E85 Problems

[Piggaz]

After the best bit of two years sitting around after popping the gearbox, the car finally made it back onto the rollers in Friday night. It didn't feel right so the tune was stopped. This is what came out of my filters.

The car was parked with 98 in it too.

A fair amount of silty junk was found in the baskets of the injectors also.

[scotty nm35]

You running rubber lines Paul? That looks pretty bad...

[Daz]

Yeah my alloy catch can had oxidisation.

Will now be annodising both surge and catch can.

Anyone know who does annodising in SE Melbourne???

[mr skidz]

After the best bit of two years sitting around after popping the gearbox, the car finally made it back onto the rollers in Friday night. It didn't feel right so the tune was stopped. This is what came out of my filters.

The car was parked with 98 in it too.

A fair amount of silty junk was found in the baskets of the injectors also.

what's that gunk?

[Piggaz]

You running rubber lines Paul? That looks pretty bad...

Some are.

After seeing this, I'll be going back through the fuel system with a fine tooth comb.

I've never had an issue like this before and the car has been using E85 since 2010.

[Hadouken]

I just recently pulled my fuel filter out after using e85 for 3 years with a fair amount of sitting still,

No gunk, no black bits.

Is this the effects of ethanol breaking down the fuel lines? Or is it the molasses type stuff that occurs?

[scotty nm35]

I have seen rubbery crap blocking the injector baskets a few times, I can only guess it's the inside of the rubber hose breaking down.

It's different to the molasses sticky mess that sometimes builds on the injector tip, after cleaning a few Audi RS4 plenums it looks like the same gunk they build up in the runners and around the valves, just a symptom of long valve overlap or high exhaust manifold pressure I suspect. Interestingly it's only one injector that gunks up in some cases, so I can't see the fuel being the direct cause.

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

Wow Paul's car is alive, excuse to hold a private Wakefield day lol..

[Xing Yi]

Got fresh engine, (i.e so no carbon anywhere) running on E85 for awhile since runin (10,000kms?)

Put a tank or two of 98 in, to satisfy demons in case of evil e85 doing e85y things.

Put E85 back in after sufficient demon-cleansing time

ton of shit in fuel filter and car running lean under boost, thanks, Haltech engine protection!

Knowing exactly 0 about 98/E85's cleansing properties, clearly the combination of the two either causes gunk, or flushes gunk in/out from somewhere, my filter was fine and my AFR's were fine until I put 98 through the car. Funny enough, was fine on 98 also, but obviously less fuel there as less is needed so a partial filter blockage may have had no effect.

Very interesting! Which Haltech has this function for lean out?

[Hadouken]

Maybe it was knock that made the haltech cut out

[Kinkstaah]

Very interesting! Which Haltech has this function for lean out?

I have a PS2000 but many of them have the feature, basically you can input criteria or safe operating ranges and if you exceed them you can have the engine respond. I.e cut all fuel, set a rev limit of 3k, pull timing, or any combination of them.

In my case I have a wideband so it was a "Is my AFR leaner than 12.5 with boost higher than 1psi for longer than 1 second". Combined with auto logging if I'm above 70% throttle, it's pretty easy to determine through logs what happened and why. Can set it to trigger off oil pressure, fuel pressure, various temperatures, etc.

Considering I was driving it just fine on that filter on E85 on many many dyno pulls, Deca day, Drag passes etc and this mysteriously started happening after I ran E85 after a tank or two of 98, AND had a clogged filter (replaced filter working fine now) then I can only hazard a guess that the swapping of fuels caused something to dislodge

[Xing Yi]

OMG Piggaz!

Looks like mine where, just found the photo on dropbox

It looks black but once on your hands and drys out is white and dry powdery feeling (difficult to explain)

[fatz]

alloy oxcide\

[Roy]

Are those filter elements from the fully hectic alloy 10um filters with cleanable /replaceable elements?

If you cut up a std Nissan steel jobbie one do you expect to see the same thing?

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

My 2 cents, I've been running E85 for about 2 years now and only recently gone over to a flex setup... I've also alway have used cheapy Ryco filters and bing then each time I do an oil change. The only thing I can think is that I've replaced all my old OEM Nissan fuel lines with Gates Barricade (except the hose from the LHS side of the tank that cross over into the lid then to the "jet pump".

Not long ago, I decided to pull out my injectors to have a look, they still seem quite happy.

[Xing Yi]

Are those filter elements from the fully hectic alloy 10um filters with cleanable /replaceable elements?

If you cut up a std Nissan steel jobbie one do you expect to see the same thing?

I believe they are stainless mesh cleanable type. But good luck cleaning my old one above.

My 2 cents, I've been running E85 for about 2 years now and only recently gone over to a flex setup... I've also alway have used cheapy Ryco filters and bing then each time I do an oil change. The only thing I can think is that I've replaced all my old OEM Nissan fuel lines with Gates Barricade (except the hose from the LHS side of the tank that cross over into the lid then to the "jet pump".

Not long ago, I decided to pull out my injectors to have a look, they still seem quite happy.

That's a good plan as they are cheap and easy to buy