Ethanol question

I am considering growing my own ethanol crops and I am looking for any direction from anyone who has ever run ethanol in their HD. I have a "regular" not fuel injected system and the ethanol I am considering to make should be above 160 proof so it should not require any kind of warming. So, anyone have anything that they want to comment on using ethanol in a Harley? I should say that I have two other vehicles that I would convert over to the pure ethanol too, but I wanted to see if there was anything anyone might add on this forum. Thank you, in advance.

You're not going to like what I have to say, but ethanol is a very poor fuel & I'll tell you why.
1) The stoichiometric (theoretically ideal) air:fuel ratio with gasoline is 14.7:1. With ethanol it's 9:1, so you have to use ~ 63.3% more of it.
2) Although ethanol has a higher octane rating than gasoline, it contains far less energy. Expressed in terms of energy density in watt/hours per liter (Wh/L), gasoline contains 9700 Wh/L, while ethanol contains only 6100.
3) Gasoline has a lubricating quality ("lubricity") but ethanol does not & it attacks soft fuel system parts, so you have to change things like fuel line hoses & carb parts including needle & seat assembly. And the very "rich" mixture required tends to wash oil right off valves, pistons & cylinder walls. Contaminates the oil too, so you have to change more often.

Also, racing gives you a good idea as to how inefficent ethanol is - Indy cars & NASCAR cars make about the same HP, Indy cars run on 100% ethanol (as a promotional deal) & NASCAR cars run on unleaded gasoline. The "stock" car weighs over twice as much, has the aerodynamics of a brick & uses old pushrod, carburetor technology, while the Indy car is all high-tech & the much smaller V-8 makes a lot more HP per cubic inch. But the Indy car uses 2.5 times as much fuel.

Yes, you can make your bike & other vehicles run on 100% ethanol, but it's very expensive to do, especially if you want to get the same amount of power from them as on gasoline. And your fuel mileage will drop like a rock.

ethenol topic

We used to run a jr dragster on Methenol. In a 5 HP dragster we used 1/4 to1/2 GALLON in 1/8th mile...
I have a friend that uses E85 in a 550 HP street car. 85% ethenol. Not sure what he gets for milage but I would guess it isn't very good. I suppose if you could make it cheap and get some kind of license.

The idea of making your own fuel from available feed stocks is really what is driving this idea of mine. I know that Harley Davidson does not recommend using ethanol in their engines, they also spent a lot of time telling people not to use synthetic lubricants too. Now, synthetic lubricants are supposed to be "O.K." According to some research I have done a person can legally make up to 5000 gallons of ethanol for their own personal use as long as you register your distillery with the Federal Government. I have two cars a truck and one motorcycle and my annual fuel consumption is less than 1000 gallons a year. Even if my fuel efficiency dropped to 60% using nothing but home brewed ethanol I should be just fine. I have pear trees growing in my yard that produce baseball hard fruit every year that I have tried to use for other things and maybe ethanol is the answer for the pears.
My real concern is about the wear and tear on rubber items in the fuel system. I have only had one person tell me that this is not recommended, but they did not actually have any first hand experience using ethanol in their vehicle. Any bona-fide first hand stories about burning ethanol would be nice.
Thanks!

Thanks for the link. The Ethanol Forum has a link to a video where they took apart an engine running on E85 for 104,000 miles. They found rather normal looking wear and tear; in some instances the wear was not quite as bad as if they ran gasoline. It gave me some things to think about.

I have been doing a little research and found the following regarding motorcycle conversion kits, which seems really pricey but it kind of flies in the face of talk about lower power and less efficiency. I copied this off of a web site ( this is just for information purposes, and I am not promoting this particular site I am just sharing information found):
"The kit is not currently approved by the U.S. EPA, so therefore it has to be designated for off-road use. However, “clients have run their bikes through state emissions testing and passed,” Dabbs said. He added that the kit can be easily modified for use with any gasoline-powered engine and he’d be happy to design one for use on imported motorcycles.

According to Dabbs, motorcycles currently equipped with the conversion kit are used for racing, so the kit has been constantly tested. He receives regular feedback from his customers and has used that data to compile performance averages for the kit. He said a basic kit results in 33 percent higher horse power, a 13 percent increase in torque and a 10 percent gain in mileage, as compared to gasoline-powered stock engines.

The conversion kit costs approximately $2,000. “This may seem high to someone unfamiliar with performance kits for [Harley Davidson]-type engines, but it is much cheaper than kits delivering far less power gains,” Dabbs said. He is currently researching ways to lower the cost of the kit without decreasing the quality of the product. For more information interested motorcyclists can contact Dabbs at themotorsickledoc@yahoo.com."

