"Normal gasoline car" "Rotary swapped corvette" Rob. We need to talk.

Rob - “Normal Gasoline Car” Also Rob - “Here’s my Rotary Corvette”

Closest thing to an outro we're ever going to get.

"Oh its running really lean" Uploaded later that day: Rob puts a 13b in a corvette for only the second time in history!

Who else finds it funny that Rob uses a gaming laptop for things like tuning and reading the ECU?

Ethanol is not any more corrosive than gasoline for the most part. Its water soluble so it tends to dry certain types of rubber out. The drying effect of ethanol may cause damage to those types of lines but if you're car is not from before the early 1980's you'll be fine. I've been running Ethanol in basically every car I own since the late 90's (South Dakota we've had E-85 available since the 90's) I have never had a single rubber hose go bad decay or need to be replaced. One of these vehicles was a 1989 jeep Cherokee with a 4.0 that I owned for 7 years and put almost 175k miles (75 miles to Walmart from where I lived). The "corrosive" properties of Ethanol are greatly over exaggerated and often confused with methanol.

Project Farm: Can a Rotary Engine run off on 100% WD-40? lets find out.

That moment when you realize that even Rob's camera hates the Rotary Corvette when it corrupts the footage! 😂

When Rob and Chris fix upload on the same day: my life is perfection

Instructions unclear. Airplane fuel in my drift trike.

been watching rob for a few years now and i have learned so much from him. thanks rob!

Just found out I didn't get the job I was preparing to interview for at 1pm so this is great timing, thanks Rob

This is still my favorite car out of his whole fleet. I want to see this thing fully done and daily driver status.

Everything ive ever know: shut car off before fuel up Rob: NOO

The e85 is not gumming up the fuel system. The e85 breaks up the deposits laying at the bottom of your fuel tank. It's cleaning the tank, which puts the crap let behind by gas over the years through the injectors and fuel pump. It's the crap left over from the gas that makes the fuel system initially dirty.

I've come full circle. the first video I watched of you was the rotary corvette at LSfest, when I barely knew anything about cars. Now I know a lot more and am watching rotary corvette content again

This is actually one of your better videos Rob, I rate it 👍

I like going back to old Rob videos just to re experience it

Thank you for explaining / teaching for all of us newbies just getting into performance cars and racing. I wish more people would have teaching moments to help people instead of having attitude like we are dumb. I wasn’t blessed to have friends or a dad to teach me. Thanks Rob!

Love the educational approach of these kinds of videos Rob! Gotta show the support in the comments

Thanks for making these videos. Really explains alot to those who are just beginning to tune.

I loved the info you provided in this video. Understanding air fuel ratios have always been kind of a grey area for me, but you really just filled in all the blanks. Thanks mate, I’m absolutely loving all your videos.

TL;DR: In an alternate timeline, all of our cars would be running on 'E85' (kinda) all the way back to 1927. Nerd time! I wrote a paper on this in my graduate program! What you're talking about with alcohol-based fuels is all about compression. Higher compression (of which timing is the allowance for an engine *to* compress fuel a certain amount) allows for more power to be extracted from said fuel with each power stroke of a piston. This is really a bygone issue for modern cars running well, but 100 years ago, engine knock was a huge problem! Compress the fuel too much, early detonation; engine knock or 'ping'. Gasoline of this era had no stabilizers in it, so it was very unstable when aerosolized and compressed in an engine, but the desire for more powerful engines lead to a race to find a more stable fuel solution. Alcohol, it turns out, while less energy-dense than gasoline, is *significantly* more stable. As a result of this trait, ethanol-based fuels were the primary contender against gasoline for vehicle fuel around 1920; Ford himself put significant resources into evaluating alcohol-based fuels, in part because they were promising, in part because prohibition-era laws saw a whole bunch of distilleries with expensive equipment collecting dust. There was a lot of promise that alcohol-based fuels would be the future of the automotive industry at this time. There was one major problem: you can't patent ethanol. Enter, DuPont. DuPont wanted to be able to patent a fuel additive, so they could sell it to gasoline manufacturers. Imagine, a whole nation of vehicles that would have to pay (transitively through their gas pump, of course) DuPont in order to run! If every manufacturer moved to higher compression engines, you would NEED to have a fuel stabilizer for them to run on gasoline! So, they got their scientists working, and came up with a compound they dubbed "TEL". Tetraetyhllead. Yes, that's right, leaded gasoline. Turns out lead stabilizes fuel, reducing or eliminating engine knock and allowing for higher compression engines without having to do all the work of spinning up a denatured alcohol industry (remember, prohibition) with enough throughput to cut all of the gasoline in the country sufficiently. I want to say they needed 40% ethanol to reduce engine knock? Keep in mind, the oil industry was *not* a fan of potentially selling 40% less product, so they also were strongly in favor of a low-ratio additive rather than cutting gasoline with a high ratio of ethanol Lead however, while a great fuel stabilizer, you know, puts holes in your brain or kills you, particularly when aerosolized -- a detail that took the lives of several of DuPont's lab workers -- that they quietly tried to hide. Bottom line, though, is that you could get a patent for it, and that's what DuPont cared about. It wasn't until some 40 years later, in... 1975?, that TEL started to phase out in the US in favor of other, non-lead ('unleaded') stabilizers, and was officially banned January 1st of 1996. I think it's still used in some limited applications, notably some sectors of aviation.

