Peter Cennamo and Teacher Tech Discuss Retrofitting Autos for Ethanol

June 9, 2010 - PRLog -- This is a common question asked of the Growth Energy. Unfortunately, there is no simple answer. In the strictest sense, yes, a vehicle that was designed to operate on unleaded gasoline only could be converted to operate on E85.  Realistically, the conversion is extremely difficult. Below explains the reasoning. Teacher Tech's Peter Cennamo states that Flex Fuel U.S. has obtained the only U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approval for an E85 conversion kit. The Flex-Box Smart Kit™ is approved for the most popular Dodge vehicles: the Dodge Charger, Dodge Magnum, Chrysler 300 2wd and AWD 5.7L Hemi.

During the 1980’s and early 1990’s, many small companies were formed that were altering gasoline-powered vehicles to operate on other forms of fuels such as propane, compressed natural gas, 85 percent ethanol and 85 percent methanol. The marketing program of these conversion companies was based on the premise that it was cheaper to operate a vehicle on alternative fuels. Peter Cennamo notes that the vehicles being converted were engineered, designed and built to operate on unleaded only. Shortly after the emergence of the “conversion firms” the EPA determined that when converted from gasoline to another form of fuel, the exhaust emissions from these converted vehicles were often much “dirtier” than prior to conversion. See explanation regarding EPA Memo 1A. The use of alternative fuels in the transportation sector has been built around the objectives of using cleaner, non-gasoline based components.

Peter Cennamo and Teacher Tech state that although it is possible to retrofit current autos to run on ethanol (E85) the only kit holds EPA certification is by FlexFuel U.S. You can find more information on this kit at www.flexfuelus.com. Technically speaking, converting a vehicle that was designed to operate on unleaded gasoline only to operate on another form of fuel that does not use the FlexFuel U.S. kit is a violation of the federal law and the offender may be subject to significant penalties.  

The differences in fuel injector size, air-fuel ratio, PCM calibrations, material composition of the fuel lines, pumps and tanks are just a few of the components that contribute to making an E85 conversion extremely complex.