There is a lot of debate these days for and against ethanol. Environmentalists and deficit hawks both agree that the idea of turning food into fuel is a bad idea, but other methods of making ethanol for non-edibile biomass still hold lots of promise. And if you’re into horsepower (like me) than stories like this Ferrari FF making an extra 225 horsepower on E85 is music to your ears.
Ferrari’s are notoriously expensive cars, where something as simple as floor mats can add an extra $500 to the MSRP. But for about $2,500, Ferrari FF owners can change the tune on their exotic sports cars to run E85 ethanol fuel. This cheap tune can add up to 225 horsepower on top of the 650 horsepower the Ferrari’s V12 engine already makes.
That adds up to 875 horsepower, and while speed tests haven’t happened yet, the tuners estimate that the E85-powered Ferrari will hit 0-62 mph in less than 3 seconds. On top of that, the E85 fuel in the Ferrari will reportedly yield an 80% reduction in emissions. Not sure if I believe that, as it would bring the Ferrari’s g/km of emissions down from 360 g/km to less than 100 g/km…better than a Prius, and most turbodiesel offerings as well. So I’m calling BS on that.
But the extra horsepower? Hell ya. I don’t care why someone chooses to go green, whether it be for more power or cleaner air. But when they do, and it had the added benefit of improved performance over fossil fuels…that’s a win-win in my book.
PDF 
About Christopher DeMorro
E85 and Ethanol have 130 (plus!) octane ratings, so higher compression can lead to MUCH higher final hp in boosted cars … on an NA car like the Ferrari? Unless they’ve cranked up the compression (which would require shaved heads, at minimum) and spun the engine to way-high rpm (that’s an exact number, btw), I’m happy to be the first to call bulls*** on this one.
@ Jo Borras
The Ferrari FF has a compression ratio of 12.3:1. That is very high, and requires incredible engine controls. Octane + compression = <3. 225 horsepower is probably a generous estimate, but I am also not a Ferrari tuning specialist either.
Nothing incredible about the compression ratio, we saw that in 1969, and 70, when Camaro, Corvette big cube motors came with 12.5 – 1 TRW forged piston’s , i still have a set from a 427ci, when we could get well over 100 octane fuel and ad in 12 deg. timing and more even at idle, through in a engine controller this is not as big of an issue as one might think, we have seen these increases on other typical engines from GM that have all had increases in HP, it is only the flex programing and optimizing through a wide scope of blends that takes time on a dyno if starting from scratch a GM LS-3 comes with 10.8, and the supercharged version can
develop more with controlling boost, we have been trying to get the ethanol industry to back an American icon to use as demo veh. that proves this very point and efficiency go hand in hand, the problem was with low quality, dirty fuel and low octane as the least expensive few pay for premium fuels, and so OEM’s make cars to run on bad gas, so the family low compression car never reaches potential it could have , this is part of our demo tour , in need of funding, proof this is not hard but getting people to believe the truth is, as they have never been educated in fact or forgot how we used to have very cool cars that had lot’s of power.
LOL, our Chevy LS engine test showed with a Delphi controller could easily see 40 HP increase over a factory 436. hp simply by adding Ethanol blends, and better injectors, along with a quality controller and dyno time to write the programing from scratch. same engine comes in Chevy truck, and SS Camaro, base engine for Corvette years before, the LS-9, can develop over 650 hp on ethanol blends if testing were to take place, best part is the cost little to maintain and are readily available for car builders. interested gerbshop@bnin.net
ANY flex fuel vehicle will see higher octane and reduced emissions if they fill with E85 instead of gasoline. So it’s not just an Italian Job….
For more background on this, see articles in Green Racing section at http://advancedbiofuelsusa.info/category/green-racing particularly Fernando Alonso Beats Red Bulls Using BioGasoline and Cellulosic Ethanol at http://advancedbiofuelsusa.info/fernando-alonso-beats-red-bulls-using-biogasoline-and-cellulosic-ethanol and Mid-Ohio American Le Mans Series: Ferrari Wins GT Class with Added E-85 Performance at http://advancedbiofuelsusa.info/mid-ohio-american-le-mans-series-ferrari-wins-gt-class-with-added-e-85-performance
Corvette had been using E85 for a few years; the Ferarri ALMS manager tried to get permission to do the same. As you see from above, once they did convince HQ to watch demos on the dynos, they wondered why they waited so long. Racing can develop and test relevant improvements for commercial use. Watch the event calendars on the Advanced Biofuels USA web site for a conference on this engine development and advanced biofuels topic in Washington, DC in June 2012.
Joanne, said it well, this is common place in the racing industry as is to where we used to drag race with it for us this is where we learned many years ago, as far as octane the pump version can be inconsistent , and is up to 85%, only certified versions of fuels like from Ignite brand, are certified at 108, 110, 116, there is a little science to the cooling effect , vapor pressure, etc, not going there , but e-85 is around 105 oct. Ignites web sight is great for racers to get info and see many who realize this along with Joannes news mag. but turning food into Fuel? funny how corn has the most bi-products, corn oil, and high value animal feed no vitamins are removed or protein only the starch, it only makes fat and poop, the cost of food goes up every time fuel does, funny how one of the lowest human nutritional food’s is cardboard corn flakes, and they were on sale last week, also corn chips, also fattening, the corn used has been crossbred to yield higher starch, and this is the part used for fuel, and with that said we see export of our ethanol when we could be using it, and lettuce and tomato crops being turned under for salmonella and we still through away more than we can eat, these products not fit for consumption could also become ethanol, as 2nd and 3rd gen fuels become feasible, this will take pressure off the corn, but it is up to speculators as well, and us paying not to plant 86 million acres and the world a billion acres not planted to keep grain prices high enough to make a little profit for the farmers to keep them off the assistance programs, as much as before, but hey go ahead and keep subsidizing foreign oil with our aircraft carriers and men and women in harms way to protect oil, and 60oo billion world wide for oil and the fact they have lobbied for 100 years , as Henry Ford said ethanol was the fuel of the future , the future is here and i like a powerful piston engine, and the fun of driving a non electric wheelbarrow., the best one is the new pipeline that will only give some jobs for a while, and possibly pollute many states, but it will go to the gulf to be sold not refined for our use? remember over 80 VOC’s, (all mostly toxic ) make the aromatic parts of gasoline that ethanol displaces, and when we use more we can use less of foreign oil that buys rocket launchers to kill us, simple way to look at it, rechargeable cars rolling blackouts?
ask who has the dirtiest fuel next to Russia yup us, Japan and China are cleaner. we can make our oil supply last a thousand times longer if we do this right, and say the heck with foreign oil let China and India buy it .