Hello,
I'm new in this forum, maybe this subject have been discussed before.

Please what is your detailled experience with Ethanol E85 and Blazer 4.3L V6 ?

For the mine in France I should be very interested to use E85 cheaper than benzine.

Is it possible to use 100 % whithout modification with this engine ? Whithout risks to damaged the engine.

Is it possible with 50% 50 % ?

Did you use a special ethanol electronical box ? The wich one ? Does it work properly ?

In fact all you comments about the subject.

Many thanks and best regards.
Supercity.

 

In standard USA specs, these engines are not designed to run E85. The most they should be fed is the usual (in the US, anyway) ~10% ethanol.

 

E85 is not compatible with the fuel system and engine management controls used in your vehicle. E85 requires larger injectors and a wider spark advance curve to take full advantage of the fuel. And to make it work to the same extent as gasoline does, an engine really should be built with a much higher compression ratio to take full advantage of the oxygenate nature of the Ethanol.

From what I have read, anything over a ~25% blend (ethanol to gasoline) and the PCM cannot adjust the AFR (air fuel ratio) and spark timing properly. A 50/50 blend of E85 and regular gasoline (100% gasoline) would dilute the mixture to ~43% ethanol and if your regular gasoline has 10% ethanol in it like most of the gasoline in the US has, it would be ~48% ethanol. Even mixing it 25/75 (E85/gasoline) may be iffy in terms of the truck running properly.

Since the fuel system used on these trucks is quite unique, there is not aftermarket alternatives unless you were to switch over to the marine 4.3L intake manifold which would allow you to run the more common bosch style injectors.

 

In France companies sell special electronical boxes connected betwenn the car computer and the injectors to compensate the openning of the injectors. Thoses boxes are designed for all marks of car .
For example (sorry it is in French) :
http://www.ethanolbox.fr/
Do you have such boxes in US ?
Supercity.

 

not only that and the whole fuel systems from the fuel pump,tank and fuel lines, etc on flex fuel vehicles have been upgraded, alcohol is corrosive and you will run into problems, I personally ran a 50/50 mix to clean the engine, injectors etc and my blazer did not like it at all, it idled higher than normal, when I drove it on hot summer day it surged alot, and it also set my SES light and gave me a PO300 code random missfire. not only that it seemed to be running a little lean, so I added gas back to dilute the alcohol down

 

The problem is two fold with the engine you have. The box will only correct one of those problems, the PCM control. The other problem is that the injectors in your engine cannot supply the fuel required to get to the proper AFR for E85. So a little black box will not be the only thing that needs to be changed to make this work.

And ethanol is not corrosive in and of itself. On the same token, gasoline is corrosive... Have a read through THIS ARTICLE or do a google search for "ethanol is corrosive" if you need a better reference (I just chose the first thing that popped up).

 

thanks Kyle, I will have a look into that, I knew alcohol attracted water but thought that alcohol acted as a dryer, like adding heet to gas

 

Ethanol does act as a fuel system dryer just like Heet. ISO Heet is primarily isopropanol based while Heet is primarily methanol.

 

One the other hand, in the article given by swartlkk
http://www.change2e85.com/servlet/StoreFront
They say that we can use E85 on all cars with their black box.
Swartlkk, when you said that it is not good to use E85, for your point, is it specific for the blazer ? or in general ?
Any other negative or positive feedback.
Many thanks.
Regards.
Supercity.

 

If you run E85 exclusively in an older vehicle that is not designed for it, you are going to deteriorate all of the rubber seals and parts in your entire fuel system... seen it more than once