanol will change that for sure.
This ECU is AWESOME. I've said it before, I'll say it again. The same thing about the cobb software. Its awesome.
How great is it that we can just set a target AFR, and the car hits it assuming it has enough pressures and flow to do so. Its basically zero tuning for the fuel side of WMI. You set the AFR in access tuner, let the WMI do its thing, and the ecu reduces its fuel injected to keep the AFR correct. And it does this almost PERFECTLY the first pull. Then second pull, its pretty much PERFECT.
If you followed some of all of that... Here is something just cool.
I made 250whp from 5800rpm+ this morning in 72degree, wet foggy conditions (humid, heavy air). It peaked at 258whp around 6300rpm I think. I'll post a V-dyno in a bit. The car has made better power, but not as smoothly, not over such a broad band, and it took much much cooler/dryer conditions to make those higher numbers (264whp).