Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

Scott was just reading a magazine on a modified R35 that runs on E85.

Didnt realise this topic has plenty to discuss about.

I normally use Vortex 98 as we go to woollies to do our groceries so hence i get 4cents off per litre. I do consume about 11.4-12litres per a hundred on 98.

This is very informative (but got lost when everyone starts talking bout compression rates etc... - too technical. i just drive the car coz it makes me look good LOL).

Thanks for the input. I will try BP98 next time as I do feel BP somehow has alittle more ummph!

There is plenty of info out there, so have a search. Ethanol still gets shit canned regularly, mainly by ignorant drivers that haven't tried running it.

Ethanol will be a very clean source of energy one day and we will be heavily reliant on it when the oil is sucked dry. Till then, chose what you want.

Ethanol will be a very clean source of energy one day and we will be heavily reliant on it when the oil is sucked dry.

It will be when when can stop the south Americans carving up huge chunks of the Amazon forest for farming solely to produce Ethanol! Which makes it a bit counterproductive.

This will be the challenge.. with China currently buying large chunks of land in other countries so they can grow food. Where are we going to plant enough farms to produce 85 Million barrels of ethanol per day?

Not trying to bag ethanol, but I don't think ethanol alone will ever come close to replacing oil.

Edited by sonicii

Ethanol can be made from nearly anything that decomposes, hence the push to make it from our abundant green waste, and excess food that goes to the tip. It won't ever be enough to support more than a percentage of the cars on the road, but if we can expand it to include algae farms and the existing waste from the sugar cane industry etc, I am sure there would be plenty to go around.

Brazil is making ethanol from weeds in massive quantities, and has been for 40+ years. There is a 25% minimum content in their fuel, and government subsidised 100% ethanol pumps. They seem to make it work, but you are correct, they need to be careful not to clear more land, and dedicate to other (more expensive) forms of production. After the corn price farce the American farmers created with their production, everyone believed e85 would take over the food bowls and force the price of staple foods up, but that was short lived of course.

One thing is for sure, we need something to replace oil, you don't think the last billion barrels will go towards filling our petrol tanks do you? Something tells me when the global dipstick gets low, the door will be shut, and only the military will get supplies, so they can respond to the global emergency that will follow. No point sticking your head in the sand as it will come one day, but it's probably my kids that will have to deal with that.

It is hard to know what to think. My parents were told 40 years ago 'there is no way your kids will drive petrol powered cars as we will run out of oil before then'. Now some people are saying there is enough for another 1000 years.

Not saying we shouldn't look for alternatives, but if we really do have a lot more untapped oil, then it is going to reduce the motivation to change.

It's hard to tell what the reserves are doing, or how long the shit will last. I know they have come back to empty wells and the oil has returned in some cases. I don't even think they know where it comes from other than guessing, or what even made it. Is the crude supposed to be there as lubrication for the tectonic plates? I have read heaps of theories... Not much fact.

Pumping it out till it's gone just doesn't seem like a smart thing to do imo, which is why I made a decision 5 years ago not to be part of it, as much as is possible. Didn't take me much motivation...

There is shit loads of oil out there. It's not running out in my lifetime, or my kids.

However the issue is, when does it become economically viable to extract it? Easy oil comes out with pumps (the stereotypical Middle East image).

Hard oil comes from sands, where the oil has to be extracted. This is much more resource heavy, and therefore expensive method. There is however, shit tons of it.

So, the answer is IMO we will have oil for a long time, but it's going to be expensive.

Ethanol can be made from nearly anything that decomposes, hence the push to make it from our abundant green waste, and excess food that goes to the tip. It won't ever be enough to support more than a percentage of the cars on the road, but if we can expand it to include algae farms and the existing waste from the sugar cane industry etc, I am sure there would be plenty to go around.

Brazil is making ethanol from weeds in massive quantities, and has been for 40+ years. There is a 25% minimum content in their fuel, and government subsidised 100% ethanol pumps. They seem to make it work, but you are correct, they need to be careful not to clear more land, and dedicate to other (more expensive) forms of production. After the corn price farce the American farmers created with their production, everyone believed e85 would take over the food bowls and force the price of staple foods up, but that was short lived of course.

