For a street car, the most important thing you need for converting to E-85 is patience. Tuning for a new fuel is always interesting, and E-85 is no different. The basic rule to follow for most street applications, is to start out about 15% richer in your jetting, and increase your accelerator pump shot size and duration. Each engine is different, and will want different final adjustments, but this is a good start. After you get satisfactory jetting, and the engine idles (probably poorly), you need to adjust the timing. My 383 only really required an additional 2 degrees of timing advance at idle, but is happy with as much as 20 degrees initial timing. The current setting is 18 degrees initial advance, in an unmodified MOPAR electronic distributor. Yor usually won't hear detonation with this fuel, but you will feel the engine nose over when the fuel is too lean, or the ignition advance too high. Experimentation is your friend- and the additional 20-50 bhp is worth the effort, I think. An engine will see some benefit from switching to E-85 when the compression ratio gets above about 10.5:1, or when the engine is otherwise designed to generate higher cylinder pressures. No special materials need to be used with this fuel, outside of quality components. This is NOT methanol! Methanol is evil, dangerous stuff, and this stuff is just fun. My fuel tank is a 36 gallon unit from a 1985 Dodge Van, and the fuel system is plumbed with 3/8 steel and rubber- there have been no problems. You do not need an alcohol carburetor until you exceed certain fuel-flow requirements, such as with a blower and a stroked 440, or a 426 Hemi spinning 8000rpm. At these levels of performance, you need a lot of any fuel to run. My 383 does not starve for fuel with a single 750cfm, Holley 4-barrel with center-hung floats, and a Carter electric fuel pump and Holley fuel filter. This engine has run at 7000rpm with no fuel-starvation issues.
