DriveFlexFuel.com sells conversion kits for cars, trucks, RVs, motorcycles, and boats so that they can run on E85, gasoline, or a combination of the two. The kits are available for any fuel-injected engine (which covers a lot of ground) for a few hundred bucks.
As a hypothetical demonstration, I’ll use my little red GMC pickup truck. The picture of this particular conversion kit looks intimidating: a box with a lengths of “plug and play” connectors coiled around it. It’s available for less than $400, though, which seems like a bargain. (They also have kits for the likes of your 12-cylinder Ferraris and Aston Martins for about $700.)
Like most other alternative-fuel web sites, there’s a carbon footprint calculator, which tells me that I’m emitting nearly 5,000 pounds of CO2 annually (the EPA estimator says I’m putting out more like 6,000 pounds. Either way, it’s not great). By using an E85 converter from Drive Flex Fuel, though, I could reduce my annual CO2 emissions by more than a ton. Intriguing.
Where to gas up, though? Using the zip code where my little red truck lives in Portland, Oregon, Drive Flex Fuel came up with eight locations within 50 miles. Two of these, though, were for government vehicles only, and a few seemed to be for commercial vehicles, not passenger vehicles.
This seems like a project for experienced home mechanics only — not a DIY weekend deal, unless you’re converting a non-essential car just for kicks. But if you’ve got the greasemonkey chops and want to green your ride, this seems like a relatively inexpensive and easy way to do it.