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Ive started this thread to simply share my logs and experience using at least an E30 blend in my (stock) 2012 N14 fJCW. I have 2 'road tracks' which I do all my testing on, and log all available sensors I have access to using the torque app.
I havent been real happy with the information ive been able to find regarding running ethanol blends in the MCS/JCW coopers. Seems like a lot of Mini drivers are scared of ethanol "Foozeballs the devil!". From personal experience Ive run an E30 mix of 91/E85 in many cars NA and turbo for years; stock fuel systems and ECU today can handle a lot more than some give them credit for. I just got my OBD device and have pulled the first log today. Ive had the car for about a month now and have run 6 tanks of E30 through is so far. This far, its been a good experience. AFR's and temps all within reason at this point, the ECU is adjusting well.
Few more logs, daily driving with some WOT pulls through 2/3/4. Added engine timing into the logs and got rid of some non-essential info too.
*Seeing timing range from -10 to +33.5 through rev range
*AFR at 6400RPM WOT + 17psi = 11.0 on current fuel blend
From the logs, you can see pretty clearly that the ECU can tolerate E30 no problem. There is no lean condition, plenty of fuel across the whole log. ECU is advancing timing nicely, and still providing full boost. EGT/Cat temps are great too.
*Update - Since colder weather has set in and ambient dropped about 40f.. Ive noticed the AFR getting a bit on the lean edge running E30 @ these temps. Though all other indicators and system vitals are within reason, I dont like what the ECU is doing with fuel trim.
Ive switched back to full 91oct and pulled a few logs while its cold in early morning (the air temp.. not the car). ECU definitely is wanting to run lean when ambient is cold and using an alcohol blend. On 91oct fuel trim and AFR stay within 'normal' range and the is still nice and rich at WOT (~10.8 to 11 AFR/WOT on 91 with ~58f ambient).
Looks like I will be saving the 'juice' for summer when ambient is >90f and the ECU can respond better.
are you strictly just mixing E85 with 93 to come up with your E30 number or are you using a flex fuel sensor/display? asking because ifyoure buying E85 from a random gas station not a distributor that actively monitors the ethanol content to ensure it is E85, you're most likely not anywhere close to E30.
I run it in my other truck that has a flex fuel sensor and it is commonly 55-75% ethanol content and says so right on the pump that it may be as low as 50%. I think there are test kits you can buy to test the ethanol content but really no way to do so before you put it in your tank
are you strictly just mixing E85 with 93 to come up with your E30 number or are you using a flex fuel sensor/display? asking because ifyoure buying E85 from a random gas station not a distributor that actively monitors the ethanol content to ensure it is E85, you're most likely not anywhere close to E30.
I run it in my other truck that has a flex fuel sensor and it is commonly 55-75% ethanol content and says so right on the pump that it may be as low as 50%. I think there are test kits you can buy to test the ethanol content but really no way to do so before you put it in your tank
I am mixing dedicated race fuel E85, not random pump bought stuff, guaranteed to be 85%, sealed in cans. Mixing it with 98RON fuel.
The pump stuff is highly variable. They change the blend of ethanol depending on the time of year and temperatures.
@ robbo - Am I mistaken to think that 11.8-12.2 AFR is a bit lean for WOT on ~E30 blend? Overall the car runs really strong on the E-blend and its the only time I regularly see boost peaking over 18-19psi.. on straight 91oct, i rarely see boost touch 17psi regardless of temps or driving.
btw - thanks for chiming in with your experience.
@ randeez - Yes, im guestimating % based on the amount. I know the actual blend will vary at the pump. If I could find more a reputable tuner shop with experience on Mini; I would like to invest in a flex-fuel kit... but that seems like a tall order given the lack of info available and lack of interest in R56 from shops Ive talked with.
Ive got to fill up again soon, and still want to test out an ~E40 mix to see how it acts.
Sorting my latest logs by the highest MAF cfm reading makes it pretty easy to find the WOT sections of the drive. All readings still showing ECU is adjusting well and keeping things safe.
