Biofuel

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DjShadow

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#16601 18-Oct-2007 13:45

Gull has just brought Force 10 into Hamilton, just wondering if anyone has actually tried this? I've asked nissan if my primera will run it but all I get is a "we don't know"

maninimepo

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#91521 18-Oct-2007 13:55

Have you got any more details on this? A link of some such perhaps?

DjShadow

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#91619 18-Oct-2007 22:46

Force 10 is a 10% ethanol 90% petrol mix running at 98 octane

here are 2 links:

http://www.gull.co.nz/

http://www.nissan.co.nz/news/?mode=article&articleid=ofuk

maninimepo

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#91621 18-Oct-2007 23:06

Looks pretty interesting!

http://www.eeca.govt.nz/renewable-energy/biofuels/bioethanol/index.html

The page above was linked to in one of the URL's you posted. I don't know if you have read it or not but it gives some do's and don'ts when using biofuel.

My initial thought would have been to start mixing it with pure petrol slowly and gradually increase the ratio of biofuel to normal petty in the tank over time to monitor how the car is handling etc but the above link says when using biofuel for the first time it should be a full tank!

There are a bunch of other things on that page too.

orblambton

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#91674 19-Oct-2007 11:01

Unless the Primera has been designed to run on 110 octane or something stupid, it'll be fine, though a waste of money as you'll get no real benefit from it. If you do decide to run it, get it tuned professionally, it'll run better and more economically on a hotter burning fuel.

Fraktul

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#91678 19-Oct-2007 11:15

If you are running a modern engine then you might get some very small performance gains if your engine is tuned to run on a 90 10 blend. Untuned you are looking at the same performance or slightly less. Depending on how advanced your ECU is it might be able to some extent tune itself.

Resetting the ECU after minor modifications to the exhaust or inlet systems or alterations in fuel is reasonably common in the enthusiast community but you do this at your own risk.

There is the possibility the ethanol content may cause more rapid degradation of fuel line components than using straight petrol. Anything later then circa 92 should be ok.

freitasm

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#91682 19-Oct-2007 11:28

Biofuel? Well, all fuel is "bio" and "organic" by nature... Back on topic though, in Brazil there are mass produced cars running on 100% ethanol - that's a lot more "clean" than pure oil.

Unlike the U.S. which produces their ethanol from corn, Brazilian ethanol comes from sugar cane. I believe there is some social implications on producing this kind of fuel due to to low wages and specialisation required from workers in the farms, but in terms of fuel independence it's made some difference for the country - which is about 100% self sufficient in fuel (both oil from high sea and ethanol).

Old engines required modifications to run on ethanol for obvious reasons, but it looks like new versions run on both petrol and ethanol at any mix.

Ethanol is always cheaper than petrol, not as cheap as diesel though. Of course oil companies distribute this in the country, but they are not to keen on selling a cleaner fuel everywhere else, for obvious reasons - how would they be able to keep raising petrol prices on something that is renewable?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_fuel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil:

Brazil is totally the largest producer of alcohol fuel in the world, typically fermenting ethanol from sugarcane and sugar beets. The country produces a total of 18 billion liters annually, of which 3.5 billion are exported, 2 billion of them to the US. Alcohol cars debuted in the Brazilian market in 1978 and became quite popular because of heavy subsidy, but in the 80's prices rose and gasoline regained the leading market share.

But from 2004 on, alcohol is rapidly rising its market share once again because of new technologies involving hybrid fuel car engines, called "Flex" by all major car manufacturers (Volkswagen, General Motors, Fiat, etc.). "Flex" engines work with gasoline, alcohol or any mixture of both fuels. As of February 2007, approx. 80% of new vehicles sold in Brazil are hybrid fuel

Because of the Brazilian leading production and technology, many countries became very interested in importing alcohol fuel and adopting the "Flex" vehicle concept.

Fraktul

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#91686 19-Oct-2007 11:54

I think it should be noted that most "bio fuels" still require significant consumption of fossil fuels for production. Fertilizer, harvesting, production of harvesting equipment and additional distribution infrastructure, transportation - all consume significant quantities of fossil fuels. Arguably in the short term bio fuels are actually significantly worse for the environment then fossil fuels.

There are also social repercussions as MF notes, not to mention the staggering amount of arable land which would be needed for significant worldwide biofuel usage.

There is no quick solution in short.

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paradoxsm

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#91710 19-Oct-2007 15:01

Ny Nissan 2002 Primera with SR20DE engine worked fine on it between other fills. seemed to be a bit more powerful but until I hook a device back up to the ECU, I cannot know for sure.

orblambton

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#91727 19-Oct-2007 16:21

As a note, most late-ish model Vehicle ECUs have some sort of tunability, particularly Nissan. Later models (post 2000) are probably best left to a pro, but it's quite well known within the tuner world that the likes of SR and CA model designated ecus can be tuned a huge amount

DjShadow

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#91853 21-Oct-2007 14:35

My primera has the SR20VE Engine, only fuel I know that seems to give some pretty good power and economy that i've tried is BP Ultimate.
I was having another look at the gull webpage and it says the formula used does have a corosion inhibiter.