Dyno'd today with the Lund E85 tune & JLT Intake

chops44 said:

Hmmm interesting, I know Shaun at AED won't tune e85 without an injector upgrade....I wonder what the duty cycle is with e85 on the stockers at say 500-525 rwhp?

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Shaun recommends Ford Motorsport LU47 injectors (M-9593-LU47) last I spoke to him about an E85 tune a month ago said they were good for 700hp. The injector dynamics 725 came in second followed by the 1000 which are the same price. He said the ID725's had a tick better idle than the ID1000 but he had the injector profiles for what ever injectors you preferred to use granted they were larger than stock. The LU47's were by far the most popular and cost effective he said..

Blue Oval has them (set of 8) for $255 free ship and no tax which I found was the cheapest. Rule of thumb is you don't want to exceed 80% duty cycle on injectors.

http://www.blueovalindustries.com/en8390.html/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping&utm_content=EN8390&gclid=Cj0KEQiAzNfDBRD2xKrO4pSnnOkBEiQAbzzeQaWbAaBViOzOLtME2ZpqtjpWcSQ5VDfPjO1RNIyYTK4aAtbK8P8HAQ

I'm on the stock ones as well - zero issues. Knowing Lund I would think if he were concerned or thought he was pushing it he would recommend them. They claim you don't need them and I believe him. I suppose a little extra headroom doesn't hurt so doing them wouldn't hurt. Perhaps a nice to have - but not a need to have.

The 47's are what he suggested to me as well and they certainly are cheap enough!! It just intrigues me that one tuner will run the stockers and another won't even consider it. It sure would be easier to leave the stockers incase I had to take the car in for warranty repairs lol. Assuming they would warranty any repairs.......I don't want to run e all the time but I would like the option.

VUDUGT350 had his car datalogged and it had plenty of fuel up to 9000 rpm on stock injectors and ARH headers. Shaun knows e85 but Lund has more experience with flex fuel and GT350's. If Lund's tunes were blowing up motors we would know about it. Something else to consider is this: there is no need to run full e85 to gain 98% of the benefit. Even e30, at 95 octane, is better than any normal pump gas, and that wouldn't even come close to maxing out the injectors.

Right on, good to know on the log and that's encouraging. The way I understand it the flex tunes use the front 02's to figure ethanole content for fueling then it's basically 2 different maps...1 being a performance flex tune (93 octane timing map etc) and the other being a race flex tune (high timing map etc based off 100+ octane). So if you run say 95 oct you have to run it on the performance tune and therefore aren't reaping the max benefits of the fuel. I'd personally rather have dedicated 93, 100 and e85 tunes versus the flex based off my understanding. However....I might be wrong and if I am I have no doubt I'll be schooled soon enough lol.

Unless I misunderstood Lund told me that they cap all their tunes at 30 degrees as they found no benefit in going higher regardless of fuel.

chops44 said:

The 47's are what he suggested to me as well and they certainly are cheap enough!! It just intrigues me that one tuner will run the stockers and another won't even consider it. It sure would be easier to leave the stockers incase I had to take the car in for warranty repairs lol. Assuming they would warranty any repairs.......I don't want to run e all the time but I would like the option.

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Not sure what warranty repairs denial since the LU47's are a Ford part and have the identifiers on the part itself. You could always swap your stock injectors back in. Your issue than assuming you've purged your E85 and running 91-93 reg fuel would be if they check for a reflash and thats you putting the car back to stock tune which is the only real question regardless of swapping injectors or not.

Here is a conversation I had with Lund tech:
Me:
I have a quick question re: the flex fuel tune. Since straight e85 is approx. 105 octane, any % ethanol below 85 will have less octane, but still significantly more than pump gas. My question is: is there an octane at which the tune is essentially maxed out as far as performance, such that adding a higher % of ethanol will not result in any gains, or does the improvement continue right up to the point of 100% e85? Thanks.

Lund support:
The car is capped at 30 degrees of timing and we've not seen any gains naturally asperated above 30 degrees.
There is a difference as to when the car adds timing, especially down low, if the advance rate is quicker with good octane fuel you'll notice it right away. I'd say e85 is plenty of octane and you won't see much more in terms of gains if you use lets say MS 109.

I love threads like this, all interesting info! These gt350 motors and computers a pretty sweet if you'll take the time to appreciate the technology. So the tuners are pretty much just changing the timing ramp rate and stopping at 30*. This almost makes me want to try my hand at tuning it but I have only tuned cars via FAST and they are all the ancient single cam high hp race motors lol.

AFR's come into play with different fuels due to the kenetic energy difference inherent to each fuel (fuel density) e85 has less so you burn more fuel and why you need larger injectors. From my understanding tuners are not presetting Stoich specific to each tune fuel, they allowing the ecu to figure it out and compensate by itself. Water is a byproduct of ethanol combustion and moisture or water drops hitting the ceramic tip of an o2 thats at 1200 degres will damage it. I was advised to be cautious of certain headers that move the o2 further back where the exhaust is cooler and won't burn the moisture. Stock and Kooks were recommended.

E85 is not consistent from pump to pump and can be as low as 60%. The E85 tune activates the incomplete flex fuel programing from Ford in the ecu and it adjusts accordingly. Some tuners expand on the coding and some not. I would hope to have a fuel sampler gauge built into the MFI or way of seeing the fuel grade. You may have gotten a bad tank or a pump at a certain station never has the full 85% so you know to go elsewhere.

