I was wonderng about geting a prius and then equipping it with one of the EV kits so i ccan commute on electricty. But if i need to go longer than its battery range, ill still be using gas, so do you think i could use E85 in the engine, or will it mess up? can i make modifications and THEN use E85 ?
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(emuman @ Apr 5 2006, 04:21 PM) [snapback]235505[/snapback]</div> currently the Prius is not designed/programmed to support E85. I know that it can handle E10, since all modern cars can. It may be able to support substantially higher blends (perhaps up to E20) but I don't know if there are any studies that confirm this. Eventually I'm sure that it'll be flex fuel and that the transition will be easy. My understanding is that many modern cars can be converted. It sounds like it's primarily a software modification.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ Apr 6 2006, 01:38 PM) [snapback]235872[/snapback]</div> I thought fuel lines and fuel tanks (Prius' bladder) would be issues too?
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ScottY @ Apr 6 2006, 02:09 PM) [snapback]235885[/snapback]</div> Yes, the lines would have to be replaced (ethanol is somewhat corrosive), and the bladder would have to go (and rot in hell), and a new tank would have to be installed.
from what I've heard it only costs about $100 to convert a car to flex fuel. I know that in the 70's there were significant issues with ethanol in cars. I figured that it was an engine timing adjustment issue primarily because E85 is much higher octane than regular gasoline. I'd love to axe the bladder though. That makes the whole thing even more appealing.
There's an ongoing discussion at the Yahoo! Prius_Technical site on this. Apparently someone in Sweden's running on E85, but not specifics were given. And, as stated, the programming is not set up for E85, you'll get error codes. Also, the BTU content of E85 is about 30% less than that of gasoline so your FE will go down significiantly.
