Chevy & GMC Vans

I'm not an environmentalist. I think global warming is bunk, and has more to do with nitrous oxide than carbon dioxide--at best we're expediting a natural planetary trend by 200 years over a few million... I don't care about planetary oil resources--in fact I think we should suck the Saudis dry! I see the gas prices of today, and I think of the 70s. It happened before. I can't believe we actually allowed it to happen again...

We know for a fact that in theory you should be able to convert any gasoline engine to run on alcohol (ethyl or methyl) propane or methane (natural gas). Alright, I said this when gas was 2.50 if it ever hit $4 it would be time to start exploring the possibility of doing this. The time has come.

But now we have E-85 that is produced with only 15 - 20% gasoline. So, why not convert the Astro to run well on E-85? To use it efficiently, the compression ratio must change. But even using it inefficiently is better than not at all because it's still a huge reduction in gasoline use. Has anyone converted their Astro yet?

Another dumb question. Anybody ever run a car on propane? Yes I know it's produced from oil. But that conversion is one step closer to methane. Think about it, how far would you go on a 100# propane tank...

Well.... What you make up in a cost savings per gallon, you loose in fuel mileage so it's really a wash, if not more costly to run E-85...

It's not necessarily about milage or money. It's about reducing oil usage and keeping what we have.

That said, one reason the E-85 vehicles get such crappy milage is that the engines use a compression ratio that would still safely burn octane.

At least in the 70's, we had a shortage of gas to explain the high prices. I haven't seen any long lines or limits on how many gallons you can buy. Also the Arabs can tell us to go pissoff since there's a new kid on the block to pay whatever they ask. (China) The filthy bastards

Me and my Astro hate them!

chemist wrote:It's not necessarily about milage or money. It's about reducing oil usage and keeping what we have.

That said, one reason the E-85 vehicles get such crappy milage is that the engines use a compression ratio that would still safely burn octane.

But at what cost? Keeping what we have means keeping more of my money to me. Even running E-10 here I see my mileage reduced by about 10% vs. straight unleaded. Yeah the E-10 is cheaper to fill up with, but I don't have disillusions that I am actually saving any money by doing so.

If you want us to get off of OPEC oil, we need to start drilling where we have oil. We have enough in the ground in our own country. But the environmental-nazis have made it impossible to get it out now. Doing what one can to help the environment is a good thing. But I am not willing to continue do so at the risk of our national security or our economy.

If you want to reduce your dependancy on oil sell your van and buy something that gets better mileage. If you think pumping your own gas into your tank is going to make any difference on the price of fuel you are crazy. The only thing you will change is that it is some on in the U.S. getting rich instead of a Saudi. But you will not see any difference in the price at the pump. Why should they sell the fuel cheap to you when they could sell it to someone else for more.


If you think that fuel is expensive there the price of fuel in Canada is around $5.50 a Gallon the price in England and much of Europe is around $7-8 a gallon. You are still fairly well off on the global scale of things. As far as the E85 fuel goes that seems to cause more problems than it is worth. It takes as much corn to fill the gas tank on your van once as a african man would eat in a year. This is what is causing the price of food to go up causing massive food shortages in poor countries all around the world. If they made Biofuels out of things like waste wood and other non food plants then it would start to make more sense.

Kidhauler wrote: As far as the E85 fuel goes that seems to cause more problems than it is worth. It takes as much corn to fill the gas tank on your van once as a african man would eat in a year. This is what is causing the price of food to go up causing massive food shortages in poor countries all around the world. If they made Biofuels out of things like waste wood and other non food plants then it would start to make more sense.

sometimes nothing pisses me off more than mankind.......biofuel was a good idea on paper....but when it comes to taking food out of the mouths of people.........come on.....

and why is it people will continue to bitch about fuel prices yet refuse to change their habits....it's as if the oil companies owe them something........oil companies are a business....they charge what they charge because they know they can get it......

Kidhauler wrote:Why should they sell the fuel cheap to you when they could sell it to someone else for more.

Couldn't have said it better myself!!

I think this link debunks any consideration about oil shortages.It is a recent hearing with major oil companies that exposes our own gov and the restrictions for the high gas pricing.Read and find out why:


http://rvingoutpost.invisionzone.com/fo ... entry23620

Once again,do gooders wanting policies that are not funded and offering my damm money without my consent.

There is no oil shortage, in fact we have more known reserves now that we did in the past and they continue to grow. The problems are #1 Speculation by investment funds (perhaps your pension fund if you have one) #2 Environmentalist who have pushed for regulations that make starting new drilling or building new refineries very difficult #3 NIMBY people who don't want new refineries, pipelines, etc near them but still want cheap gas and #4 Fuel delivery infrastructure that is starting to wear out and is costing more and more to maintain because they can't build new stuff (see #3).

