I was out in the yard working my year long fix up project (which has taken the place of the Camaro project during the heat and humidity), looking at the state of my Walnut trees and a lady drove up in her SUV and stopped and wasn't sure how far the next gas station was. I'm in the boonies but urban adjacent, and it was a long haul to the next gas station so I gave my lawn mower gas to her so she could make it. I noticed her cap was yellow and said E85. I hadn't gave thought to E85 in a long time. Has anyone built a Chevy inline 6 to run on E85 exclusively to take advantage of a higher compression with its higher octane?
I know manufacturers try to scare owners off from "evils" of E85 in a car intended for 87oct Regular "E10". I'm not really sure how corrosive gasoline fuel tanks, fuel lines, fuel pump, carb and valves are to the "evil" Ethanol? But it wouldn't be uncommon to replace all of those on a build anyway.
E85 vehicles are computerized flex vehicles that are designed to run on 87oct but sense which mixture of Ethanol is flowing through it and adjust richness and spark accordingly to run with an 87oct compression ratio. And as such you never get the full benefit of the E85 octane. If you had a consistent reliable access to E85, you could build a non-flex E85 only engine, but I haven't noticed anyone doing that? For me, I'm in corn country with corn rows as far as I can see from desk, and surrounded on all sides by it.