Hair is looking good Rob !! Good to see the rotary vette running again !

I was here.. For Robs first outro! great breakdown a a confusing topic.. and got to love that AEM makes quality products.

Awesome. I love the science class videos. It always helps when someone explains it, and shows it in real time.

Rob! Michigander here. When I took flight classes at Jackson Comm. College, I used to fill my ranger up with E while I was up there. It didn't run as good for sure, but in the 98 rangers, (which I thought were flex fuel - they aren't) they have 2 plugs per cylinder. I thought it wouldn't matter. Luckily enough for me, I ended up selling the ranger - never knew the effects of using that fuel. Kinda funny now that I know because of you.

9:30 that ethanol percent tho

Very thorough explaination!

Man I can only hope to have a workshop like this someday soon! can't wait to just be producing content and doing what I love!

The amount of care Rob has for the Rotary Corvette: Driving around with a passenger airbag that is still not replaced or removed. 👌

I've been thinking of adding the flex-fuel setup to my 03 WRX/STI since the gas prices for E85 have been so much cheaper than our 91 California blends.

Watching Rob Dahm before ChrisFix Sorry Chris just had to get my rotary fix during my break.

It sounds real good. Please do a POV video of this car like how u did with your 3 rotor

Oh hey Rob's haircut isn't that bad.

Actually, that AEM flex fuel sensor is made by Continental and has an AEM sticker slapped on it so they can charge an extra 20% for their name on it.

When’s the next round of red Dahm rotary T Shirts available? Got the hoodie but missed then shirt.

10:30 That sounds so good ☺

Ahh yes a Dahm video back at it again

In europe we get a certain pourcentage of Ethanol in every fuel (except diesel) since 1998. Every car produced since 1998 has fuel pump, injectors, fuel lines, seals etc made to handle a bit of ethanol. So you can actualy run E85 up to 50% with no problem at all. Personally i've got a 2004 Renault Megane 2.0 16v with 140 horsepower, and the car is able to run on 100% E85 with no modifications , and the car is obviously not Flexfuel from factory. I did that for about 3 years, not a single problem.

FWIW that e85 sensor is a GM sensor not made by aem as you mentioned. It takes standard gm/ford quick connect fittings it is just re-branded. it has a pwm output for temp and freq for ethanol percentage. i bought mine for 20 bucks for my speed3.

My favorite wheels for the C5/C6 vette!

If you think about it, it makes sense why you would run E85 in the rotory. Rotorys tend to run hotter and the extra cooling benefits will help. It will also increase power

Fun fact: In Brazil we have e85 since 70's, thus it's way easier find e85 than 93 octane gas. Therefore all turbo cars over there are running e85 since 80's

With my flex fuel car it is recommended to run normal gasoline every 8 fill up or so to lubricate or clean the injectors. The fuel sensor is nice, my older car needs to burn it to calculate the fuel mix, so it always runs very rich when just started, because the map default is E85 for safety and then it will adjust to gasoline or a mix. Sadly we have no E85 in my country, i need to cross borders to get some.

Dang Rob been using Keeps wrong, went from no beard to beard in 3 minutes 20 seconds!

Thank you for videos like this!!!

Love the informative videos! More please!

Great explanation. Thanks for sharing!

I couldn't concentrate after I saw "Lambda" on the computer. Goddammit all I keep thinking about is Revenge of the Nerds now.

Thanks Rob! I finally learned what those lambda numbers mean! Or as I call it, the drunk Y

Science Rob

Thanks Professor Dahm

Having a flex fuel vehicle with 225,000 miles on it of 80% are e85 powered I have found that it burns sooo clean. When using e85 my oil is still nice and golden for 6-8 thousand miles after a change. Normal.. pre covid days it was generally about 60 cents a gallon cheaper and sometimes up to a dollar a gallon cheaper. People talk about the politics of it so I have to touch on that. Currently my father in law grows corn and I'm not related to prince oil from Saudi Arabia at all. They could optimize the engine to run on e85 with increase in compression ratios to help get rid of the lower fuel economy but they have to design the engine around garbage 87 octane because people love to save 3$ a fill up on the 35,000 dollar car.. because America?

Soooo much car wisdom with rob 👍👍👍

God dahm, this was some good info

AEM makes that flex fuel sensor or they put their sticker on it?

Very good video Rob. 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽

That flex sensor sure looks like GM part number 13577429 with a sticker on it hahah

Big Lou said take her down to Dyno Dave's place....Dyno Dave drinks E85.

Layman's explanation. Thanks.

Hi Rob, it would be nice to see you run through the gears in one of your cars... Please address the rear end gear in the Vette too.

