Engine wear and E85

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It's called the information super highway!
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I do use my own blends of Hydrated Ethanol (HE) HE70 to HE90's for more than a decade > I can mix any amount since the ethanol nozzle are at one foot from the regular gas, so... < My 1995 Taurus is US imported > gasoline only, original compression chamber values. It ran a lot with all the original parts and loves it! < The mileage drops about 15% at highway. City driving makes the gap wider (20% more to the thirsty side) than the highway driving. The combustion chamber (can't photo up with boroscopes) is clean and no excess carbon abrasives for the compression rings to eat up. I use K&N air filter (on original air box). It's doing 39mpg at highway cruising at 75mph. Mine came from factory with green fuel injectors, its original FFV injectors for export. Fuel pump went by last year (maybe the excess of hydrated ethanol has a hint of guilty in here) and I replaced with a 4 bar Delphy FFV, so the high amount of hydrated ethanol wont hurt a thing and the regulator makes it back to 3 bar. PCM is original gas only version though, not the FFV version. Last spark plugs are one grade hotter than the original ones.
The thing burnt about 425 gallon of pure water in its life, from the hydrated ethanol I added to the fuel mix (since in average, 8% of the ethanol I add is pure water). Ethanol fuel here is about the 92-94GL version FYI. That vapor makes my O2 sensor and catalist converter clean as a whistle, too.
Did the same in a 95 Golf GLX 2.0 8v and the Scooby. The Scooby still has the original Fuel Pump. The Subaru thing is Tough! Ethanol is about 65% the price of regular gas, so a higher consumpton still compensates.
 
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its not from E85, Modern fuel injection has really taken the wear from engines , because it doesnt saturate the oil with fuel and dilute it, I have pulled 200k 350s from suburbans, lt1 350s from old LT1 police cars and they too still have the cross hatching from the honing and no upper ridge wear. this guys had a carb yea , but it wasn't a daily driver and while it has hard miles , it still had low miles , the cleanliness of the pistons is from the E-85. but the bore wear not so much.
 
I agree with you I mean this engine was driven real hard and always at high Rpms but in normal daily driven engine or one that see occasional spirited driving it's not normal to see smooth cylinders. On low wearing engines you will see cross hatching even on 200k gas engine, at least from photos of tear down engines I've seen.

That e85 is keeping the piston tops real clean. And someone earlier said something about gapless rings, that's not even possible lol they need to have gap either preset or file to fit.
 
Probably wear is not so much the fuel [though it is ripe for another discussion] the big problem is what fuel does to the oil. And corrosion problems on shut down and storage.
 
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I have run oil samples using E85 and never noticed any difference compared to running non ethanol or E10. Corrosion would only be an issue maybe if putting E85 in a 1975 auto. Since flex fuel vehicles came out, the same lines, tanks, etc are used in both flex fuel and non flex fuel rated autos and pickups from the same OEM. It costs less logistically to have only one design of fuel lines and tanks and eliminates a potential problem if the wrong components were put in a flex fuel rated vehicle. I have hauled hundreds of loads to production auto plants for Ford and GM, and the same fuel system components go into both flex fuel and non flex fuel vehicle varieties.

Not sure why anyone would want to store E85 anyway. And if the vehicle is going to be stored away, then in that case run a couple of tanks of E10 or E0 before storing away. The only problems seem to occur with those that do not follow good fuel management practices.
 
Originally Posted By: Shata
That e85 is keeping the piston tops real clean. And someone earlier said something about gapless rings, that's not even possible lol they need to have gap either preset or file to fit.


Gapless rings are absolutely a real thing.
 
Originally Posted By: rooflessVW
Originally Posted By: Shata
That e85 is keeping the piston tops real clean. And someone earlier said something about gapless rings, that's not even possible lol they need to have gap either preset or file to fit.


Gapless rings are absolutely a real thing.
Yes they are!
 
Not for anyone else's curiosity, and not my own. I would just use the same oil and OCI regimen I do now when I use various blends up to and including E85. I don't get all giddy about trying new things to satisfy other's curiosity.
 
Originally Posted By: Garak
The sump never makes sludge with E85? I wouldn't want to test that proposition with excessively long OCIs on a low-SAPS oil. Would you?
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Yep, Garak, I was talking about normal oci and mid-saps. What most people do to their cars, not extreme behaviors.
 
You said "never." We do have to realize that people abuse their vehicles and that OEMs occasionally try to pull a fast one with OCIs. Note that most OEMs do tend to push shorter OCIs when running E85, not longer.
 
That's just because the alcohol makes more induction droplets at cold operation hence wet blowby and consequent dilution until the oil gets 78C (about 150F?). And since OEM doesn't know if you are a short tripped, they say generally to go shorter oci. But I never see black coked sludge in Ethanol, E85 or LGP. If you find one with black sludge, please post, because I never saw this happening.
 
I worked on forklifts there were some engines with 30,000 hours on them as forklifts engines have a fairly easy life if operated properly. Lpg, gasoline and diesel engines would actually be remarkably clean insides because they were serviced on a timely basis.The converted automotive engines are actually much better than the once used industrial engines.
 
I have none to post, of course. Even anecdotally, that would be hard to find given the rarity of E85 users. And, I'm well aware of what LPG can accomplish. I've amassed fleet totals in the millions of miles with LPG, with extended OCIs.
 
Lots of good conversation here about E85. The one thing I haven't seen mentioned is that a key area that sees increased wear when running E85 in a port injection engine is the intake valves and seats. Back when E85 started becoming common a number of automakers had to introduce harder valve seats and nitrided intake valves. The nitirding process forms a hardened layer on the outside of the valve to resist wear.
 
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