On the other hand, the Honda 2.0 liter VTEC engines Zadig’s new cars are equipped with (the K-20R motors in these cars are a slightly different version of what’s in regular Honda Civics and Accords in the United States) don’t require the maximum fuel tank size. They come standard with 20-gallon tanks. “In a car like ours, where weight is a huge issue, you really want to carry a minimum amount of fuel. So you calculate the smallest possible tank size.” However, because E85 has less energy content than gas, it’s necessary to carry more fuel to go the same distance volumetrically. So GAM’s technicians added larger 28-gallon fuel tanks to the vehicles. “The cars actually lend themselves to adding additional tank capacity,” Zadig says. “These are technically two-seater cars, so we were able to fill that passenger area with some additional tank space.”

The team also “mapped” the cars’ fuel systems and engines to optimize operating ranges for E85. “We went from burning about 9 gallons per hour with the stock setup to a little less than 12 gallons per hour with E85, which gave us more headroom than we expected.”

Because the stock engines and components in GAM’s cars were basically set up for straight gas or E10, specialists
at the Irvine, Calif.-based Automotive Technology Group Inc. made sure everything was E85 compatible. In addition to changing out the fuel tank, they swapped out filters, pumps, and fuel injection rails and injectors. One technician had extensive engine tuning experience and was familiar with ethanol. “That allowed us to plan for and order the proper parts and components so that when the cars arrived from Europe in the middle of September, we pretty much had everything ready to go,” Zadig says.

The conversion process was completed at a cost of about $10,000 per car, which included a day of tuning on a chassis dynamometer, a machine primarily used to measure torque, power and emissions characteristics. The conversion from gasoline to ethanol was “flawless,” Zadig says. “It went totally perfect. Almost everything else we did to get these cars prepared for racing seemed to have been tormented by issues—vendors sending the wrong pieces and that sort of thing—but the conversion to E85 went perfectly smooth. In fact, we derived about a 12 percent horsepower gain (they expected only a 7 percent gain) and about an 11 percent gain in torque. In racing, any time you get added, unexpected horsepower it puts a smile on your face.”

In the run up to Thunderhill, GAM ran one or both cars in three different endurance races, with mixed results. The team ran both cars on E85 in competition for the first time at an event in Monterey, Calif., and led the race before springing a leak and falling back to second overall. A subsequent event in Sonoma, Calif., was less successful but was still valuable preparation for Thunderhill. “None of the problems we had in those races were in any way related to E85 or the motors, but rather getting to know these new cars,” Zadig says.

Race Day
When the big day finally arrived, the battle-scarred and tested GAM team was as prepared as they could be. GAM’s team, including drivers, mechanics and support crew, was nearly 30 people strong. “You plan and plan and plan … and then you just have to let go when it all starts,” says Zadig, a self-confessed control freak.

Zadig says the team came to the 25-hour event with a “degree of trepidation.” The favorite going into the race was a team running an expensive Daytona Prototype race car, a world-class vehicle that would normally run in the Rolex Grand-Am series. Setting their nerves aside, the team’s No. 28 car managed to turn the second and third fastest laps in qualifying. “We were pretty pleased about those qualifying times,” Zadig says.

The race started at 11 a.m. on Dec. 1 and ended at noon the next day. The No. 87 car managed to stay in second place for almost the entire race, even jumping into the lead for bit. That car eventually “limped” across the finish line in the runner-up position (behind the Daytona Prototype), running the last 50 laps without a nose. “We learned that these cars are really built for smooth European tracks,” Zadig says. “Next year, we’ll have the cars re-engineered for that.”

Zadig’s No. 28 car also fared well, running third for a while but later encountering electrical problems unrelated to the fuel or the motor. That kept the car sidelined in the pits for more than three hours. The crew got the car back on the track at about 10 p.m. and it performed flawlessly over the next 14 hours. “The motors performed tremendously,” Zadig says. “I can’t say enough about the E85 and how it performed. The engines were strong from the moment we started to the last lap, and indeed, our lap times [barely increased throughout the race]. That’s a testament to E85—not only its power but how good it is on motors.”

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