Monday, October 6, 2008

The people I meet while buying E85 at Meijer.

I met a crazy black man at the E85 pump. I suspect that he lives out of his car, based on his unkempt appearance and all the shit he had in the car. He was quite talkative, in an ADHD sort of way. Like I said, he was crazy.

He was driving a late ninetees Ford Escort, which quite obviously is not a FFV. So I took the opportunity to talk to the guy and find out what the deal was (with the car, not with him).

He said that he always fills up with straight E85. He said that he's been doing it for over a year, and he's had no problems with the car while doing it.

That Escort was either the last OBDI year or an early OBDII year. Maybe they're more flexible than later implementations?

Anyway, I was glad to see that the fraternity of crazy people running E85 in non-flex fuel vehicles included... someone certifiably crazy!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have seen a number of OBD1 vehicle owners use full E85 successfully with the exception of needing a 2 minute warmup on cold starts. I have wondered if the OBD1 ECU's lack the LTFT preprogrammed range CEL function.

Alcohol

Buzzcut said...

I bet you that's the answer. It appears to me that LTFT is limited to 25 on the Saab. I have yet to see LTFT go over 25, and I think that I should be considering how much ethanol I'm running.

We'll see how cold start does when it actually gets cold. I haven't seen anything much colder than 50 degrees lately.