Okay, now you are getting into the Thermodynamics of an Internal Combustion Engine. Common knowledge is that an explosion happens inside the combustion chamber, thus moving the piston down and so on. If you going to make a comment like that at least explain the theory behind it. So, Combustion is a self-sustaining chemical reaction that yields energy or products that cause further reactions of the same kind. Fire is a rapid, self-sustaining oxidation process accompanied by the evolution of heat and light of varying intensities. Thus, when the piston starts at the top, the intake valve opens, and the piston moves down to let the engine take in a cylinder-full of air and gasoline (intake stroke). Only the tiniest drop of gasoline needs to be mixed into the air for this to work. Then the piston moves back up to compress this fuel/air mixture. Compression makes the cumbustion more powerful. When the piston reaches the top of its stroke, the spark plug emits a spark to ignite the gasoline. The gasoline charge in the cylinder ignites (fire), the pressure from the expanding gases drive the pistons down. Once the piston hits the bottom of its stroke, the exhaust valve opens and the exhaust leaves the cylinder to go out the tailpipe.

 

Not to rain on your parade dsmisfits but common knowledge is wrong. There is no explosion. As i stated before, a flame propergates across the cylinder no matter what fuel or octain is used. You can develope "ping" which is really a shock wave that is going at the speed of sound across the diameter of the cylinder bore, bouching back and forth until it stops. That's why there is a "knock" sensor, it retards the timing to stop the destructive wave lenght. When you intriduce a higher octain fuel you can run more lead time with the spark (a.k.a. advance) so igniting the fuel actually starts before the piston reaches TDC (top dead center) and when you approach TDC on exhaust you have valve over lap. That's when the intake and exhaust valves are open at the same time to scavenge the cylinder of spent gases made by the combustion process. From what I have read E85 makes less HP but cleaner emmisions.

 

Wait, rain on my Parade? Did you read my statement, did I ever say common knowledge was right? No, I said, "the spark ignites the gasoline" I did not say the word "explosion" in my explanation. Most people do not have a back ground or schooling about Internal Combustion Engines and have no Idea about Thermodynamics or the Fluid Dynamics of an engine. Unlike you, If I am going to get into the physics behind an engine, I try to explain things in laymens terms "Common knowledge" and try not to over explain things so others don't understand. First of all, the first statment talking about E85, was copied from their website. So, where is the rain?

Now, how about we play nice and continue to love our HHRs. Forums need to be a place where people can gain knowledge in a positive way.

 

i inquired at trifecta about a converted HHR to E85 and if a person had a cable and a E85 tune and a custom 10% or less ethanol tune could they switch fuels and was told yes they could
E85 is running 2.05 around here and 93 is 2.85 but you lose 25% fuel mileage w the E85.
the power gains would be fun but the price to me would be about the same and the cost of converting around 200 to 350 it isnt a cheap thing to do and some kits have had problems from what i have read
change2e85.com looked to be pretty knowledgeable on it

 

I asked Vince at trifecta about E85 and the tune this is the responce i got back from Vince:

"If someone buys a tune from us that owns a flex fuel vehicle our tune will automatically work with it, without issue, because we always download the stock GM tune for a given vehicle before we develop a tune for it. The ECM does most of the compensation on its own for running E85 fuel, then only time it ever needs excessive retuning is if someone is trying to run E85 on a non-flex fuel vehicle."

 

And everyone is getting this through an Supporting Vendor on chevyhhr,net?