Brad Penn and E85 incompatability-discuss

[TurboTravis]

http://www.penngrade1.com/CMSFiles/File/March 2011_E85_TECH_LETTER_BRAD_PENN.pdf

http://forums.evolutionm.net/evo-general/544369-brad-penn-oil-turned-jello.html

Cliffs-Brad Penn advises against using their racing oil with E85 fuel. Evo owner had it turn to jello.

Opinion-it's fine, and the owner got a bad batch and/or something is wrong with the engine.

Facts-Many import guys are using Brad Penn with E85 without issue

Action-I'm staying with Valvoline VR1 because my UOA came back excellent

 

[trooper001]

I'm no guru, but that looks like fuel dilution to the extreme. I bet he could light a match and it'll ignite. He mentioned that he kept the car garaged all winter and only turned it on to let it "idle to warm up" multiple times. In other words, he didn't drive it and basicly contaminated the living [censored] out of the oil via excessive idling, especially with E85 in the mix. Then take into account the other factors, such as weather fluctuation. Quite frankly, I'm not surprised. Would of happened to just about any oil.

 

[TurboTravis]

Amazing that a topic like this gets zero response, yet a topic about the oil choice for a stock Honda Civic will get 5 pages of responses.

 

[SteveSRT8]

You are so right Travis. Where are the experts?

I used to work for a guy with a huge car collection and his rule was if you can't DRIVE it for at least 20-30 minutes don't even start it up.

It would seem that something happened relative to fuel dilution. I wonder if the guy had a really pig rich tune.

 

[NateDN10]

I agree that Evo dude probably would have had problems even if he'd used an API SN oil.

How much of a difference would it make, though, with a normal level of fuel dilution, say 1.5% or less? Enough to warrant an owner of an FFV to use only API SN oils?

 

[trooper001]

Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
It would seem that something happened relative to fuel dilution. I wonder if the guy had a really pig rich tune.


Rich tune for sure. Plus, because the car doesn't get up to 'proper' temp, the ECU has the system in open loop, which has the injectores dump a rich mixture of fuel and ignores the oxygen sensor/s and AFM, until it goes into closed loop (which now levels off the fuel mixture via different inputs of the O2 sensor, AFM, etc.). Let's just say that he never went into closed loop.