Having said this, whenever prices a pushed up by speculation, and oil prices are very much being pushed up by speculation right now, usually it ends up crashing. Think the dot.com bubble or various other cases where investors keep buying a certain stock or commodity because everyone is sure the price will keep going up. Eventually the stock or commodity gets way over priced and then does not just correct, but crashes. I would guess the same will happen with oil simply because people will drive less and get more efficient cars. I know I have been looking at another car for when I don't need the van so that I can save on the fuel costs (probably a used 3-cyl metro/swift/firefly). It might be a couple of years, but there is no real justification for the prices to be so high, but speculators will push it higher. I found it telling that when one "expert" said oil would get to $150/barrel by July in this last week, that prediction was followed by a huge jump in the price of a barrel of oil. Nothing else happened to justify that increase, just one "expert's" opinion. How long can something like that keep going, probably not much more than a year or two baring something actually happening to really destroy supply or vastly increase demand.

and why is it people will continue to bitch about fuel prices yet refuse to change their habits

Won't be long now,,you'll see a change in habits. Got my 2% raise this year so I'm ready.lmao

Please remember,,it's not our Pres. who says we can't drill, it's the Dems. in Congress saying NO to the West Coast, East Coast and Gulf Coast drilling when China is drilling 50 miles off shoar from us. When you have India and China coming out of the dark ages and going through the boom we went through in the 40's, this is where the oil is going and will go for years. It won't get better and we need to get off our backside in DC and get the ball rolling or our childrens children will be at the mercy of what the Bible says will be the trading center of the world. (Middle East and Asia)

Sure is quiet in Japan now that I think about it,,wonder what's going on there ??

As the link said,the habit changes have to be in Washington, DC.Or we need to change residents in office there should I say.

As the link said,the habit changes have to be in Washington

Gary,,there aren't going to be any changes in DC. The only thing that will change things there is for eveyone to stop paying income tax for a year. Now we got an ear that will listen then.
Both parties are so afraid of not having the power to control anything, they are bowing down to ALL and you can't bow to ALL.

Chemist, to answer your original question, I have been slowly picking up info on building an engine specifically for E85. So far, it seems that a static compression ratio of 13.5 :1 is the limit for E85. Don't quote me on this, though, as I need to validate that.
But compression ratio is the place to start from what I've gathered. You wouldn't pay for and run 105 octane gasoline in a vehicle that only had an 8.5:1 CR--it would be a waste of money as the high octane couldn't be put to use. Don't get me wrong; octane is not a measure of gasoline's power, it's a measure of gasoline's resistance to ignition by anything other than a spark from a sparkplug. As I understand it, gasoline from regular to premium all has the same power potential; a high compression ratio makes much better use of the gasoline's heat energy by giving the engine more power and greater fuel economy.
So, if the engine's compression ratio were increased to the limits of E85, what would the MPG of an E85 engine be like when compared to an engine with a compression ratio of 8.5:1 that's running gasoline? I'd love to find out--I have an unsubstantiated gut feeling that the E85 engine would match or even get better economy than the gasoline one and at a lower price per gallon of fuel. I intend to find out, but not with my Astro. I'll be experimenting on my 82 Olds Delta 88 after I get the facts together. The reason for this is that getting at the engine in my Olds is much easier than the Astro--I only need to open one hood on the Oldsmobile.

During the week we drive our 4cyl mazda to work and back. during the summer we ride the motorcycle to get 56mpg. If the price on smart cars were to come down to a reasonable level we would look at getting one of those to replace the car in a few years. Just to use for comuting to work and back then we would have the van when we need to go somewhere with the whole family. Most of our driving is to work and back so if we can reduce the price of that driving for the times that we go somewhere with the whole family we can afford to get worse mileage.

For those of you who are thinking of rebuilding a engine to "save money" have you really done the math here???
By the time you drop $1000 or more rebuilding the engine in the hope that it will get better mileage or possibly that the price of fuel will be cheaper how many miles will you have to drive to recoup the price of the modifications to the car.

If you are moding a old car how long does the rest of the body have in it before you run into electrical problems and so on and need to get rid of the car. Would that money be better spent selling your older car and adding the money you would have spent on the rebuild and buying a used newer 4cyl car that gets better mileage than your modified rebuild would?

Just something to think about I am not trying to slag anyones ideas. If you can modify the car for cheap to run less expensive fuel then go for it. The other thing to think about is putting your car or van onto Natural gas the price of that fuel is CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP compared to gasoline.