Has anyone ran E85 instead of premium regularly. I have a 2014 XF SC V8 and gas prices are killing me lol. I was going to run E85 instead since its cheaper but I didn't know if there would be issues. Thanks for all the help guys!

 

I suspect your car is designed to withstand no more than E10. Might say in the handbook.

 

not without a tune and possible larger injectors. There are some flex fuel jags out there from what I’ve read but unless yours states somewhere it’s compatible do not put it in. The other thing is that with e85, it’s cheaper, but you’ll also get less gas mileage. But, boosted cars do love e85. Mina gallery may work on an e85 tune if there is enough interest. Give them a call and let chris know you would like to have e85 tuning options.

 

it will tell you what you can put in right on the gas cap or inside the filler door.

 

Not to revive a relatively recent, but old thread, I have been researching this a lot, and where I work now has an E85 station next to it so I am seriously interested now. I have a 2013 XF Supercharged, but not a flex fuel model. For those of you also interested, only the 8 speed ZF cars came from the factory with flex fuel capability. So anything 2012 and prior, this does not apply to.


If you go on the jaguar forums VIN decoder and type your vin, next to the engine specs, it will tell you if it is flex fuel or gas. But I have been researching to figure out a way to convert mine. I found a few cars for sale that are flex fuel and cross referenced part numbers for fuel pumps, injectors, etc. and they all appear to be the same parts. I was looking for a flex fuel sensor on the FF cars but could not find one. From what I found out, AMG Twin turbo V8 (M157) Mercedes cars with E85 tunes through Eurocharged are capable via their ECU being able to detect the fuel and raise and lower the power accordingly. I am curious if that is how our cars are, just a tune away from being fully flex fuel, which seems realistic with how modular Jaguar is with their parts.

So, if we go under this assumption, an XFR Flex fuel tune or XF 5.0 Supercharged tune should be flashable through a dealer diagnostic computer (that is not dealer locked and restricted) aka the units we can purchase ourselves. We would not receive a heavy power gain as supercharged trim cars, but it would heat soak less and be a lot happier. That being said, for those who want way more power, I have been reaching out and begging Velocity AP to come up with a flex fuel tune for our cars, as the tune would pay for itself via lower flex fuel pricing, a year ago they said they were going to mess with it this past summer, but they never gave me anything on it. Very frustrating, but if these motors are making 600 crank hp on 93 with the velocity AP tune and no hardware modifications...with E85, I suspect a decent power increase, possibly even up to 650 hp, may be possible, which would be INSANE.

I would be happy enough if I could just flash the XFR flex fuel tune (which I have seen exists) and just save money on gas with a 30 hp increase, but I also would not say no to a 130+ hp increase while on cheaper fuel. Very happy with the incredible gas mileage I have been getting since I ever bought the car, have seen over 30 mpg on the highway for a supercharged V8, absolutely incredible.


Now, as an experiment, I have been throwing in a few gallons of E85 in my car along with a 93 octane mix to see how it is. Since our tank is around 17 gallons on empty, I started with throwing in 2 gallons of E85 mixed with the rest of the tank being 93, then 3 gallons, then 4...now 5...No issues and people in BMW M3s sometimes do it with an untuned car at the track for their cooling benefits. I do hear and talk with people a lot about E85 tunes for bmw and how capable their standard fuel system is, but they do not have standard flex fuel cars which make it more interesting. So far no major tragedies or incidents. I do believe that, since we have the same injectors, fuel pump, fuel lines, etc, the only limitation being software, that doing so is okay...I do not recommend it by any means, but it is a start to our research. I have also found out that researchers have found that running a mix of e30 is safe for long term use in any e15 vehicles (not jag specific), which gives us a good buffer (and according to my calculations, is 5 gallons of e85 mixed with the remainder of the tank being 93 octane which is e10, coming in around e30.)

KEEP IN MIND, the pumps for flex fuel say it can be e50 all the way to e85, so for all I know, I could be putting just E50 in which makes it way safer, but still just cheaper, especially mixed with 93 makes it a lot less than E30

These are one of the very few higher horsepower factory flex fuel capable vehicles and I just think it is very awesome to have this potential and capability...I really want it.

 

Without a flex fuel sensor would the car be limited to using only E85 after being tuned for it??
That's the real power of flex fuel cars. The ability to run a wide range of gasoline and Alcohol mixtures with no changes to the car. I also deal with Taurus SHO's. They are all flex fuel and guys are running all kind of ratio's daily. Alcohol on a DI SC engine is an ideal combination.

It's unclear why Jaguar did what they did with E85 too? We have at least one member here in the US with a 5.0L SC engine that does have the yellow E85 sticker on the fuel door. So they did make them but apparently not many.

