E30 on my Daily 4th gen Tacoma #CAMTUNING

[laidouttaco]

Just wanted to get on here and share my experience with tuning my daily Tacoma. Seems like everyone's first mod on their trucks are wheels and tires. Coming from the Honda game, i didn't realize how heavy a set of wheels and tires was going to be for my truck. I definitely felt a decrease in power and acceleration. With that being said, i looked into getting my truck tuned to compensate the added weight and any weight i plan on adding in the future. That's when i got a Cobb AP. The Cobb AP definitely woke the truck up and gave me that power and acceleration i was looking for. I knew this truck had more left in the chamber so i decided to get a OTS tune from CAMTUNING. This was the best decision I've made for my truck since getting wheels and tires. CAM made my truck feel like a completely different vehicle! The power, the smoothness, the shifting!!! It feels ALIVE! The OTS tune is tailored to my truck so i was definitely getting the full use of my mishimoto intake and SXTH dump pipe. The truck felt so light, the shifting was crispy and smooth, and the power delivery was amazing. I felt like a kid again lol. Cam told me we can squeeze out 20-30hp more just by adding e85 so i got a E85kit right away! Install on the e85 sensor was extremely easy with the help of CAM guiding me over the phone. He was able to set me up with a custom e30 map that felt like my truck was gutted with slicks lol! the e85 made a huge difference in power! the 1st-3rd gear pull put me back into the seat, You can feel the raw power and acceleration! I was extremely happy with the route i went with on this truck! with the help of CAM, this truck is a beast and fun to daily! cant wait till the intercooler comes in! All the added power but CAM always made sure its reliable power!!! something you can daily with no issues! that's what stood out to me! He always made sure the truck was running strong and smooth without sacrificing reliability! So if you guys are on the fence of tuning your truck, JUST DO IT! You wont regret it!

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[CAMTuning]

Thanks Brandon. Some background for those of you who are unfamiliar with E30. The number after the E describes the percentage of ethanol versus gasoline in the mixture. Normal gasoline is E10 and in some places E15. E30 gives you a good balance between gasoline miles per gallon and the octane and cooling benefits of higher ethanol content. You can't just run this without a tune but with a tune and properly adjusting the fueling as well as adding in some additional spark advance, you can gain some very easy power that ends up being even safer than just gasoline because of the knock resistance of the higher octane. Full E85 is ~ 105 octane, and E30 is ~ 95-96 octane. You achieve the E30 mix by mixing whatever premium fuel you have available, be it 91 or 93, with some amount of E85. E85 is pretty widely available in most places and is also much cheaper than gasoline in most cases. E85 and ethanol blends are extremely common in other turbo platforms and I have personally been running E85 in four-cylinder turbos since 2008.

 

[maxhen3x]

is just the sensor needed? Could the higher ethanol content deteriorate the fuel lines and stuff quicker since they weren’t originally made for flex fuel? Or is that why you choose e30 and not run just e85?

 

[CAMTuning]

is just the sensor needed? Could the higher ethanol content deteriorate the fuel lines and stuff quicker since they weren’t originally made for flex fuel? Or is that why you choose e30 and not run just e85?

On these trucks, it’s not just a matter of adding a sensor and calling it flex fuel. You still need a calibration that’s designed for ethanol content, whether that’s a fixed blend like E30 or a true flex fuel setup that can adjust dynamically. For what we’re doing here, E30 is a controlled mix, so no sensor is required—but consistency matters. I do recommend using an ethanol test gauge so you know your blend is actually where you think it is.
As far as the fuel system, modern vehicles (even non “flex fuel” ones) are generally built with materials that are compatible with ethanol blends well beyond E10. Running E30 isn’t an issue for lines, seals, or the tank.
The reason we don’t jump straight to full E85 has more to do with system limits and drivability than compatibility. E85 requires significantly more fuel volume, and on some platforms the DI fuel system starts to run out of capacity. There’s also the lubrication aspect—the gasoline component helps with that, and some DI pumps don’t love being run on full ethanol long term.
E30 ends up being a really good balance. You get most of the octane and cooling benefits, better knock resistance, improved consistency, and typically better cold start behavior. It also has less impact on fuel economy, which matters on these trucks with smaller tanks.

Eventually when bigger power starts to be sought out of this platform, I expect we will run higher ethanol content on a larger turbo and use larger port fuel injectors.

 

[Will721]

+2 on either having a sensor or tester for higher ethanol blends, especially e85.

It is widely known in the drag community at the pump fuels have a wide range of variation station to station when it comes to true alcohol content. This is especially true the higher the percentage of ethanol used. Common sense would dictate that an e30 blend would contain atleast 30% ethanol and e85 would contain atleast 85% since they are the advertised number. It simply isn't the case, and in instances where a stand alone tune that does not compensate for those variations you're better off either not traveling or investing in a fuel bowser of some sort. You'll hear horror stories every year of less than prepared/experienced drivers on power tour, or during drag weeks having issues due to improperly mixed e85 at gas pumps.

Personally I wouldn't make the switch to higher ethanol content fuels because typically the math doesn't really work. Any money saved on fill up is typically spent on increased fuel usage. To give an idea, when carburetors used to dominate the drag world a temporary switch to e85 was easy. Carbs have metering jets that go up and down in size depending on things like altitude or temperature variations. Old heads would take the jets clean out of the carbs all together to make a pass on e85. Probably considered the original "moon tune" so to speak. Keeping that extra usage in mind, our fuel tanks are already undersized requiring most of us to spend too much time at the pump already. Now just imagine doing it even more...



