United 100 Octane fuel

[Diesel_vert]

I've still got no idea how the Ethanol comes into play though

Ethanol is more naturally resistant to knock, so when it's mixed with petrol, it effectively increases the overall its octane number. This means the engine can produce more power if it's able to take advantage of it.

However, when used in a conventional petrol engine, fuel consumption increases because ethanol is less energy dense than petrol; meaning you have to burn more of it.

But if one were to build an engine designed to run on ethanol from the outset, you'd be able to achieve very high efficiencies indeed.

A mate in QLD runs an E85 tune on his Liberty GT. Pulls some very nice hp & torque figures but he changed injectors (the stock were maxxing out all the time), fuel pumps, fuel lines, etc & did a lot of custom tuning.

Yep.
It would be wise to make the necessary modifications to ensure the engine, and its auxiliary systems, is compatible with fuels of high ethanol content.

[MariusGT]

Report back with your thoughts if you use it.

Ok. filled with 100premium from united before easter weekend. 50+ Litres so only a dash of the 98 left over to mix.

With a bit left i'm looking at getting around 670-680kms from the tank. Now considering i normally get around 650 with majority city driving on a weekly basis.. this long weekend included a run to Nelson Bay and back (around 400kms of freeway). So economy is certainly NOT better than 98 from shell, BP etc.

As for the main question about noticeable power gain: seat of my pants? bugger all. if any it is due largely to the fact i know i have 100 in the tank and THINK it feels quicker. Without proper timing i couldn't say either way.

Verdict: i know it's not an extensive test having only done 1 single solitary tank... but i'm never filling with United 100 again.

I'll stick to BP.

[readerr0r]

I've been running 100Oct in my Polo since I bought it because there's a United near where I live and I love it.

I got a BP gift card from my credit card rewards and filled up with BP 98 at a rather old service station in Annerly (Fuel gauge was in the red) and a few days later it actually misfired on the highway and shutdown a cylinder. My tailpipe had a bunch of soot too.

Now I know it was mostly likely the crappy servo complete with 80s style pumps that was the cause but if there's a United near where you live I say go for it. The Myer rewards bonus is alright too

[ongti]

This is my 4th tank of United 100...about 10 min from my house but My car loves it and im loving it too with APR stage 2 the car is getting 600km out of a full tank... very impressive

[Tobes_WIR35]

This is my 4th tank of United 100...about 10 min from my house but My car loves it and im loving it too with APR stage 2 the car is getting 600km out of a full tank... very impressive

Does anyone know if/where I could get the maximum volume flow rates for the stock Mk6 GTI fuel system? I've heard that running E85 fuel gives you anywhere from 10-25% more power, but of course you need to tune it for around 106RON and it also needs about 25% more fuel. It would be cool to do, but I don't think that there would be 25% redundancy in the stock fuel system to deliver this amount of fuel.

[McCoy]

I've done a fair bit of work with cars coming in and out of our workshop that we've set up to run not just e85 but dual mapping for both e85 and 98. It's a LOT easier with a fuel system that runs at 37psi at idle compared to a fuel system that runs 30bar like it does on a current model Golf. For those who may not know, 1 bar is equivilent to 14.75psi so fuel pressure is extremely high when talking direct injection.

It's easy to replace a fuel pump with a larger pump, or even twins as long as you arent talking about a car with cam driven fuel pumps, and injectors on lets say a subaru WRX or an Evo is perhaps a 20 minute job, injectors are easy to find, easy to install andeasy to dial in. For a VW/AUDI it's around a 5 hour job, no jokes and dialing them in isnt easy.

The amount of current drawn from an injector like you'd find in an RS4 is huge too, but then you'd expect that when fuel pressures get as high as 150bar! All in all, e85 with it's high fuel consumption under load makes it VERY difficult to use in a direct injection car. Believe me, I'm trying my hardest to come up with a solution as e85 is easy power.

It's resistance to knock is acceptional and as far as increases in power... It's phenomenal! The amount of timing you can add makes any car just sing, especially down low. It makes Torque simply come alive. To give you an example, with just a fuel pump and injectors change, dumping 98 and replacing it with e85 I've seen an Evo making 280kW at the wheels go to 347kW and over 100Nm.

[Beer Baron]

Seeing how all current petrol models are compatible with 10% ethanol (see link), I don't see why not.

Ethanol can be a double-edged sword when it comes to value. It's a cheaper commodity than petrol, which lowers the price at the pump, but its lower energy content also means you consume it at a higher rate. So you may not save any money in the long term.

However, you can't argue with its performance. Ethanol tends to cool the intake charge, and combined with the two point increase in octane, your engine will be able to produce more power if it can take advantage of it.

I tend to judge fuel by it's octane number and not price, so it's a no-brainer for me - use it!

Others may have different priorities (like running costs, etc) but then who buys an R for that?

My only problem is that it's not available in Sydney.

it's available at lots of places in sydney. I have a map in my GTR for it and when tuned for it there is a decent gain over 98 pump fuel.

putting it in a stock car or even on a tuned car (but without a specific map for it) you won't feel anything much. it's a bit cheaper than 98 usually but you'll use a bit more of it so on balance cost per km is probably about the same.

there are 2 servos within a couple km of me that have it (rozelle and drummoyne). and they've had it for about a year or more now. there's at least a dozen or more uniteds in sydney that sell it last time I checked (which was months ago).

[passat08]

Ok i have a 08 passat with stage 1 APR, i got told that this burns quicker and can cause damage to turbo? So at moment i run with vpower shell seem to get more k's out of tank. I havent tried e100 or e85 so there are people with the APR stage's that are running this and not having any problems what so ever?

[Beer Baron]

mate there is no way on earth you can run E85 on the same tune as for regular petrol. no matter what the car or what tune or 'stage' it has.

united 100Ron is a different story. it's only 5-10% ethanol (where as E85 is....85% ethanol only 15% petrol). it's basically the same as the old 'optimax extreme 100ron' that was sold at limited shell servos about 5 years ago.

you can almost certainly run the U100 in your passat but you won't get any more power out of it. the small amount of E in it won't cause any problems but unless you have a tune specifically for the U100 there is not really any point (maybe cost saving as it's often cheaper than 98RON from the big servos).

[Beer Baron]

if you want to run E85 you will need bigger fuel pump and a bigger HPFP (assuming your car is DI?) and bigger injectors. for cars with direct injection that gets expensive as they run very high pressure fuel systems. and then you'll need a custom made tune for it. once done it should gain 30% more power and be able to run as much boost as the turbo can handle and you can enjoy the fact that E85 is still pretty cheap (though you do need to burn more of it which negates a bit of the price difference).

NOTE: I have no idea what engine is in a 08 passat so if it's not turbo and not direct injection petrol then feel free to disregard the above.

maybe talk to APR about it if you are interested in E85. I'm sure they could do a custom tune for it.