Why they can get such huge horspower out of ethanol engines. High octane equals the ability to use high compression and the alcohol also runs cooler.
If engines could be made to be run only on E85, there could be some excellent ethanol engines. Problem is they also have to run on plain old gasoline so they have to be de-tuned to run on either.
Many people mistakenly think BTU is the only measure of a fuels ability to produce horsepower. But an alcohol engine built for alcohol can produce drastically more horsepower (albeit while using more fuel).
I for one like Ethanol. I think it is a vast improvement to using the oxygenates that have now been outlawed because of environmental concerns. Brazil has run high levels of alcohol for years (although they would not have cold weather starting issues like we might have in northern latitudes).