Out of curiosity I did a little checking on that, just using the e-mail name (themotorsickledoc) in a Google search & easily found the site:
E85 conversion kit available for motorcycles - Ethanol Producer Magazine

Now, let's consider 2 extremely important points, the 1st of which is the word "stock" in the statement:

"He said a basic kit results in 33 percent higher horse power, a 13 percent increase in torque and a 10 percent gain in mileage, as compared to gasoline-powered stock engines."

And the fact that he is working with "E-85", which is 85% ethanol & 15% gasoline - NOT 100% ethanol - a much bigger difference than you might expect.

As to the performance numbers, major gains in HP, torque & fuel mileage over stock you can do to a Harley in the driveway for a LOT less than $2000. For example, just converting an 883 Sportster to a 1200 results in a 50% HP increase, a bit more in torque, 15% in fuel mileage & if you do all the work yourself (except machine shop), costs less than $700. And comparing race bike to stock bike it started out being, the "conversion" (parts, not to E-85) resulted in a 371% HP increase & a 278% torque increase - fuel mileage I didn't even bother to calculate though (really bad).

Last I looked, nobody had convinced God to change the Laws of Physics, so my 1st post on stiochiometry, energy density, lubricity & efficiency still stands - as do my comments that yes, you can use ethanol as a fuel, but it's a very poor choice & far more costly than the promoters of it would have you believe - even in terms of enviromental impact & I won't even start on that.

i dont want to offend anyone,but the ethanol question is what brought me to this forum.so if i might ,i would like to clear up some questions and provide some information to those interested.also, id like to acknowledge those that quote one of the interviews i did earlier this year. i will stick with the h-d based engine for the following information. ethanol can be burned efficiently in a harley engine,contrary to popular belief. it will not destroy your engine. here are the results averaged with the ALKYHAWG performance package. hp increase:33% over stock, torque:13%, fuel mileage:10%.there was also a consistant temperature drop at the exhaust port of 50 degrees F.engine oil was much cleaner at normal service intervals than the same engine running gasoline.this is to be expected as ethanol doesant have the amount of contaminants to begin with. these figures are for an other wise stock engine using the bolt on package which consist of modified heads,carb,gaskets and plugs.this is the basic package and not figures from the higher performance versions or one of the e85 race engines. i am aware these figures contradict what one normally finds published,but i am not one of the normal engineers. it is possible to run 100% ethanol on the properly designed engine.im not here t oquote other sources.the information provided is from my own R&D work as well as the bikes currently on the road running the ALKYHAWG package.if anyone would like more information i would be glad to provide them with waht i am able to.im not pushing e85 as the perfect fuel, but i was asked to design and build a means fo using it by a client.for those wanting more power and mileage using gasoline i offer the GAZZHAWG package.ethanol isnt for everyione,but if thats what you want,i make it possible. i hope no one was offended adn that this was informative. themotorsickledoc@yahoo.com ( forgive the typing as i have rheumatoid arthritis and my fingers arent quite what they used to be.)

Basic Starting Point

My question was about running a Harley Davidson on pure Ethanol and not really about gain or loss of horse power, but more about can it be accomplished. The point was about making my own Ethanol and using it on my own vehicles. Of course, the limitations are that you are basically tied to your own "back yard" I couldn't cross country with a motorcycle running 100% ethanol. So, I am happy to get some great information and maybe I will consider a second "town bike" for local travel using pure ethanol and leaving my Harley as it is. I am still considering building my own still making some amount of ethanol. Thanks for the input from everyone.

Having the capability of making your own ethanol & if most of your travel is within the range you can cover with what you can carry, you're certainly in a different situation than most. And if you can do much, if not all of the work making the conversion yourself, then it's really a different ballgame, which would make the idea far more attractive. I've lived in the Midwest & ran "gasohol" when it was readily available (to see what we could do with it) but you don't see it in this area & I've never seen a station with E-85. Making ethanol in this area would make no sense @ all, but if it does where you live, then the more info you can gather about doing it, the better!

making your own fuel

In the Carolinas the Ethanol they make is called "Moon Shine" it really is no different except that when you register a still with the Govt., you have to de-nature your product so that people don't drink it. Drinkable ethanol has to come out of a still using silver solder instead of lead. The lead joints are easier to make and the whole process becomes less of a headache (no pun intended) when the alcohol you make is fuel for the engine and not for the body. There are many different feed stocks available to anyone wanting to make ethanol, it doesn't have to be corn. Corn happens to be the greatest available crop in this country, but I was considering starting with some extremely hard pears growing in my yard that I let rot year after year. If I decide to build a still and go through the process of converting a motorcycle over to use my ethanol, I will keep the forum updated

160 proof!! Why waste it running it in you bike, Drink it, Sounds like good Tenn Moonshine to me!!!!!

Live Easy, Ride hard

Dont want to really know why, just want to put plain ole gas in all my engines and the alcohol can stay in the proper bottle for other uses.