Extremely well explained @robdahm

Sorry Rob it feels as if I must salute you....Drill Instructor Dahm

Tony Fergerson the type of guy who could make his car Run on Rob Dahm !

Great TED talk

joys of living in the midwest, E85 is EVERYWHERE!!!!

Hi, I'm Dr.Dahm. E85 is cool, it burns

Good idea for a video.

SEND IT!

0:20 oh god that knock

Lol there is so many cuts I would love to see the bloopers

Great info!

Looking back at your insight videos as I'm about to buy one in the SD area. You never did an update on the mini subs you put behind the seats. Are they still holding up? Loved seeing the four rotor at 7Stock btw, really great stuff!

Great great great video, thaaank youuu🙏🙏🙏

Rob went and followed vents hair style

"...and call it a night." You didn't sleep, did you Rob?

Rob could use some display capture software to not hassle with screen recording using camera. BB FlashBack Express produces small files with not graphical intensive video captures, express version is free but editor is time trial, I dont remeber is it exporting to avi tool is time trial too.

Ohhh kayyy. Mosquitos must be rotary powered. Stay with me on this. @ 7.25 you hear it. I'm guessing (just a guess here) that if you record a mossie, then slow it down. Sounds like a 13b.

Pretty AWESOME video. I found it incredibly interesting. How did you learn all this and get so good with the computer / laptop ???

#Thankful for this wholesome content...

Energy density is an important part of why more ethanol is needed to get the same energy output compared to gasoline. Ethanol is around 27 MJ/kg and gasoline is about 45 MJ/kg

As some of You mght know. The 1st car ever to be called Jaguar, The SS 100 Jaguar, ran with Ethanol. It is also said, that car consumed very much of it.

This dude is pretty cool

We love you man please wear a mask and gloves when collecting your e85❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

In Toronto I'm not sure where you get E85. Our regular gasoline is e15 anyway

Rob looks like he’s part of the green alien gang

Sure can if you want to replace every seal in fuel system including pumps and injectors.

Yes. Yes you can. Some idiots just change the fuel pressure but ideally you'd want a remap.

Your haircut makes you look like Herman Munster 😂

Not a bad video, but it should be clarified that fuel systems, ie hoses seals, plastics, etc manufactured after 1996 is safe for ethanol use. I have a grand prix that I have been using e85 for more than 2 years with no issues. I replaced the fuel pump with a high flow pump (for high rpm). Of course, I rapped the injector flow to compensate for the 30% extra fuel

like allways Rob not ready !!!!! lol

thats interesting.. in australia. our petrol has no ethenol in it unless it is E10 or E85. no matter what. also. here in australia E85 is stupidly expencive because no one buys it, so they have to put the price up. i cant do the math on it. but for us.. for example. regular unleaded.. which i think is your 80 somthing octaine? like the lowest octain fuel you can buy. is like on average $1.30 a liter. E85 on the otherhand is around $1.80 a liter. NOW. the trick is. that E85 has no fluctuation in price. it always stays around that mark. so when premium fuel is more expencive then E85, and yes it does happan. i chuck E85 in my car instead. i can run it because its a 600hp vf holden.

the reason cars are not made to use full ethanol is that the gov was worried about kids buying it at the pump and drinking it since it is alcohol.

Most of what he says about e85 true, except about e85 destroying seals and gumming up a fuel system on a car not designed for it. Most cars, about 2000 to present are designed to withstand the 10% of ethanol in normal gasoline and can typically withstand more. However, that might not always be the case but in my experience, with my personal vehicle it was. As for this causing gunk in the fuel system, that is untrue and a common myth surrounding e85. If you ever let normal gasoline sit for a long time, you will notice it will eventually start to form crude. This is from the 10% of ethanol that absorbs moisture from the air over time. So with e85 is absorbs moisture much faster and forms into gunk much faster than normal gas. E85 converted cars are also usually garage queens (kinda like all of Rob's Unfinished cars) which doesn't help. If you store a e85 car for a long time, then you need to drain the fuel first. Another unknown thing about e85 that has false myths surrounding it is that just switching to e85 actually in a way advances your ignition timing. This is 100% true and something anybody can test. If you take 2 identical glasses and put pump gas in one and e85 in the other but put 33% more fuel in the e85 glass. Set them both on fire at the same time and see which burns quicker. The e85 burns much quicker and therefore completes combustion quicker. Since e85 has such a high octane rating and cools more per volume compared to pump gas, it's typically okay to advance timing and recommended. However, if the vehicle's timing is already at the most ideal point where advancing anymore will cause you to make less power, you may actually have to retard the timing if converting to e85. This is very rare however as far as e85 conversions.

Dang it Rob I just got to the junk yard!! 😕

Rob, Are you still running the OMP or are you premixing on the corvette?

Lean is mean until whats brown turns green

They now use this new kind of fuel here in Belgium called E10 EURO 95 and it's complete sheite... older cars and some newer cars are breaking down all over the place cuz it's got more ethanol in it 🤦‍♂️

Volume warning for headphone users @ 8:49