Alcohol conversion

Scorpio1963

Scorpio1963

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Yeah this right I havent lost mind well maybe I have but its not relevent to this question.
What changes have to be made so we can run alcohol based fuels on our bikes?With high that regular unleaded gas has become its makes running E85 a cheaper alternitive.Or even pure grain alcohol.
I thought about cng but with the the big tanks you have to carry you would need a trailer behind you to pul with a hose that connects to the engine.Theres also not many cng filling stations and milege isnt that great.
I owned Buick Lasabre that was cng /gas hybrid a I remember getting 80 miles out of 40 gallon tank.
So what about alcohol is it a good idea or not?
 
The petcock gaskets, fuel line and all the rubber in the carbs would have to be replaced. The brass jets in the carbs would probably have to be replaced. And I think the carb bodies wouldn't like the corrosive nature of the alcohol either. And you'd have to jet richer for alcohol. And alcohol has less energy than gasoline, so your mileage and power would suffer. And the ignition timing would have to be advanced. And... Is that enough reasons to not consider this any further? :)
 
Scorpio1963 said:
Yeah this right I havent lost mind well maybe I have but its not relevent to this question.
What changes have to be made so we can run alcohol based fuels on our bikes?With high that regular unleaded gas has become its makes running E85 a cheaper alternitive.Or even pure grain alcohol.
I thought about cng but with the the big tanks you have to carry you would need a trailer behind you to pul with a hose that connects to the engine.Theres also not many cng filling stations and milege isnt that great.
I owned Buick Lasabre that was cng /gas hybrid a I remember getting 80 miles out of 40 gallon tank.
So what about alcohol is it a good idea or not?
Click to expand...
If your intent is to reduce fuel cost I can't see this to be worth the effort. on average I've been getting about 60mpg. A good full day outing can be done for under $15. Pretty cheep entertainment by today's standards.
 
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
But if you want to be able to make your own fuel, start collecting old fryer oil from restaurants and making bio-diesel in the garage.
You might have to custom build a bike around one of those 3 cyl turbo diesels out of a wrecked "SMART" car - there must be some.
But if you made enough bio diesel to run your own car or truck, then you'd have money left over to buy gasoline for an old bike without mods.
The possibilities are endless!
 
There is a company in UK fitting small diesels to old Enfields. They get 200 miles to the gallon (that's not a typo, it really is two hundred). Don't go very fast, though.
 
I remember a guy with a diesel xs650 on ebay. He could not give that thing away:laugh:
 
Converting a gasoline engine to run on Diesel is a waste of time. Just consider the crap General Motors brought to market in the mid-seventies. The North American market still hates Diesel engines today because of them!

There are a few ways to get better fuel economy from a bike:
1) Aerodynamics - Our bikes have none, so go slower. Or get a fairing and windshield.
2) Smaller engine - would anyone actually consider this?
3) less weight - our bikes are around 400lbs, so unless you are willing to invest lots of money into composites or exotic metals, go on a diet.
4) Fuel injection - a DIY FI system will cost about the same as our bikes are worth...
 
Track has shut down. :( I looked into them in the fall. They had a dealer in British Columbia. $24,000CDN for the base model, plus shipping and taxes, and no dealer support network. I decided not to risk that kind of money on an unproven bike with no support, and I'm glad I stayed away because I'd be making payments for another 4.5 years on a bike I couldn't get parts for!

It's too bad, because I liked the look of that bike and the specs were impressive.
 
The specs and last pictures of those bikes are awesome and proove that this can be done with deisel but not alcohol.So deisel looks the way to go and with new invoation and engine design its seems like the right direction to go with.Like as mentioned spending 25k on a bike you have no mechical or dealer support stinks.Its like all these people driving the newer model saturns like veiws before GM closed that division down.Since its been proven that making a deisel engine bike can be feasable I bet in the near future someone else will start over where somebody left off at.
 
You can convert to E85 pretty easily. Sure, some plastic and rubber parts will deteriorate, but you can replace them when they do (which won't be fun as you'll have a gummy mess to clean out). However, they will last longer than you think they should.

The main part of the conversion is increasing the size of the jets. You need a lot more alcohol in the fuel/air ratio to have it burn correctly. Replacement jets or drilling them out will work. You'll need to trial and error that, but there are websites that can put you in the ballpark. You'll have to trial and error the idle mixture setting too.

Now here's the real problem. If you want to save money. You won't.

Right now, where I am, the average E85 price is $3.21. The average regular gas price is $3.79. "Wait, that 15% cheaper for the E85. How will I not save money?"

Easy. If you adjust your carb correctly so it runs right, you will use 30% more fuel, more if you use pure alcohol.


The real advantage of alcohol fuel (E85 or otherwise) is the increases knock resistance and cooling effect. You can run sky high compression ratios and make more power with alcohol. However, raising the compression ratio isn't easy (probably the easiest is milling the head, or you could get custom pistons). Also, once you get the increased compression, say goodbye to ever using gasoline again.

Finally, even though E85 is currently 15% cheaper, in the past year there have been many times when it has actually been more expensive than gasoline.

I'll pass on this one.
 
I have a an E85 refinery very close to where I live and the price is $3.15 compared to unleaded regulat @ $3.88 for now but also with a market the can fulctuate a 35 cent increase in 1 day with no stability.E85 cost doesnt fluctuate in price like gas does.You mentioned alcohol running high compression engines are they using fluel injection or carbs and if carbs are being used what material are they made of so they dont deteriorate?The only problem I see is replacing the diaphrams and fuelines and gaskets be a challenge.IF you use marine grade rubber fuel lines that would overcome the obsticle of alcohol.If can be done on engines used for racing such as dragsters surely it can be done with bike engine.Just think how bad ass it would be having blue flames coming out the exhaust:laugh::D
 
So with the prices you stated, you will save around $2.20 at each fill up. Assuming you got the same mileage as running gasoline. And you won't, as HoughMade pointed out. Running alcohol is a false economy. And don't forget that when gasoline and alcohol are burned together, one of the major byproducts is formaldehyde. That is why the exhaust fumes burn your eyes, throat and nose. We use formaldehyde to preserve our dead. I'm not dead yet, so I'd rather not breathe it!

Is it really worth all the trouble?...
 
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