E-85 is more expensive than regular in my hometown. Poor fuel mileage, gov. subsidies and costs more to boot. Isn’t that nice.
Shouldn't be. Ethanol sells at 1.67 a gallon. It only costs more when blended with gasoline, because the gasoline costs more. As for the crappy gas mileage, of course! Tune the car to burn ethanol. It won't run very good tuned to burn gas. Better yet take the engine to the speed shop and have them increase the compression ratio to about 17:1 instead of the 8.5:1 it currently is. Have them reprogram the advance curve to fit alcohol burning properties, as well as generally advancing the initial timing setting 20 degrees more advanced.
Then you'll not only get GREAT gas mileage, you'll be able to lay down some decent rubber too!.
But burning e85 in a gas engine is just plain waste full. No more than e25, which most electronic ignition systems can detect and compensate somewhat for. E10 is best for a regular gas engine.
For high alcohol content blends like E85, you simply MUST have a higher compression engine to get good value and power. If you had that, you would NEVER burn regular gas again.