All of that said, I would absolutely love to see someone with more money than you can shake a stick at go after one of these trucks and see what it can really do. We already have guys running 37"+ tires on diffs and hp that 10 years ago guys would swear that it would need a d60 to hold. To put that into perspective, these trucks in the hybrid trim make more horsepower AND torque than a stock 12v cummins. In a BONE STOCK configuration these trucks are putting up numbers close to that of a big block v8s during the peak of the muscle car era. Yet we have guys complaining and wanting more. Car reviewers whining about it only having 4 cylinders. It's hysterical.

 

[maxhen3x]

On these trucks, it’s not just a matter of adding a sensor and calling it flex fuel. You still need a calibration that’s designed for ethanol content, whether that’s a fixed blend like E30 or a true flex fuel setup that can adjust dynamically. For what we’re doing here, E30 is a controlled mix, so no sensor is required—but consistency matters. I do recommend using an ethanol test gauge so you know your blend is actually where you think it is.
As far as the fuel system, modern vehicles (even non “flex fuel” ones) are generally built with materials that are compatible with ethanol blends well beyond E10. Running E30 isn’t an issue for lines, seals, or the tank.
The reason we don’t jump straight to full E85 has more to do with system limits and drivability than compatibility. E85 requires significantly more fuel volume, and on some platforms the DI fuel system starts to run out of capacity. There’s also the lubrication aspect—the gasoline component helps with that, and some DI pumps don’t love being run on full ethanol long term.
E30 ends up being a really good balance. You get most of the octane and cooling benefits, better knock resistance, improved consistency, and typically better cold start behavior. It also has less impact on fuel economy, which matters on these trucks with smaller tanks.

Eventually when bigger power starts to be sought out of this platform, I expect we will run higher ethanol content on a larger turbo and use larger port fuel injectors.

Thank you for the response, I appreciate it as I don’t know too much about this stuff obviously. So the sensor in this post is just a ‘tester’ for the convenience of knowing the mix ratio electronically at any instant? And the tune is just set to e30? Is a dynamic system possible on these trucks, maybe not currently but potentially in the future? And based on your experience and knowledge, potentially fuel pump and most likely injectors will be the bottleneck, as it is in most cars? These are dual injected engines. You said the port injectors would need upgrade for big power? Does the engine not run off the direct injectors when going for power? Or will it run on all of them?

 

[Echoedlite]

How is the MPGs OP? Obviously you've doing pull tests and you have plenty of aftermarket parts but curious how this sort of setup will do. How much damage does this hit at the pump and to your time to lix the fuel?

 

[CAMTuning]

Thank you for the response, I appreciate it as I don’t know too much about this stuff obviously. So the sensor in this post is just a ‘tester’ for the convenience of knowing the mix ratio electronically at any instant? And the tune is just set to e30? Is a dynamic system possible on these trucks, maybe not currently but potentially in the future? And based on your experience and knowledge, potentially fuel pump and most likely injectors will be the bottleneck, as it is in most cars? These are dual injected engines. You said the port injectors would need upgrade for big power? Does the engine not run off the direct injectors when going for power? Or will it run on all of them?

There isn't an off the shelf dynamic system available yet. I understand there are some folks that have it working on ECUTek, and I expect Cobb will pursue it eventually. I said port injection because that's the easy one to swap, and it will take them releasing some aftermarket DI injectors. The engine relies heavily on the DI under boost, but will fall back on PI for additional capacity when needed.

 

[laidouttaco]

How is the MPGs OP? Obviously you've doing pull tests and you have plenty of aftermarket parts but curious how this sort of setup will do. How much damage does this hit at the pump and to your time to lix the fuel?

My MPG stayed roughly the same. i was getting 19.5 to the gallon with 91oct. Now with e30, I'm now getting 19.1. so the change wasn't drastic. Mixing the fuel isn't a headache since the app tells you exactly how much ethanol and pump gas to put into your truck. i do let it idle for at least couple minutes so the sensor can fully read the ethanol content before driving off.

 

[laidouttaco]

There isn't an off the shelf dynamic system available yet. I understand there are some folks that have it working on ECUTek, and I expect Cobb will pursue it eventually. I said port injection because that's the easy one to swap, and it will take them releasing some aftermarket DI injectors. The engine relies heavily on the DI under boost, but will fall back on PI for additional capacity when needed.

You think just upgrading the HPFP would be enough? or upgrading HPFP and Injectors? really want to push the platform to its limits. reminds me of the b58 and b48 engines in BMWs and the supra.

 

[CAMTuning]

You think just upgrading the HPFP would be enough? or upgrading HPFP and Injectors? really want to push the platform to its limits. reminds me of the b58 and b48 engines in BMWs and the supra.

Time will tell as we start to find the limits. My bet is that HPFP and either DI or port injector upgrades will be needed if we start to chase ~500whp.

 

[Leucosia]

This sounds kind of interesting, not at all familiar with e85-e30 blends, but I guess those titration skills from chemlab will finally come in useful when calculating how much to add at the pump. I might be too much of a coward to do it while it's still under warranty for a bit, but would it be possible to also have say a stock gas only map as well if i were to do a long distance road trip and may have inconsistent access to e85?

 

[CAMTuning]

This sounds kind of interesting, not at all familiar with e85-e30 blends, but I guess those titration skills from chemlab will finally come in useful when calculating how much to add at the pump. I might be too much of a coward to do it while it's still under warranty for a bit, but would it be possible to also have say a stock gas only map as well if i were to do a long distance road trip and may have inconsistent access to e85?

That would be my recommendation. In Brandon's case he was tuned on E10 (gasoline) first, and then went with an E30 tune. He can switch back to that map for E10 any time he wants.

Here's a kit to scratch your chemlab itch... I too come from a science and engineering backgorund.
https://fuel-it.com/products/fuel-it-ethanol-content-tester-pro-test-kit

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