One thing is for sure, we need something to replace oil, you don't think the last billion barrels will go towards filling our petrol tanks do you? Something tells me when the global dipstick gets low, the door will be shut, and only the military will get supplies, so they can respond to the global emergency that will follow. No point sticking your head in the sand as it will come one day, but it's probably my kids that will have to deal with that.

Brazil makes ethanol using sugar cane, not "weeds". Sugar cane is the best material to make ethanol fuel from because the energy balance (ratio of how much energy you get from burning it, vs the amount of energy taken to create and refine the fuel) is between 8 and 10. The USA uses corn to produce ethanol but the energy balance is 1.3. This is pretty stupid. Corn is not a good fuel to make Ethanol fuel out of. They are experimenting with cellulosic techniques now (which does use any plant matter and should be more efficient) but they're not currently in production. Nobody is making energy from weeds on a commercial basis... YET.

We do need renewable fuels, I think ethanol made from sugar cane is a great idea until we develop something better. Only downside is it requires a tropical environment to grow the stuff.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



  • Latest Posts

    • Pfft. As if I'd ever point a high pressure washer at my car.
    • The nature of my commute has changed. Way back then it was traffic lights all the way, for ~28km. It sucked. When they finally stitched the expressway together I could do a good 15+km of it at a steady 80-100 with no stopping. That alone has gotten me down to flat 10s. Prior to that it was mid-high 10s. I can't remember the delta that I saw when I got the idle down. It was only ~150 rpm, because the idle speed was never terrible, but for the delta in consumption to be noticeable it would have had to have been at least 0.2-0.3 L/100km - which is not to be sneezed at when it comes for absolute free. It's only about 50L per year, but that's ~$100. A few extra pizzas is always welcome. Note that I have a record of every tank of fuel that has ever gone through my car except for a handful put in by someone else, like my mechanic. I can show you the difference between stock RB20 and tuned RB20, stock RB5Neo and tuned, winter and summer fuel blends, winter and summer fuel blends when the ambient temperature is not appropriate for the blend, working O2 sensor, blown O2 sensor, boosting f**k out of it and frightened to boost it because it is pinging, and so on. OK, I probably can't do all that now with 100% clarity - but at the time when any of those things were in event, you could see it in the records. There's 25+ years of simple tank after tank records, so you have to look for landmarks to work out approximately how old any single record is. What's really important is the meta data and that lives in my head.
    • If you're claiming the issues are not skyline specific, then either the USA is living in the 90s / early 2000s, OR you have the issue of "survivor bias". Which is you're mainly hearing and listening to those with terrible experiences, and haven't found the guys who have cars with good decent builds and no problems. It happens in AU too, that plenty of people keep having issues, and they keep going to the workshops that are known to be shit "because I read on the internet". Even worse, are those who keep posting on the internet as though they know for a fact what something is, when they've never touched/looked at said item in their life, and again are making assumptions, based on something they read, or because it's a certain way in other cars. It's even funnier when those same people debate the facts with the people who've lived and breathed this stuff for over 15 years. Example, I've had someone tell me you can't do something with a Skyline, because they read it on the internet, except I can tell they're wrong, as I did that exact thing back in 2008 with my Skyline.
    • The funniest part I saw, was someone would bitch and moan on FB about something, Andy would be the one to respond, asking for more info, if he could contact them, what the engine setup is, what their config file was, and 95% of the responses were people just going "der! It doesn't work" and Andy going "What doesn't work?" And then going "The firmware!" And they'd go around in circles as no one could ever give information, and Haltech couldn't fault things on the bench, (especially when people wouldn't give any specifics).   Many moons ago, when Andy was back at e420c stage, he reached out to me, and asked me to test different plug and play looms for him (already had an e420c in the car on his V1 PNP loom). And he kept asking me, as I was competent enough to be able to give him some specific feedback on what was/wasn't working, how to replicate the faults etc, and work through things with him. Most people are terrible at answering the questions they're asked, or being able to provide quality feedback other than "it doesn't work".
    • I say it often, none of this stuff is really Skyline-specific per se. But in general there's not a lot of people who actually know what they're doing. A lot of people charging like they do. Agile software development probably isn't the greatest idea for an engine controller.
×
×
  • Create New...