E85Forum.com

BlackNGoldRules · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 21 Location: Bethel Park, PA

I belong to a Ford message board and I've read a few posts on there about people complaining that they have flex fuel vehicles but the E85 still ate through their injectors and fuel filters ruining their fuel systems. Is this a possibility or could their problems just be related to something else and it's coincidental?

Alcohol · Joined: 17 Apr 2007 Posts: 634 Location: Central Wisconsin

I have 1 2001 S10 FFV (personal), 3 Chev Impala FFV (fleet), 1 Taurus FFV (fleet) 204,000 miles on it, 1 Silverado FFV (fleet), plus an affiliated company has about 20 FFV Sliverados. I am not hearing or seeing what you are questioning.
I only know of 1 Daimler minivan that had a fuel filter issue- it was not clear how long it had been on the vehicle to start with or what he may have added for fuel additives (some things like acetone can be very bad).
I take all complaints from 18 E85 stations- fortunately I can honestly say I cannnot recall the last complaint. I was far busier back when I had diesel fuel in my product line and had to deal with it's problems.

Odd things happen, materials have defects, and the human factor is the largest- many mechanics mis-diagnose the problem, people put majic juice in cars, even in one case I know of- the kids played mommy and put a garden hose into the fill pipe and turned it on. Stuff happens. Ford may also have had a tank with a factory form release compound that gave up crud plugging filters and injectors (Explorer)- i know of one guy that kept having trouble with this issue. Both Ford and GM had some errors in more than a few ECM computer programs that needed a new flash for free (but this was not an injector or filter issue obviously).

The only source of problems I am sure that does happen is gum/varnish deposits in vehicle fuel systems left behind by gasoline. This can build up for a few years before it affects anything as long as the driver fills up with gasoline containing a decent level of detergents to keep injectors clean- eventually it can overwelm the ability of the detergent to clean these deposits and an injector may need to be removed for cleaning. The first few times any level of ethanol is introduced (but faster with E85)- the tank will be cleaned and this crud starts moving toward the filter to be strained out once and for all. This is when you hope you have a good fine micron filter so that is does not get past and move on to injectors. I have never personally experienced this but it is possible.

Can you be be more specific about "eating thru filters and injectors" meaning?

skiracer · Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 12:59 pm Post subject:

+1, heard a lot of stories of people getting "gum" on the bottom of their gas tanks from using regular gasoline. Then when they switch to E85, the E85 cleans the gunk off the bottom of the gas tank. Unfortunately the gunk tends to get stuck in the fuel filter/injectors.
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'06 Evo IX Stage 1 by RRE,Walbro 255lph fuel pump,RC Engineering1000cc Injectors, AVO exhaust,RRE flash, (325whp @ 22PSI 91 octane, 353whp @ 25psi on 100 octane, 383whp @30psi on E85),Zeitronix wideband/Ethanol Content Analyzer, Defi gauges

hotrod · Joined: 19 Apr 2005 Posts: 872 Location: Colorado

What no one mentions is gasoline causes problems for lots of drivers too!

Thousands of drivers every year have problems with "bad gas" from stations that do not control water runoff or condensation build up in their fuel tanks. Likewise boat owners and others that store gas over the winter have always had issues with stale gas and crud in the fuel system long before ethanol was popular.

Any fuel can cause problems in Any car if it is improperly stored or the car is not properly maintained. In the 1960's and 1970's I replaced a lot of leaking fuel lines, fuel pumps with ruptured pump diaphragms, burned out electric fuel pumps, carburetor gaskets, and rebuild carburetors full of tar like varnish a decade before ethanol was introduced into normal pump gasoline.

That is why fuel stabilizer products like Stabil, fuel system cleaner additives and fuel line antifreeze products have been on the market for over 50 years.

Larry

skiracer · Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 6:35 pm Post subject:

E85=fuel injector cleaner that works too good sometimes Laughing

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'06 Evo IX Stage 1 by RRE,Walbro 255lph fuel pump,RC Engineering1000cc Injectors, AVO exhaust,RRE flash, (325whp @ 22PSI 91 octane, 353whp @ 25psi on 100 octane, 383whp @30psi on E85),Zeitronix wideband/Ethanol Content Analyzer, Defi gauges

BlackNGoldRules · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 21 Location: Bethel Park, PA

Alcohol · Joined: 17 Apr 2007 Posts: 634 Location: Central Wisconsin

That cold start issue is E85's weak point- however- my fleet sits outside here in central Wisconsin (10-20 below) and in 5 years we have not had one fail to start on winter blend E85. Two things come to mind BlackNGold- 1) the E85 may not have been E70 as required (since it is a "alternative fuel" some states are not watching this as closely as they should and gasoline cost more --games could be played) and 2) Ford had the opposite issue with Taurus's- great cold start and poor warm start- this was an issue with ECU programming- a correction flash was distributed after a lawsuit was brought against Ford for it. With E85 the (open loop) cold start enrichment must be correct or she will not go--this is preprogrammed into your computer. Sadly Ford seemed to be the worst brand for really responding to build errors- at least around here.

I will watch and talk with a co-worker who has a FFV Explorer that he picked up used last winter. So far it has been on E85 w/o issue.

What model years are the issues reportedly on?

hotrod · Joined: 19 Apr 2005 Posts: 872 Location: Colorado

In cold weather I typically just add an extra 2 gallons or so of gasoline to the E85 and it eliminated my cold start issues.

One other option is to install a block heater. It takes very little engine heat to solve the problem. If you do not have a block heater, in cold weather you can keep the intake manifold warm at night by putting an incandescent trouble light under the hood and either leave it on all night, or put it on a timer so it comes on about 4:00 in the morning. It will raise the engine compartment to about 40 deg F and cold start will not be a problem.

I would not recommend going over a 40-60 watt bulb on the trouble light though.

Unfortunately the block heater or trouble light do not help much if you have to park out in the boonies where there is no power outlet.

In really cold weather you can also fall back on the techniques that were common when I was growing up before they switched to electronic fuel injection. In the days of carburetors, you had to choke the engine in cold weather to get it to fire, or find some way to give it a very rich mixture so it would fire during cranking. It was very common to see people on very cold mornings open the car hood, pull off the top of the air cleaner and put a squirt of starting fluid or a teaspoon of gasoline in the top of the carburetor, then put the top of the air cleaner back on and close the hood then start the car. It was just one of those things that everyone understood, that cars are not supposed to start easily when it is -20 deg F. and colder.

All you need is for the engine to catch and fire about 3 times during cranking to spin the engine up to a fast enough speed that you get good mixture turbulence and compression heating of the air charge to evaporate the fuel.

I had a friend that worked in a small engine rebuild shop, (chain saws, lawn mowers etc.) and they used lacquer thinner as their starting fluid as it is very flammable. Just a couple cc's of it and almost any engine that has ignition would fire.

(perform at your own risk -- us old farts that have done this a few hundred times are probably more likely to try this sort of thing, but you need to be careful when using these techniques and think a bit before you try something)

If used properly starting fluid is a sure fire way to get a cranky car started in cold weather but you need to only use it in limited amounts. One quick 2-3 second spray is all you need. If you have an E85 conversion that gets hard to start in cold weather, you might want to carry a can of starting fluid in cold weather and learn how to use it on your car. (modern cars are much more difficult to spray stuff into the intake past the air filter which is what you will want to do).

Larry