Class 1 E85 is min 84% ethanol mixed with commercial grade 85 octane gas
Class 2 is 75 to 79 percent ethanol and really should be labeled E75
Class 3 is E70 is 70 to 74 percent ethanol and really should be labeled E70

The stations don't change the E85 label from one fuel delivery to the next so it always says E85 but you may not be getting the full 85% ethanol which is dependent on seasonal blend. Ethanol has a low Reid vapor pressure (meaning it doesn’t like to light off at low temperatures), greater percentages of gasoline are added to the blend for colder weather.

Agree there is an octane limit per given compression ratio and spark plug heat rating. However octane rating do not give the complete picture or chemistry of combustion of each fuel.

(R+M)/2 method, where two separately derived ratings, research octane (RON) and motor octane (MON), are added together and their sum divided by 2. For example, if the motor octane of a gasoline is 90 and its research octane is 98, its (R+M)/2 or pump octane is 94. This averaged value, also known as antiknock index or AKI, is the number shown on gas pumps.

The research octane of ethanol is very high however, its motor octane (the more extreme standard) is relatively low when compared to racing gasolines of similar (R+M)/2 octane. E85 is highly resistant to knock but somewhat sensitive to preignition and goes back to the timing change for the fuel.

Dropping the knowledge huh...I liked it

chops44 said:

Dropping the knowledge huh...I liked it

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Thanks just answering how the ecu knows your running E85 or gasoline (in detail). If you want more here's a cluster bomb..

You lean out and car adds fuel to the point of programmed threshold and than ecu knows your on E85 or mix since its adding that much more than if it were regular gas and switches fueling maps within the tune. There are no sensors to sample fuel like real flex fuel vehicles. The o2's as you stated wouldn't know the difference other than being a sensor and sending the information back to the ECU to be processed where it takes all the other input from sensors like AFR, MAP, throttle position, knock, injector resistance duty cycle etc. and figures out its E85, mix, or straight gas.

Now you know enough to piss off your tuners. No longer Gandalf the great using mystical magic to get you on E85 but just checking the box next to flexfuel when he's logged in the ECU. Top tuners are like Bill Nye, The Science Guy knowing how it works and enough skill to finish the coding or slightly altering the factory coding depending on tuner. Livornois does extensive testing and coding of the various parameters before they release something if you wait until spring that would be the best E85 tune. However they are a functional company so ghost cams wouldn't be on the table. I'm going with AED as currently they meet the needs that I personally have. Ghost cams that go into power band at 1100rpm which is where I start with the Mcleod clutch that has the lightened flywheel and hp gains with both 93 and E85. This will come at a loss of mpg, small cold start warm up time needed not just start and go as factory. Those are all things I can live with and meet my goals. Emission will suffer only that whats being burned on E85 is not the same as whats being looked for on regular gas.

Caution on the E85 tune would be if flexfuel tune is activated and you have an exhaust leak the car knows it can enrich the fuel maps to a whole other extreme when it senses a lean condition from the last sensor in the chain ,the o2's in the exhaust. If you smell a lot of gas especially now reg fuel since it will think its E85 when it senses a large lean condition guess what you have an exhaust leak. It does this only to protect the engine from knock and detonation not as a function of operation so it overrides the other inputs to save the engine from damage and pushes fuel until lean condition no longer exists.

The art of the tune is the ability to alter the various parameters in synchrony and symphony to optimism performance without knock and other adverse conditions. Simply moving them around looking at each as a singular parameter is not a tune. Also realize the factory is the way it is due to a set of engineering specs which included mpg and emissions so its spot on for what it suppose to do. By tuning your moving the function of the ecu to do something else in this case power so the other parameters loose priority and how peak power is generated something is gained at a loss to something else. The engine is basically an air pump with certain physical characteristics which are immovable. The tune changes how it moves air but the air is still moving at certain amounts and velocity within the scale of the engines capability. You want more you change the physical aspects i.e., bore out, port heads, larger valves, intake, exhaust etc. the engine will only move so much air thats its capable of. Factory sets that bar lower to gain longevity, mpg, emission etc. a tune is pushing it back up by altering peak efficiency to peak power. You gain power but again at a loss to something else. The engine living in the physical realm lives by set rules heat, friction, densities, gravity etc so there is no free lunch. A tune doesn't unlock unused power its simply getting you peaks by moving certain parameters up at a cost to others going down. The gross or delta is the same as limited by the engine specs. Think of it as a stereo equalizer you can move things around but it doesn't change the volume just your perception of sound. If you turn your bass down and tweeter up you think it got louder however the same amount of voltage is being sent and same used as set by the volume knob. Tweeters are more efficient at making sound and you've moved that voltage away from the sub and to the tweeter so your perception is louder sound however your volume knob is unchanged only that you lost something to move it elsewhere as a gain. The compromise i.e. factory tune would be moving tweet and bass down and mids up. Its not as large surface area as bass but more efficient like the tweet and a good compromise where your losses are masked by smooth transition to your gains. If you tune for peak horsepower the transition is not the concern so its just moves to peak hp.

Thats why smart tuners say don't just chase numbers its about the overall package. I dislike peak cars as they are always off and on and have a narrow power band. A good tuned car would have some transition to peak and enough scaled back to make it drivable.

Love it