NASCAR & E15

NASCAR is going to try to introduce ethanol in 2011. This is a surprise to me as I thought they would change to fuel injection first or at the same time but there is no mention of fuel injection as of yet. Roush Yates Engines is already doing some testing but I don’t see many problems as they are using E15 or a 15% ethanol mixture. Indy cars are already using a 100% fuel grade ethanol, they switched in 2007. Fuel mileage will be a concern as it will drop by 4-6 miles on a fuel run. I don’t think this will cause a problem as they are not that accurate with all the yellow flags. The one drawback I see is on a warm day it may cause a problem. NASCAR still runs a mechanical pump so the fuel pressure is low and we may see some vapor locks, the engines will be harder to restart when they are hot. As they are going to fuel injection at some time maybe they will switch to an electronic fuel pump. Still the fuel pressure would be low for the carbureted engines.NASCAR always drags out any announcement so more changes in the near future would be no surprise.