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Here is the thing: I'm trying to estimate the fuel consumption of cars using OBDII data. It's quite simple if we can treat each fuel and its stoichiometric air fuel ratio separately, but when it turns to flex fuel cars I can't get a conclusion.

Is there any sensor that tells how much of each fuel is running?

or

How the instant fuel consumption is calculated for flex cars?

Please help.

Higor Anjos
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"Flex Fuel" isn't an issue (I assume you mean E85 and similar) if you use injector duty cycle as the basis of your calculations. Total injector "on" time gives you fuel consumption, regardless of the AFR, or even if it was a stoichiometric burn.

If you are trying to find live efficiency data, this becomes more complex.

But simple fuel consumption is only a matter of injector(s) rate (cc/min, lb/hr, etc) and how long the injector stays open. Fuel injected can be assumed "consumed" even if not fully burned.

I do agree, that if you need to know exact number of moles of oxygen for your "flex" hydrocarbon juice, this will be nearly impossible. E85, for instance, is a variable blend of corn liquor moonshine (errrr, I meant ETOH or ethyl alcohol) and various x-tanes of "gasoline" hydrocarbons, along with some hygroscopically absorbed water. Problem is, goverment controls on E85 are not all that tight, nor is there much enforcement. I'm big into extreme turbocharging, and E85 is a great way to combat intake heat. But some E85 may be as low as 70% moonshi... ETOH. Bottom line, you need to know the number of carbon atoms in every style of hydrocarbon to determine ultimate stociometric burn, but even this is hotly debated as "stochio" burn does NOT mean the highest power or fuel efficeiency. But I'm rambling, and I don't think this is what you asked...

Also note that E85 ETOH blend (and "top-fuel" methanol) has a lower BTU content than pure "gasoline", for identical quantities. The value is in the higher compression and BMEP that can be achieved. Also also note that true E85 has an ideal A/F ratio of about 9.8. Clearly more gasoline drives this number higher, and more ETOH drives it lower. Virtually impossible to know exactly the true ratio of the blended "fuel", and the appropriate A/F ratio.

Still, consumption is # injectors X injector rate X IDC ("on time")

Fuel economy (efficiency) is mileage over the measured time period / consumption

(Which yields something along the line of "MPG" ... it's the reciprocal if you live where liters/100 kilometers is the normal unit...)

SteveRacer
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  • You still need to include the amount of fires per time period in your equation, don't you? – Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 Sep 09 '16 at 11:16
  • No, you don't. There's a common misconception that injectors only inject when the intake valve is open. Injector duty cycle tells all. IDC at 100% means the injector is wide open (which is very bad, because you can't get any richer and you might go lean). If you know the amount of time each injector is injecting, and the injector rate, you know "fuel" consumption. The only issue that the OP alluded to was that different hydrocarbons require different amounts of oxygen to oxidize. I mentioned this, but @dlu edited out that part as it wasn't clear. I need better skills! – SteveRacer Sep 10 '16 at 03:52
  • Sorry, to put it differently, "Injector Duty Cycle" has the time period built in. Open is injecting, closed is not. 600cc/min at 80% IDC means 480cc/min Fuel Consumption. – SteveRacer Sep 10 '16 at 03:55
  • @dlu It seems neither one of us can spell "sto chio metric"... I'm willing to acquiece! – SteveRacer Sep 10 '16 at 03:57
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    Dang did I get it wrong. A word that good deserves to be spelled correctly. Especially in such an esteemed forum. – dlu Sep 10 '16 at 04:00
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    @dlu yeah. I resmeble the remark. Reminds me of a sex scene from Bull Durham which can't be quoted here. Distilled: Do you want me to fix your car, or do you need me to spell "stochiometric" correctly?? – SteveRacer Sep 10 '16 at 04:07
  • Third times a charm, think I got it right (by hand) this time. – dlu Sep 10 '16 at 04:31
  • Yeah. Sociometric just wasn't contributing much to the discussion. That's what I get for trusting auto correct... – dlu Sep 10 '16 at 15:57
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    @dlu - Never, ever, trust autocorrect ... it just ... well ... isn't. It's got the "auto" in the bag ... but correct? Nope. – Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 Sep 10 '16 at 23:08
  • @SteveRacer I'm not quite getting your answer. You are saying that I should just get how many times the injector injected the fuel to the engine, right? If so, is there any OBDII code to get this from the car's system? Also, flex-fuel car is a car that you can fill its tank with gasoline and ethanol. With any proportion.

    By now, I'm calculating the consumption based of the Velocity of the car, AFR of the fuel (gasoline or ethanol) and the Mass Air Flow (MAF). This is done in a real-time environment collecting all this data through the OBDII port

     – Higor Anjos Sep 11 '16 at 04:14
  • What I am saying is that Injector Duty Cycle, or Pulse Width, is often a parameter ID or "PID" on modern ECUs that can be monitored through Mode 1. It's not "how many", it's "how long" each injector is open. I guess you can figure it out with mass airflow, but honesty air consumption is not fuel consumption. I think you would be better off with realtime injector data. I know what "flex fuel" means, but I my country, fuel branded "E85" for instance, is mixed elsewhere with no real data on the exact proportions. – SteveRacer Sep 11 '16 at 14:59
  • I was looking at this again and there is one thing you didn't mention which is fuel pressure. Higher fuel pressure increases flow on any injector. If a stock injector is running at factory fuel pressure, then injector flow is enough. If you have a 36lb injector rated at 36psi, and is getting 51psi, the flow rate will be different during the IDC. It should be put into the calculation to cover more variance. Yes, you could be included in injector rate, but having both makes the computation more clear. – Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 Apr 19 '20 at 16:59
  • @Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 Agreed, but if I'm swapping the "pinks" into my Subie and upgrading the injector pump, I probably don't care much about OBD's opinion of fuel economy... – SteveRacer Apr 21 '20 at 16:51