WOT stat average on E40, 4rth and 5th gear
Ambient @ 64.4f
IAT @ 87.8f
Ive noticed the AFR will dip down into the mid 10's during my morning commute which is a lot of stop and go 2nd/3rd gear pulls. Emptied my OCC this weekend and double checked the oil level (no consumption in last 2 tanks of fuel). Thing runs like a top!
40f ambient this morning and fresh fill/mix, 8ga 91oct + 4.5ga E85 ... close to 96oct or ~E37. Car was nice and warm by the time I hit the long straight in my drive where I can WOT (safely).. Pulled like a train through every gear, shift @ ~6300rpm, saw 22.6psi peak boost in 3rd and 4rth gear, with AFR @ 10.2 !!
ECU is holding ~6.5 degree advance during WOT now, all the way to ~6k rpm; with boost trimming to ~16.8psi near redline.
**was a happy clam, then made it to work and realized a GPS error during the drive corrupted the log file of the trip! Aarrgghh !! Max recorded reading off the gauges was the only 'data' I captured.. :( Just setup of the repeater add-on for torque so now i can view my gauge info on one device and log with another. Hopefully avoid losing anymore logs this way.
looking good....
I grabbed everything to put a flex fuel sensor on my other vehicle (gmc truck, uses o2s to calculate fuel/ethanol quality currently adding the sensor for accuracy) I was going to see if the fuel line (both quick disconnect style) is the same size , the sensor itself only needs pos/neg and a single wire to a standalone gauge. if it's as easy as pulling fuel line pre hpfp and putting it in-line with a few fittings i may do the same and to mini
very interested in where you are heading & how it goes
quick shot of a few max readings from another failed log run; attempting to use an old Galaxy Note2 for a dedicated logger/gauge cluster, rather than my daily cell.
One thing you are not monitoring that I would strongly recommend is fuel rail pressure. Previous test at E50 on a tuned Mini showed a very serious drop in FRP around 3000-3500 RPM at that mixture. At higher RPMs the HPFP was able to keep up. BMW's ran into the same problem at almost the same RPM range. The stock tune isn't calibrated to move as many CFM through the engine at a lower RPM so your probably fine. The FRP however will let you know when your starting to max out the factory fuel system. The overly rich (AFR 10) are a result of the ecu adapting STFT to E85 which carries over into LTFT. Long term fuel trims are added to open loop (WOT) operation.
Without advancing the timing though your leaving power on the table. The ecu is adapting boost in order to hit the torque targets in the load tables. Generally speaking 30% is a safe figure for the factory system that adds detonation protection but still leaves enough headroom for tuning lambda, boost and timing.
I have started logging it recently, I've always have the rail pressure on a display gauge..but after I noticed the fluctuations I started logging it. Currently, this ~E40 mix of 8ga 91oct + 4.5ga E85; seems to be 'safe' in terms of fuel pressure and lambda. I'm still holding ~1800psi at 6300rpm and ~12psi boost. Under lower rpm and ~20psi I can see the fuel pressure failing to ~1680 - 1700psi [again on this ~E40 blend].
Definitely looks like the pumps are working hard. Any idea how difficult replacing the primary fuel pump is?
I've attached the factory map for fuel rail pressure so you can see where you should be. No need to replace the HPFP to raise the pressure a bit. For tuning we generally raise the limit from 12 Mpa to 15.5 Mpa (2200 psi). When 50% and higher was tried the upper limit was raised to 20.5 Mpa (3000 psi) and it was still a no go. After a point the set pressure is irrelevant if the pump isn't capable of supporting the flow needed.
this is pretty interesting, coming from 0 background in any experience using ethanol, what do you look out for? Just from browsing other areas of this forum, i'm keeping an eye on any timing pulled during WOT for regular gas (CA 91 with old JB+ at 50%) and it seems fine. I was thinking about doing an E30 mix and turning up the JB+ a bit.
