convert 955 to bio fuel

[REGULATOR]

reading this thread http://tigertriple.com/forum/viewtopic. ... highlight=


reminded me of the desire I've always had to fire up a still and brew my own fuel,  or at least a percentage of it if I need to mix with some premium to make it work, does anyone have any expertise ?

   I can create the "fuel"   and I know a tuner that can tune the bike to run on whatever..  so I can see this as doable, does anyone have a car or truck that runs on E-85?  or has done a conversion?

   just in the what if stages now....


plus it gives me a legitimate excuse to have a Still  ( you know, biofuel research) 8)

[Nimrod11]

Regulator,

Wow, this is an old topic but I only saw it now.

Perhaps I can help a little. I live in Brazil and also work with using biofuels in other kinds of engines so can give you some of my experience.

For starters, here in Brazil, what is sold as "gasoline", is actually 25% ethanol and 75% gasoline. You can also buy pure ethanol at any gas station and most cars sold today are flex-fuel, so you can use either one or the other or a mix of any proportion.

The ethanol used in gasoline is "anhydrous", meaning is has almost no water in it. This is because when you mix gasoline, water and ethanol, you only have some proportions that are stable, while in other proportions you get a phase mix. I can perhaps find this for you.

The ethanol sold "pure" actually has about 7% water in it that is left over from the distillation process. When you ferment the sugar-can juice, you only get a low grade ethanol (something like wine) and the concentration is done by distillation. This kind of ethanol is the hydrated kind. To get to anhydrous ethanol, you then have to go through a chemical process that is quite expensive. You could mix hydrated ethanol and gasoline also, but you could, at lower temperatures, have the water separate.

The first piece of news is that my '04 Tiger runs on "E25" with no problem at all.

Most of the problems you would get is material compatibility. You have to be sure that hoses and other rubbers are compatible with ethanol. In the early 80s in Brazil, you would always have problems with this, since ethanol can eat through some kinds of rubbers. I would also be worried about the Tiger's tank. Gasoline here in Brazil also has some quality problems and quite freequently you find Tigers with bubbles in the tank due to fuel quality. Not sure how E100 or even E85 would effect the tank.

As for brewing your own fuel, I am sure that a lot of moonshiners have good qulity stuff so don't see why you couldn't also!

Let's keep the discussion going. Interesting topic.

Cheers!

[ChazzyB]

Let us know how you get on. In the meantime, this article may interest you about E10 in France. ;-)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/trave ... -fuel.html

[Nimrod11]

In the meantime, this article may interest you about E10 in France. ;-)

Interesting article, thanks!. But, as usual, a lot of controversy about something new.

I can tell you, there is no such drama. In the early 80's, when Brazil adopted 100% ethanol as fuel (and we had no flex fuel technology, it was either gas or ethanol), we did have some problems related to hoses and connectors. However, most of the problems were related to the diaphragm in the carburator and, by far the most common problem, was with the exhaust muffler. Since burning ethanol creates more water vapor than gasoline, in cold temperatures you can get condensation in the muffler. After a while, you get a nice hole and a noisy car. About a year after ethanol was intriduced, the noise level in the streets went up a lot! Of course, this has all been solved a long time ago.

As I said before, my Tiger 04 runs on 25% ethanol (the rider needs a little more - I offer a free caipirinha for anyone who travels down here!) and have had ZERO problems.

[Bixxer Bob]

A little off topic, but my fuel injected Honda Blackbird's handbook suggests it can run on ethanol mix without any mods and it's 10 yrs old.

[oxnsox]

Some good info here blokes...
Stay away from the caipirinhas :lol:

[Nimrod11]

Stay away from the caipirinhas :lol:

Only after a good day riding! :P

[jammed_stick]

Interesting topic.
I have also thought about converting my Tiger to E85 fuel.
The service manual for my Tiger (2006) says it's ok to use gasolin containing up to 10 % of Ethanol.
Nimrod says his Tiger works fine with E25, could it be due to the fact that there seems to be an Brazilian tune for the ECU (adapted for E25 ? ) ?
Found several Triumph tunes marked "Brazil only" on the Tuneboy tune download page.
A friend of mine converted a Volvo car to run on pure E85.
The conversion was quite simple.
He changed the fuel injectors to a larger size (40 % larger capacity at the same fuel pressure) and it works fine.
Problems noticed:
1) This is not a "flexifuel" conversion which means the car is unusable if filled up with gas. The ecu can't compensate enough if mixed with to much gasoline (it doesn't know it's running E85 or a mix of it)
2) Winter time : not easy to start up the engine due to cold-start behaviour of Ethanol.

