Potential Source for E85 Flex-Fuel Kit for 997/GT3s
 

Hey 6speedonline folk,

Wanted to see if there is any interest in something like this on this forum. Interest in E85 seems to be picking up nowadays for other cars and maybe the GT3 community would be interested as well.

So, any of you near Temple, Texas? I ask because I emailed AFD a few months ago about a flex fuel kit for 997 GT3s. At the time, they stated that if they had a car to develop a Flex-Fuel kit on, they might be willing to create a kit for us. I originally put the email to the wayside since I was like "This place is 1,400 miles away from me." but I'm posting this now because A: I just remembered recently thanks to discussion about their flex fuel kit for BMWs, and B: I figured hey, maybe someone else is closer and can help make E85 flex fuel a reality for all of us.

https://beta-static.photobucket.com/...080&fit=bounds
Also, I think people in the other forum didn't even understand what flex fuel is. Flex-Fuel kits have an ethanol content sensor that reads the fuel mixture of a car, and adjusts your car for the mixture on the fly. You can run straight 91 octane, straight E85, or more importantly, any blend of the two without the need to park your car, drain your gas tank, and flash to a completely different map for the fuel that you are filling up on. It’s popular for boosted cars like Nissan GT-Rs and Subaru WRX and STis and even comes from the factory as a feature on some cars like on the Ford F-150. Benefits for our naturally aspirated cars would be a bump in power, and more importantly, a stable source of quality fuel other than 100 octane. Especially helpful for people located in Arizona, California, and Nevada where our fuel quality is worse than everywhere else in the CONUS (which is why Cobb’s off-the-shelf Accessport maps have ACN-91 specific maps). Would be nice to be able to switch fuels without the fuel tank drain and reflash monkey exercise.

Some additional info in flex fuel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexible-fuel_vehicle
https://thebuildjournal.com/reviews/...lex-commander/
https://www.advancedfueldynamics.com...le-id-2-closed

No affiliation other than my having bought their kit for my E46 M3 track car (via Summit Racing), and hoping that we can get a kit for GT3s so I don't have to fill up on crap Cali-91 anymore. And maybe they'll make a kit for the 991 GT3 guys too, I'm sure it all depends on drumming up some interest and reaching out?

I would do it if I was in TX

Same lol. Gotta be someone out there, right?

Just went flex fuel on the BMW M3 with AFD, its very convenient. I'm shocked that people are content with Arizona/California/Nevada 91-grade octane here and everywhere else. GT3s even say 93 recommended and people are essentially putting in 89.5 octane in their cars. I figured there would be some interest or discussion on flex fuel, regardless of what manufacturer it was sourced from, rather than absolute silence....

I don't know if there's really any benefit to doing this, Turbo cars can really use the octane. Unless you are flashed and very aggressively tuned I doubt you'd be able to tell the difference?

Not sure without logging, but AFAIK the recommended octane rating for GT3s is 93. California offers only 91, and the 91 octane we have is of poorer quality than other states (Cobb refers to this as ACN91) due to emissions controls in this state. I imagine running a GT3 hard in California, even a bone stock one, would probably force the car to pull some timing. An example of a different car that was logged is the Subaru STi RA that Cobb tested: they said on ACN91 the car on a stock tune was knocking on a factory tune. All said and done, I don't see how it could hurt, especially for people in Arizona California and Nevada. Theoretically the kit should be pretty similar for the Turbos and GT3s anyways, since the injectors use the same injector connectors, would just come down to their tune/programming I imagine.

I recently was alerted to the existence of Alternative Performance Engineering (APE), which sells a "universal" kit that works on "all EV1-style connectors." Not sure I believe that the gadget would work seamlessly on all vehicles with this style connector, I'd still prefer a solution that was engineered for the car personally, like AFD's.

That Subaru STI is still a turbo engine. You're not going to see the same kind of improvement on an NA engine. I'm not an expert on GT3 affairs, as I just got mine. Not trying to poo on the excitement train, but I don't think the GT3 factory tune is all that aggressive on top of it being an NA car. There probably isn't a whole lot there, although a good quality Ethanol would certainly be insurance. One thing to keep in mind is that pump quality E85 is blended with 87 octane - so you've got "85%" Ethanol, "15%" 87 octane. Numbers in quotes because actual results do vary, as well as time of year where the blending requirements change. It's really, really different trying to cold start on Ethanol. There's an old SAE paper floating around that I have seen, below ~50 Fahrenheit it starts taking a LOT of fuel to start the engine. During colder seasons they drop the amount of ethanol and raise the amount of gasoline in the blend. As low as 70% Ethanol depending on where you live.

True enough, and I know personally that E85 is most beneficial to turbo cars. I'm mainly looking for that extra layer of insurance as you suggested. ACN91 is closer to 87 than I'd like to begin with anyways, haha.

I'm not too concerned about temperatures because California on most regular days tends to be hotter not colder. I'd be concerned if I was back in Pennsylvania, but in Pennsylvania I had access to non-ACN 93 octane, which didn't have me wanting for E85 in the least.

Of course, the appeal of the flex fuel kit is the ability to adapt to the variability of ethanol content in E85. Not sure I want to be one of those folks tuned to E85 when the ethanol content drops. As far as just running straight E85 goes, Cobb Accessport already has off-the-shelf support for straight E85 on GT3s, just flash and go. Not appealing to me without a flex fuel sensor though, personally.

If I could flex fuel my 997 gt3 I would do it in a heart beat.

I've been talking on the phone to APE about their flex fuel kit and I might be giving that a go. They're local which makes it far easier to coordinate with them. Will keep you updated if I go for it, the one pickle I'm foreseeing off the bat is getting to the injectors in that tight little engine bay.

Cool! Curious though a custom Cobb e85 pro tune could also be a viable option https://www.cobbtuning.com/e85-maps-now-available-for-porsche-911-gt3-997-1/