Hope you get it working!
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I’ve been waiting for tuners to come out with an e85 tune. I would love to have an e85 capable car where I can put in any ration of e85 and it can detect it like you can in the GM cars. Only question is what would be need to do with the injectors.. my last e85 car I had to upgrade the injectors.

 

See normally, you would need a flex fuel sensor, but I believe Jaguar does it via some intelligence in the ECU in order to get it working. There is a fuel sensor within the ECU essentially like Mercedes (both Bosch units between AMG Mercedes and Jaguar too so very much possible). And exactly your logic, just gas and go and the car figures it out for me. But they are around and I have seen a few for sale (and been tempted to purchase just to get rid of the whole issue) but I will be sure to leave an update if I discover anything.


Oxidizer2k - See that is my point, I believe our cars and the flex fuel jags and our non flex fuel jags with 5.0 Supercharged engines use the same injectors, fuel lines, fuel pump, etc. So none of this would be necessary in terms being able to put e85 in. The only possible limitations I see for tuning purposes is finding injectors and a pump that would deliver more fuel as there is a 10% increase in consumption when it comes to E85 and more fuel would be required to be dumped into the engine for higher power gains, but for an oem power number, it would be more than happy to function as is. Personally, I would not mind a power bump, but I also do not feel like spending thousands upgrading all the systems, defeats the purpose of saving money at the pump!

But I see you have a 2010 XFR in your description, I heard one tuner in California managed to tune the older Denso ECU 6 Speed ZF cars up to e40, not sure if that was fuel system limitations or whatever else...

 

I have one of the Flex Fuel 5.0 SC cars. There is indeed a flex fuel sensor under the wiper cowl near the brake fluid reservoir. Not sure what else in the fuel system if anything is unique to being "flex-fuel" though.

 

Yes XJ8JR you have the unicorn I was talking about! Really would love to know how your car came about? Was it an option or did Jaguar just make a few and released them?
Comparing your car with a non-E85 car would very interesting!
Thanks for posting that your car DOES have a flex fuel sensor so it should have a Jaguar part number?

Hey I just noticed you live down the road from me (I am in Magnolia)!!
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Nice, yeah I know where Magnolia is now, a member of my new church lives up there. We just moved into our new house here in Spring, near Louetta and the 45, and there just so happens to be an E85 station down the street. Good to know there's a fellow Jag Forum member roaring around nearby.

Unfortunately, the Jag has been sleeping at my mother's place back in LA for the past few months while my wife and I got settled here in good ole Texas. I filled up the tank with regular gas for storage purposes while I was away as I've heard that E85 doesn't like to sit around for long. I'll be heading back over there soon to arrange the car shipping and the move of all the rest of our junk. I'll post a pic of the sensor when I'm back there.

I did have the injectors replaced back in April or May when one or two of them gave out on the passenger side bank. They were replaced like-for-like and I've got the boxes stashed in my mother's garage.

Embarrassingly, I had the car for almost 2 years before I realised what "Flex-Fuel" was. I had seen it listed on the CarFax report and obviously noticed the yellow cap and door sticker proclaiming E85 usage but just never put two and two together. If I recall correctly, the way its listed on the CarFax makes it seem like it wasn't an actual option, it was just made that way from the factory for whatever reason. I'll be able to dig those papers up when I get back to LA.

The gas mileage does indeed suffer a bit on E85 and to be perfectly honest, I haven't really noticed much in the way of an increase in power. Maybe because I'm already tuned and dual-pulleyed with intake and exhaust mods (the final catalytic converter mod is coming soon). I will say though that the engine and exhaust do sound a bit angrier on E85, but in a good way.

I'm looking forward to letting the cat loose on these wonderful Texas streets and highways. They're so much better kept than in SoCal.

 

Thanks for mentioning all this! If we could get the part number for the flex fuel sensor as well as the injectors, that would be great. On a stock tune, you will not notice a difference in power as they sort of tune the cars to run on the same amount of power. Also, are you telling me that you are tuned for 93 and have run E85? I wonder if our non-flex fuel cars have the sensor for whatever reason.

 

I use to live in California where the highest you could get was 91. I've been running the Velocity AP tune for a few years now and I suppose its based on 91. Before my first fill-up with E85, I asked Velocity if I needed a tune modification or anything. They said there was no need and that I would probably pick up at least another 50 or so HP with the E85. We'll see what happens here in Texas with access to both 93 and E85.

 

insomniac_driver thanks for getting me to think and do some research. What I found was VERY interesting too!