 :idea: Get the specifications for the fuel injectors and try to find similar ones but with approx 40 % more capacity, replace the current injectors and then use a tune boy to fine tune everything.
Could work
Remember: This is an idea , do it on your own risk.

A Swedish motorcycle seller converted an Yamaha FJR 1300 to run on E85.
They state E85 is a little bit aggressive against rubber and plastics , otherwise an ideal fuel !

Check this link also for conversion units: http://www.change2e85.com/servlet/Page? ... conversion

[REGULATOR]

like I said,  discussion...  thanks for the details,.

  the race tuner that tuned my Rocket, says ethanol isn't bad and can actually run better in many engines...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48kbVf0h ... re=related

  check it out!!!   triumph speed 4 conversion!!
http://www.change2e85.com/servlet/Page? ... conversion

   like I said, with a suitable fuel source, I can tune the enine to run ( its not like its a race engine that I want MAX power etc from it, just run suitably on alternative fuel source.

     as far as the creation goes,  you can brew up some good stuff, and I can manipulate the quality to meet the need as I see fit..

the tank is a concern,  as its plastic, and I don't want to melt it...

[Nimrod11]

Ethanol will give gasoline a higher octane value when mixed. This is great as long as your engine can use this higher octane value by either increasing compression or changing the timing of the sparks.

Another benefit of ethanol, just for curiosity, is that when is was adopted 30 years ago, it eliminated the nead for lead in the fuel. Brazil became the first country to have 100% lead free gasoline in the early 80's.

I worry about the tank also. I've seen some nasty stuff here, with bubbles all over, although I think it was bad gas, not the effect of ethanol.

I may try to speak to the Triumph reps here and see what they think. Problem is, they are awful and probably never heard of tuning or mapping.

[oxnsox]

(edit)
Another benefit of ethanol, just for curiosity, is that when is was adopted 30 years ago, it eliminated the nead for lead in the fuel. Brazil became the first country to have 100% lead free gasoline in the early 80's.(edit)

Any more info on why that was Nimrod.  I thought the lead acted as a lubricant and can't see how ethyl would??  Just curious..

[Nimrod11]

Oxnsox, I think you're right there but also the lead acted as an anti-knocking agent so it would increase the octane value of the fuel.

Perhaps a little explanation about octane value may be useful. When you compress a mixture of gasoline vapour and air, at a certain pressure it will explode, due to the higher temperature. In order to quantify this, you compare the pressure your fuel explodes at with a known mixture of Octane (8 carbons) and Heptane (7 carbons). The percentage of Octane in the mix that explodes at the same pressure as the one you are testing is your Octane value. When you have values above 100, that is just an extrapolation of the Octane table.

Now ethanol has a different behaviour. Although it has only 2 carbons, it explodes at a higher pressure and so has a higher octane value. You get around 105 to 108.

Pure gasoline has quite low octane and lead was used to increase that. Using ethanol gives you the same effect. Iḿ not sure about lubricity but I immagine they have other additives for that also.

Another curiosity: before flex fuels and even fuel injection, ethanol cars could have a higher compression ration than gasoline one. This always gave you a higher engine power for ethanol.

Another curiosity: the guy who invented lead in gasoline, causing possibly the worst mass poisining in the world, was the same guy who invented CFCs. This is one guy the world could have done without!!![/list]

[oxnsox]

Taa Muchly for that Nimrod

Having ethyl in the fuel would also allow you to add (a little bit of) water, no?? As the ethyl would absorb the water and allow it to mix properly with the fuel...

Water would increase compression (because it doesn't) and combustion...yes??

Probably not good for extra stress on the mechanical bits and also probably not necessary now with FI... otherwise it might be an effective way of getting out some extra ponies at high alitttude...

Just thinking

[REGULATOR]

either way,

 the website I found has a kit for the tiger if I wanted to run Ehthanol,

   then I'm one step closer to buying a still :-)

[EvilBetty]

The only piece of the Tiger that I am positive could be an issue with Ethanol mixes above 10%-15%, would be the fuel fittings for the lines that connect from to the tank.

You would need to make sure you were running Viton o-rings on those fittings.  BUNA may be ok too, but I would check them often for a while.  If these o-rings were to fail, it could cause a leak from the fittings, or from the valves while the fittings are disconnected.