Ethanol instead of Methanol

[fastpakr]

my 97 ranger is flex fuel. is not desinged for e85, only e10. i stay as far away from ethanol fuel period. i do not get any mgp on the crap

The Flex Fuel indicator implies that it IS designed for E85 (not that it makes sense to run it).

 

[tempforce]

the flex fuel vehicles can and will get more power and mileage if optimized for it.
consider a vehicle set up for 87 octane and one set up for 98 octane. they are basically the same engine but they are set up different.
with e-85 vs e-5 the engine needs to be set up for the type of fuel.
with the stock setup, you can us both fuels. but as in the above example the flex fuel and the vehicle designed for 87 octane Will use the other fuel. but not perform as well as if they were set up for that fuel. so with your flex fuel vehicle you can make mods to give it more power and mileage. but you would have to return to the factory settings to use low % of alcohol.
the major changes made to the vehicle is a broad span o2 sensor, advancing the timing. and if rebuilding the engine. raising the compresion to 12-13:1.

 

[Wicked_Sludge]

a broadband O2 isnt going to do anything to help power. its a tool used to tune an engine and is completely useless to the factory computer. the computer also actively monitors the fuel and advances the timing when elthanol is run in order to get the most out of it. raising the compression would help get a little more out of the higher octane fuel, but no amount of tuning will make a vehicle running on e85 get the same mileage as a vehicle running straight gasoline. e85 has a lower BTU content per unit than gasoline. less heat means less energy can be transformed from chemical to mechanical to move the vehicle.

 

[oldmantruck]

so was the original question will a car built to run on methanol run on ethanol. Methanal is H3COH Ethanol is H3CCH2OH, basically the carbon to oxigen ratio is better. That being said ethanol is closer to gasoline, (A mix of eight or so carbon chains and equivalent rings) so if a car is set up to run on anymix of up to M85 it should run no problem on e85, if it is set up for only straight methanol or switched to gasoline it could cause a problem. Each fuel has its own perfect stoichometric mixture(airfuel mix). gas is 14.2 to one. it gets lower with ethanol sinces ethanol is more oxigenated methanol is even more oxigenated. any mix inbetween has its own specific proper air fuel mix. the car must be equiped to deturmine the fuel , or actually the oxigenation level of the fuel in use to provide this mix.

I said a lot there, but to sum up. If it is a Flex fuel as in any mix in one tank, it will work(probably),
if it is an either or, as in pure gas or pure methanol, it won't
as already mentioned Methyl is more corosive, so if it can handle methyl it can handle ethyl .
remember milage on e85 will be about 15% less, so if the price is more than 15% less it is worth it if not then just run gas

hope this helps