Does the car "know" to target a certain AFR when blending by using some other parameter (and what's normal for an E30 blend)? Other than a timing drop and fuel rail pressure, is there anything else I should monitor?
From my experience this far, I can see the ECU compensating when its running blended ethanol. It advances timing more, throughout the entire RPM range. It does run slightly higher fuel pressure from the HPFP (so it is spraying more). Boost holds well on the mix, and EGT's a tad lower as well. You can safely put 3-4ga of E85 into a tank. I would hesitate to run a harder mix, as you will really be pushing your HPFP (there are no lubricants in alcohol.. and it has a tendency to dry out the rubber seals in the HPFP which lead to failure).
*watch your AFR, 91oct runs 14:1 stoich and ~11 @ WOT.. a 95/96oct blend of 91/E85, will give you AFR in the 12's and ~9 @ WOT.
*ECU will compensate fine at idle and WOT.. its actually mid-RPM cruising where youre in/out of the throttle, that you will find the car has a tendency to run on the lean side. Its not enough to cause concern, so long as youre not smashing the throttle from 2k RPM in 5th gear. You dont want to boost while lean. Build revs.. then go deeper in the pedal to find the turbo.
Compared to a ~96oct blend of 91/100.. it runs about the same; but its much cheaper on the wallet. I feel the alcohol blends trade a bit of HP down at low RPM, for better Torque and HP on the top of the RPM range. Its real difficult to recreate driving conditions to compare from one mix to the other; but on alcohol blend I see ~3-4psi more at ~5800rpm compared to pump gas only.
Thanks! I just put in 3 gal of e85 and topped off with 91, so I should be at a ~E30 blend by now (assuming 13.2 off edmunds.com is correct). I'll be turning up the JB+ tonight, logging and taking it easy for 50 mi or so for the adapting period and see what I come up with. On a related note, I was tracking throttle pos as one of the PID's earlier today and it seemed like it maxed out at 80% consistently. Not really sure what's going on with that.
@ stu2211 : Ive also seen the same for throttle position sensor data.. actually pretty sure 81% is the highest I've ever recorded (and I make sure the foot is flat on the floor)
*found a local shop with an AWD dyno.. gave me a good price for a some time. Baseline run and dyno sheet coming soon. Then we will see if the Manic tuner in Santa Rosa ever hits me back...
ok did a few WOT runs, this is with a JB+ turned up to the 2:00 position from 12:00. I'm still not entirely sure how the car decides how much boost to target, I peaked at 16.24 psi on one of the runs in the middle, though I've seen boost that high when the JB was in the stock position. I was expecting to be consistent 1-2 psi higher but I'm not seeing that; hopefully I'm not having a separate issue with the unit.
My AFR's are higher than yours, and I'm having the same mid-range lean situation that you've experienced with a slightly dip in fuel pressure. WOT at redline is sitting at 10-11 AFR, idle is still pretty much at 14. I don't think i'm seeing too much of a diff between straight 91 and the e30 blend. The interesting part, though, is that timing is being advanced throughout the pulls, so the car's not knocking (or if it is, it's not recognizing it and pulling timing to compensate). Is this something I should be concerned about?
I've attached some of the data that I've gone through and cleaned up to show each of the pulls. 2011 N18 MCS.
Edit: Popped a P0171 lean code on my commute home during regular driving. Max boost for the trip was only at ~5psi at the time. The ecu doesn't seem to be compensating for the E30 at least from what I've been seeing for AFR values
Last edited by stu2211; 02-22-2018 at 06:00 PM.
Reason: update
ok, did a little more testing after I was playing around with torque and found that there's a lambda PID that can be reported (commanded equivalence ratio in the app), but this just creates just as many questions as it answers for me. So checking around the interwebs tells me that regardless of EXX blend, Lambda is what I want to be looking at - a value of 1.00 and below is acceptable as stoich/rich, anything above is lean. After I logged and ran both AFR and Lambda, looking at all the data excluding AFR, I think I'm good. Lamba consistently shows <=1.00 during my runs, with it decreasing fairly linearly as go up the rpm's, and timing is continually advanced as well. AFR's are still high, in line with what I'd expect running straight gas from CornJuice's data.
