Leon Cupra and E85 flex-fuel

DaRa

Active Member
Nov 21, 2019
41
7
The idea is to be able to put 100% E85, 100% usual gasoline (SP98) or any mix % of the 2.
According to them there is absolutely no problem at all with full E85 for the full life cycle of the car
 

Nora2004

Active Member
Oct 15, 2017
176
80
The idea is to be able to put 100% E85, 100% usual gasoline (SP98) or any mix % of the 2.
According to them there is absolutely no problem at all with full E85 for the full life cycle of the car
If he is not changing any hardware on the car, good luck using straight e85, do some research on the Mk7 Golf pages and educate yourself first before putting your engine on the line, your braver than me! Lol
 

Zer0

Active Member
Jun 22, 2019
522
242
I used a mix of Ron 98 and E85 (E25 mix) on my MK7 GTI with JB4 and custom map 6 for a while. Up to 30% (E30) is fine according to Burger Tuning.

The point of this was to improve performance though and I was able to increase boost a little.
 

Jaco2k

AWD FTW
Mar 11, 2018
1,037
635
Tampere, Finland
www.youtube.com
Are you sure you can do the E85 flex fuel conversion?
One of my mechanic friends now started to sell and install these kits and he told me it cannot be done in my car due to the injection system.
Also, browsing the catalog for most places that offer these kits you will see that no cars with direct injection (like the Cupra) are supported.
I would double check and then triple-check ;)
 

DaRa

Active Member
Nov 21, 2019
41
7
On the 2.0 TSI there is no hardware needed according to them, and there is absolutely no risk whatsoever according to them.
But seeing all of your guys comments I am starting to wonder...
And yes it's for 100% E85
 

queen

~Nassia~
Nov 29, 2010
701
62
Athens, Greece
Just my 2 cents, try to find one of those other cars that this guy mentioned and speak to them directly to find out exactly what's involved and get some feedback.
 
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BarryBlack

Active Member
Feb 10, 2020
21
4
Grave digging here, I know...

I was curious about runing E85 on an EA888 Gen 3 car a while back, and can confirm that the fuel systems in these cars won't cope with E85 for long. To do it properly, you'd need to overhaul the fuel system completely, APR produce a kit to do so, but it's very pricey https://www.goapr.com/products/fueling_ea888_gen3.html

I'm sure you could use different cheaper components and do it for less, but the point here is that it'd a big job.

Bonus points: if you're willing to put the time in to research, Brazil is a great source of info for alcohol based fuel systems and associated tuning. They've been running alcohol in cars since the fuel crisis of the 70s, and VW have several manufacturing facilities over there.
 

Zer0

Active Member
Jun 22, 2019
522
242
Grave digging here, I know...

I was curious about runing E85 on an EA888 Gen 3 car a while back, and can confirm that the fuel systems in these cars won't cope with E85 for long. To do it properly, you'd need to overhaul the fuel system completely, APR produce a kit to do so, but it's very pricey https://www.goapr.com/products/fueling_ea888_gen3.html

I'm sure you could use different cheaper components and do it for less, but the point here is that it'd a big job.

Bonus points: if you're willing to put the time in to research, Brazil is a great source of info for alcohol based fuel systems and associated tuning. They've been running alcohol in cars since the fuel crisis of the 70s, and VW have several manufacturing facilities over there.

100% E85 is no good but you can mix up to 30% E85 without issues for a little more power. I used E25 daily for a year, about 40000 km.
 
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BarryBlack

Active Member
Feb 10, 2020
21
4
100% E85 is no good but you can mix up to 30% E85 without issues for a little more power. I used E25 daily for a year, about 40000 km.
I reckon the degradation caused by that lower an ethanol concentration would be negligible (ish).

Did you notice a significant power increase? I'm guessing it enabled the engine to advance timing as far as allowed in certain conditions. I'm presuming you also experienced a loss of economy as well?
 
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Zer0

Active Member
Jun 22, 2019
522
242
I reckon the degradation caused by that lower an ethanol concentration would be negligible (ish).

Did you notice a significant power increase? I'm guessing it enabled the engine to advance timing as far as allowed in certain conditions. I'm presuming you also experienced a loss of economy as well?

Yes with JB4 custom map 6 I was able to increase the boost giving a bit more power, noticeable. On a stock car it might not change anything.

Economy a bit worse but E85 is on the other hand a lot cheaper than 98 fuel so I think all in all it evens out.
 
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DaRa

Active Member
Nov 21, 2019
41
7
Hi everyone,
So I did proceed with the E85 Flex-fuel conversion and I am very very happy with it !
Well going from 88€ refill to 32€ is quite amazing considering I do about 80kms every day.
I wanted to give you a feedback after at least 10.000kms but since the thread is active, thought I might keep you informed.
It's a pretty common thing to do here in France, so I had enough feedback to know that it was 100% safe on my car, to do the conversion and use 100% E85.
Hope I won't regret it, but so far so good !
 
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BarryBlack

Active Member
Feb 10, 2020
21
4
Are you a
Hi everyone,
So I did proceed with the E85 Flex-fuel conversion and I am very very happy with it !
Well going from 88€ refill to 32€ is quite amazing considering I do about 80kms every day.
I wanted to give you a feedback after at least 10.000kms but since the thread is active, thought I might keep you informed.
It's a pretty common thing to do here in France, so I had enough feedback to know that it was 100% safe on my car, to do the conversion and use 100% E85.
Hope I won't regret it, but so far so good !
Are you able to share with us exactly what was changed in the conversion? I'd still be concerned that the standard fuel system will degrade over time - however, that is just a semi-educated guess.

I'd love to do this if E85 was readily available where I live.
 

DaRa

Active Member
Nov 21, 2019
41
7
Are you a

Are you able to share with us exactly what was changed in the conversion? I'd still be concerned that the standard fuel system will degrade over time - however, that is just a semi-educated guess.

I'd love to do this if E85 was readily available where I live.

I don't have any knowledge so I can't really tell you what exactly they did, you can find a few information here :
Click on E85+ tab :
https://www.shiftech.eu/en/reprogramming/seat/leon/2013-5f-mk1/petrol/2.0-tsi-280
What they did is :
- remap adapted to flex-fuel (no hardware)
- bonus : R600 admission (not needed at all for flex-fuel but worth the price)
- Stage 1 (good I did it because a Stage 1 was already done when I bought it and we realized that it was very poorly done, my turbo would have most likely break in the year)

Sorry I can't provide more information but you could contact them if you want (shiftech)

In France the E85 fuel is very very widely offered, right next to my job area today is : 0.609€/l compared to E5 : 1.668€/l
FYI I went from an average of 15l/100 to 16.5l/100. I could upload the HP/NM graph before/after if interested
Some people said in this thread that no part of the car could handle E85, even if it's a bit too early to say, it looks like it handle it perfectly. (also did contact some people who use E85 for years on their Cupra w/o any problem whatsoever)

Edit : added the commercial link since I did share it on a previous post already
 
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