New Technology Allows Any Car to Run on Any Amount of E85 and Gasoline

Wilmington, DE, July 23, 2009 --(PR.com)-- If you are an owner of the 244 million cars that exist in the US, probably yours can run only in regular gasoline. And with the oil prices on a permanent roller-coaster price, you probably wonder if there´s some way you could make the old faithful run on for example that E85 fuel that you heard on the news and that´s being offered by that shiny new fuel pump near your job.

Look no more: a company is offering to convert your car (in car lingo, to “flex” it) to that new fuel in less than 1 hour without you even knowing how it is done, and having to touch any dial or button in your engine.

The technology, called “1HourFlex”, is being offered by a new company called “Alkol”, and allows any car to run on any amount of gasoline or ethanol in less than 1 hour. The system actually has 3 components, an Electronic Converter that alters fuel injectors timing, and Ignition Remapper which alters the spark plugs firing time, and a Cold Start System, which allows the engine to quickly start in cold days (ethanol requires higher temperatures than gasoline to run properly).

The company claims its technology comes from Brazil. This may come to a surprise to many, but the fact is that Brazil has actually some interesting facts when it comes to running cars on ethanol. In fact, the country:
- Has been running cars on 100% ethanol for over 36 years
- Does not offer 100% gasoline anymore (even premium has 24% ethanol)
- Has More ethanol cars than gasoline ones
- 80% of all new cars being sold today are flex

The company says that because of its brazilian ancestry, it comes with an experience that no competitor in the US can match, and that it offers a complete system, while the competitors only offer a conversion box that has to be installed by the car owner himself and that does not tackle the entire problem. “For example, if you live in a cold state I dare you to start your engine on a cold morning without having a cold start system like ours”, Al Costa, CEO of the company, claims.

The company sells the individual components of its conversion system to anyone who thinks can install it, but the main focus is not that, but in the conversion service. In fact, Costa says that converting a car to run properly on ethanol is not as simple as the competitors try to make it look: “Flexing a car improperly can lead you to a number of problems, such as the engine failing when most needed, ridiculously high fuel consumption which basically nulls any savings you could get from the new fuel, fuel injectors clogging, even the fuel pump burning up, etc. That´s why we focus on installing whatever we know that the car will need to properly work without the customer having to do anything”.

In fact, Costa claims that the other products in the market require some kind of regulation, while Alkol´s solution is fully automated. “The existing solutions require the driver to find the best setting for the engine. Problem is that there isn´t such thing: an engine requires different settings when in idle and in run mode, so what ends up happening is the driver choosing a setting that fits no mode at all. Our technology monitors the gas pedal and engine O2 sensor, altering the way fuel is injected in real time, and requiring therefore no user intervention whatsoever”.

Finally, the company claims its ignition remapper system has no parallel and is key to proper work: “Ethanol requires higher compression rates than gasoline to properly work. Our ignition remapper system alters the spark plug firing time allowing for higher rates and therefore offering more power and therefore more savings”, Costa claims.

The company is slowly entering the US market and is looking to a price of around US$900 for the entire system already installed. Its plans is to close deals with E85 fuel pumps to allow the system to be installed there and fuel right after.

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