Lotus Cracks the Code!: Ethanol Yields More Power Than Petrol

We have found that you can get more performance from a high-performance engine if you use ethanol because of its octane number, which is better than petrol’s. It’s particularly marked in cars that have super- charged and turbo-charged engines. We have found efficiency increases which, while not enormous, are still the sort of increases that people are spending billions of dollars trying to achieve in the automotive sector
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chewy - 7/24/2006 1:30:34 PM

+1 Boost

Actually not really true, the performance gain is so tiny, especially compared to the more than 30% drop in fuel economy.

Here is the fuel economy drop.
http://www.caranddriver.com/article.asp?article_id=11174§ion_id=4&page_number=7

In the same article, the E85 car accelerated to 60 in only a tenth quicker and there was no difference in the quarter mile.

PlanoA4 - 7/24/2006 10:26:43 PM

+1 Boost

Chewy - I think they were dealing with pure Ethanol. But all of the reports I have read concuur with your thoughts. E85 is poor on power and a short sighted solution.