So here's my question - how exactly is the car picking up Lambda and AFR? Are there 2 sensors or a single one with the Mini calculating AFR as a function as lambda (or other way around)?
It seems that from the logs, assuming I got a good blend of E30, either my AFR or my Lambda is off.
Edit: shoot - realized I was picking up the wrong PID, I was tracking commanded not the actual O2 sensor. Oops, time to log some more lol.
Last edited by stu2211; 02-24-2018 at 09:23 PM.
Reason: Wrong PID
Lambda is the fuel the ECU "ask for" based on what is reads from the primary O2 sensor output. While it is the most accurate way to gauge AFR..its not the most correct way. Let me explain;
ECU reads 'x' from O2 sensor.. "asks for" fuel delivery 'y' ..gets 'z' which is AFR
Reading lambda alone wont show you lean conditions, as ECU will have 'read' and 'asked' for proper amount of fuel .. just not received it. For example.. seeing 1.02 on lambda doesnt mean you were lean..you were probably just not on throttle. What i mean more specifically is - dont take one number as "data". Thats what the #'s together provide.
Reading AFR alone is fine for what your logging, but adding lambda and fuel rail pressure & timing advance (if you havent) will give you a nice 'picture' of what ECU asks for and what it gets. I have seen .79 lambda running the E30 blend. Lowest Ive logged so far on a straight gas mix of ~95oct is .88 @ 6453 RPM/17.3 PSI
**Looking at your log - Q: how many miles did you drive before the lean code? From looking at your info, it looks like ECU learning was still improving your AFR through your log. Take a look at one of your first pulls and compare the timing advance, fuel pressure and AFR to another pull further down the log. At first, Im seeing your ECU running a bit lean and pulling timing where boost comes in at low RPM, and also above 6300. Towards the end of your log.. it looks like ECU has richened AFR to ~10.8 and is not pulling timing at the lean points anymore.
Last edited by cornjuice; 02-25-2018 at 07:28 AM.
Reason: checked your logs
@CornJuice - yah, you're exactly right, anything >1.05 or 15 AFR was just the spike when I let off the throttle in gear and the fuel was cut. A quick log from yesterday had both measured AFR and measured Lambda, as I went down the data points, the ratio from one to the other (AFR : Lambda) was very stable. I'm still missing pieces to fully understanding how everything fits together, but I think it's safe to say, for my purposes, I can use both or either metric to measure what I'm looking for.
It was about 80 miles but all fwy with minimal boost. Unfortunately, to throw another wrench in this whole experiment, I filled up again yesterday and popped another lean code coming out of the gas station (another E30 mix) during the beg of my commute. The car wasn't fully warmed up so I was thinking it may be bc it was running in open loop at the time so I cleared it. This morning though, at the end of my commute, it popped it again. I've pulled my JB+ and turned it down a notch, from the 2:00 to 1:00 position, but it's not looking good for my specific case.
My intention was to be able to support a little more power via turning up the JB+ coupled with the E30 blend, but I suspect that the consistency of the blend may be the difficult part to get down, from both mixing it on my end, and the gas station's purported E85 (which apparently can be as low as E51). I'm also not too clear on their blend week by week. Is the % of ethanol at the pump going to be different each time the tanker come by, or is it consistent by location? Either way, I'm at the point of diminishing returns: I was able to run the JB+ at 12:00 (default) position with 91 without any issue, even if I'm able to run 1:00 with E30, I'm not sure if it's worth it in my case.
I may try running another tank with a little more E85 next time, but I guess this just goes to show how everybody's experiences can be specific to their car and JB+ unit. I don't think there's any way I'd be able to get to MarioKart's JB+ cranked up to 100%
10-26-2017, 11:59 AM