Since 2004 Ford has deleted the flex-fuel sensor and module!
They now use IFF (Inferred Flex Fuel). This is calculated by looking at other parameters as the engine is running. Pretty smart method!

Here is the description;
A Ford general service bulletin (GSB) states that on 2004 and newer Fords, the flex fuel sensor and module have been deleted and the ethanol percentage is now inferred. Resetting KAM will cause the PCM to initiate a relearn and infer the air-fuel ratio immediately after going into closed-loop operation.

Now everything was making sense! This truck learns alcohol content by watching fuel trim, MAF readings, and injector pulse width. Low fuel pressure will have the same effect on the learn process as high alcohol content in the fuel.

Here is the entire article if your interested.
Flex Fuel Problems

Now what is cool is this is all just programming. No added hardware at all.
I doubt anyone could program our Jaguars but it does look possible.
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Welllll not so fast. I am literally hoping that is the case, and maybe that is why my car is completely fine running on 5 gallons of e85 (been doing it for a couple months now and nothing to report) but also one of the other members mentioned that they located the flex fuel sensor? If there is no flex fuel sensor, then we are all in luck and if the IFF is also on our cars, then a simple retune may apply. This simple retune can be done by someone who has the dealer computer developer edition as it would be the same as someone with an XF 5.0 Supercharged flashing the XFR tune (both cars have flex fuel so I would be more than happy to flash my xf supercharged to a flex fuel XFR tune and save the money from an actual tune as Jaguar's factory tune compensates for higher octane fuel aggressively, I saw someone on the Facebook forums destroy a ton of cars with 100 Octane and nothing else)

Apologies for the late replies all! I'd love to get to the bottom of this as gas prices are getting annoying 😂

 

Hey I am pulling for you and will watch for further development's. Just a bit more info? It seems Jaguar did release flex-fuel 5.0L SC versions. We have a member with the yellow gas cap and I think he said his car DID have a flex-fuel sensor? So still some things need to be found out for sure.

DI + SC is tailor made for Alcohol fuels too. My other car is a Ford 3.5L twin turbo Ecoboost. Many, many of them running E85 to E30 fuel with nice increases in power.
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I believe @XJ8JR mentioned that earlier in this thread. Could you confirm with pictures or a part number or something for us to work with? I wish it was a super simple solution. Maybe I could develop a kit like Pro-Flex has or something for us loser 91 octane only cars. So whichever answer, there is a solution, we just need to figure it out! Time to put my engineering degree to the test! I am also speaking with the F-Type owners on their forums to see if they drum anything up, but they revert back to us as we actually have the capabilities and they never did. The more info the better guys so lets get to the bottom of this!

 

Unfortunately, you have to remove the wiper arms to be able to lift the cowl up enough to take a clear photo of the sensor, and I really don't want to fool around with the wiper arms right now, but the sensor is definitely there directly underneath the circular grille, next to the brake fluid reservoir compartment.

This might get you in the right direction:
https://parts.jaguarpalmbeach.com/p/.../C2Z25207.html

 

Thanks again and that web site says that part fits my 2014 XJR? In fact it says it fits all 2014-2019 XJ's BUT not the 2010-2013 models?
It would be wild if these cars DID come with the flex fuel sensor all along?? Maybe it was added along with the other updates for 2014?

I will look at mine closer in case it's in there.
Part #C2Z25207and that thing is expensive too! Wow over $500! Although looking around I do see it at $380.

Now Jaguar Land Rover Classic parts shows that part number fits 2009-2015 XF and 2010-2019 XJ. Plus they have a drawing of the sensor but it's hard to see anything.
Flex Fuel Sensor

Here is a Land Rover sensor #CPLA9C086AA shown for the 2014 5.0L SC V-8. I wonder if we can cross this over to a Jaguar part or if they might just be the same?
Here is a used one;





They are available new for around $45!!




It appears the the Land Rover part number CPLA9C086AA is the same as Jaguar part number C2Z25207? Except for the crazy high price for the Jaguar version. There is a small difference too with the electrical plug mounted at an angle on the Jaguar part. Looks like a simple base plate was added to fit the sensor to the XJ. But note it's marked with the same Land Rover part number.




I did find a used Jaguar flex fuel sensor on EBay using the Land Rover Part number. But nothing came up using the Jaguar part number?
Jaguar Flex Fuel sensor

Now this gets real interesting as there is an aftermarket flex fuel kit out that uses what appears to be the exact same sensor as JLR??
Sold by ProEFI and about $250.



ProEFI Flex Fuel Sensor
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Good work, Club. I'm 99% sure that top picture is exactly what's on my car. I'll try to get another peek at it today to confirm.