well i have been looking into this for the last few days. I think you are talking about methonal, which is a byproduct of the natural gas plants. e85 is good if it is locally. But im looking to make ethanol my self in the backyard. very easy and said to cost around $1.2 a gallon. Now alot if stuff people say is from the early 80's propaganda from the oil companys back when prices doubled. you don;t need to run twice as much. and usually everything is alright to use ethanol. 180 proof is 106 octane, so you need the compression to use that much octane effectivly, if not you will get 15% worse gas mileage worst case. it is fully legal to make it yourself, you can make it out of any starch or sugar foods. even rotten fruit and such.
now E85 is well 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. Preimuim gas used to be called gashol, anyone rember that? i don't i was even born yet, but no one knew what i was they changed to name to premium.
to make E85 you have to get 200 proof or 100% alc bv. proof divided by 2 is the percetage or vice a versa.
now it takes more energy to get from 180 proof to 200 than the intial 180 proof, you have to use chemicals to dehydrate the rest of the water, which there is a cheaper way to do it, and it is reusable. But it HAS to be 0% water or the gasolin will seperate the water from the alc, causing water at the bottom of the tank.
Im converting my car to efi so it isn't that hard of a change, and probalby now for a daily driver but if it sits around you may have water problems as high proof alc draws water out of the air.
also ethanol is not as corrosive as methonal (which most drag racers run) also indy cars have run ethanol for the last 80 years. henry ford made the model t to run off ethanol as he said it was the fuel of the future. Ethanol accounts for 10% of fuel sales. south america is alomst 100% running on eth. as they can make it cheaply and not hacve to reley on some other country....hmm actually oil companys here in the us have seen 50% bigger profits than last year...so where is the price increase coming from really? do you think that we are affected by oil barrel prices right away? its only going to go up in price, so why not support you self?
+ it runs very cold, i have seen a twin turbo buick making over 1,200 hp running on eth, and no intercooler actualy put ice on the intake!! have you ever put rubbing alc on your skin?
http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/
this is the best site so far that i have seen. Plus there still plans sound very good and 5 gallons production an hour? awsome.
i found a book that talks about making it so after i pick uit upand read it i will post back.
steve
(only legal if you get a permit, very easy, you just have to have it denutred. Adding enough gasoline to make it poisonis to drink. and don;t think about drinking 180 proof or 200 proof as your skin cells will lose all of its water content on contact.)