E85 issues with injectors?
 

I was thinking seriously of going with the ECUTek tune (+ and E85 tune) next summer, but before I drop that kind of money I was wondering if anyone has had any issues with E85 clogging the fuel injectors? A couple of my friends are running E85 in their Evos (highly built, so it might not be a good comparison), but they are constantly cleaning their injectors because they are getting clogged so frequently.

Thanks for any insight...wasn't sure if this was an issue or not, since the car isn't exactly built to run E85 from the start.

I've been running E85 in mine off and on for around 6 months, with no problems related to the fuel system stock parts. Not a lot of time, but that's been my experience. As far as the experience of the fuel itself - it's awesome. I'm back on 93 for the winter and I miss the extra little bit you get!

(Flex Fuel kits.... yeah I have some stories there... if you go that route - just pay attention to the kit you buy, save yourself the headaches and potential puddle of fuel under the car! :) )

20k+ miles on E85 with some autox mixed in. No issues.

This is the stuff I love to hear. Flex Fuel with maybe 8k miles still working just fine. Except that cold start.

This is the guy that got me hooked on the corn juice. 12k+ so far and enjoying every minute of it. Also, the car gets driven the way it's meant to be, so no granny shifting here :D

Ethanol is an amazing solvent. If your friends are getting clogged injectors it's probably because the ethanol has dislodged pre-existing deposits.

So, on a related topic, is this upgrade worth the money? I'm looking at the cost of headers, and of course, the cost of the big jump to FI, and it seems like the $950 cost for the whole setup (that is what I was quoted by FA20club for 30whp is a pretty decent ROI, but I just want to be sure before I really commit to it.

Yes! :burnrubber:

How often do you put in E10? Every other tank? Once a month? One time since you initially switched to E85? Or have you literally run only E85 that entire time?

The reason why I ask is because Saab did some pioneering work on turbo [PFI] E85 applications back in the late 2000s. One of the things they found was that running E85 leaves deposits on the injectors, but occasionally switching to gasoline cleans them up very quickly.

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/attac...1&d=1384476405

Funny you mention that. If you read the Saab paper, they talk about how the deposits were not actually caused by the ethanol portion of E85. They were caused by additives in the gasoline portion. It's weird. Because of the way the fuel supply chain works they could never mix a blend of E85 that didn't have this propensity to cause buildup.

See attached paper, starting on page 29.

Was kinda blown away and don't know if I should believe this. See for yourself!
[ame]http://youtu.be/HuOs1yap8mU[/ame]

I heard sonething similar so I will run a tank of 93 roughly every 5 tanks of 85.

I will be going to FI in the spring and with it I will upgrade my injectors. I'll post photos of my old injectors and plugs when I do.

I am in California so we have 91 (any higher is difficult to come across) and I have nine E85 stations near me. Can anyone go to an E85 pump and put it in their stock FRS as long as their gas tank is near empty? Or do you have to get the flex fuel conversion kit? Or tune to make it work correctly?


Also, can someone please tell me - what parts (if any) would I need to make E85 work on my stock car?

Without a tune to run E85 your car will run lean and you can damage the engine.

So at the minimum, a tune is a must for E85 to work properly/safely?

Yes. The flex fuel kit just simplifies the flashing/map switching process.

If you just want to run straight E85, you don't need a flexfuel kit. All you need is an E85 tune. Ours is free :)

Shiv

Shiv, I'm really excited about the release of your E85 maps and I found a gas station 5 miles from my place of work that sells it so I'm set there. I do have one question though. IF someone did want the ability to a flex fuel kit in their car so they could swap between 93 and E85 without reflashing, is this something that the OFT can or will support in the future? I'm not sure how the other two flex fuel kits are accomplishing this, but the general idea that I get is they just re purpose a sensor to the ECU for the flex fuel sensor with ECUTek?

Either way, I'm going to most likely run your map after its released to get an idea of mileage with the car on E85. I'd just hate to have to reflash the car each time I go to places that don't have E85 available.

If you don't have live map switching you will need to reflash every time. With the ecutek tune I have my pump gas on one map and E85 on another.

How cold do E85 starts begin having issues?

We have seen early morning temps (in NorCal) as cold as 45F and no cold start issues. The cranking enrichment table did have to be revised to make this possible. With the stock cranking enrichment table values, the car would stall at the first and second starting attempt :)

Shiv

It was 45 here in Texas yesterday. It refused to start. I had to try 8 times and give it gas before it would fire up. E75. Anywhere under E65 and it cold starts fine, but I was trying to keep the ethanol high because I have a track day tomorrow.

You'll need to revised the cranking enrichment table. I'm running up to E85 and no issues in cold mornings.

Shiv, I sent you a PM, just so you know. Thanks for all the replies!

I initially ran E85 only 60-70% of the time (fillups) my first few months on the E85 tune... after that, I've been on it 90%+ of the time. :D

Since mid-May, I've had 58 top-offs & 3 partial fillups.. I've only put in 93 octane 4 times during that span (2 times were partial 93 fillups): 2 times in June, once in mid October, and once again 3 weeks ago.

I'd be interested to see how your injectors look Hawaiian.

The hard startups during cold mornings aren't enough to get me off the corn juice... yet. I'll wait to see how difficult the startups get when temps drop to below 40F first.

Any updates on the potential injector clogging issue? If running E10/E0 gasoline does clean up deposits, how often should it be done?

@Hawaiian @reeves @CaptainSlow @post_break @mikalem @shiv@vishnu

The following thread discusses decreasing the throttle relearn time for those flashing back and forth. I've found the 5x pedal down then on trick worked (post #13). Wasn't the only thing I tried after a new map though. I didn't try steve's method yet.

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39480

I've never tried the 5x pedal down method after reflashing. I just drive normally afterwards, the 2 times I've actually had to reflash. I haven't taken my injectors out yet either.. I'll probably replace them at the end of this year when I get close to 60K miles, then we'll see how "clogged" they are. I haven't had any issues so far though.

I have not had any issues, but I am running a few weeks on E85, then a week or so on 93...just based on my schedule. I like to switch back to 93 if I have a longer road trip, just because there aren't too many E85 stations around our state, and I don't want to be stranded.

Every 5 tanks of E85 run a full tank of E10. No clogging.

After reflashes I just let the car idle for a little while. You need to have the cams turn on, but that's the extent of it.

As far as how often, or even IF it should be done, I'm not sure. I tend to run a cycle of pump gas every 10th tank or so (more out of necessity due to bad planning on my fill ups). If you let 85 sit for a while, it's not a great idea, but if you drive your car fairly often (I go through about 17 gallons a week) you shouldn't have any major issues.

My stock injectors looked to be in pretty good shape when I switched to the ID1000s, and so did my fuel pump.

Should I be worrying about the number of times flashed from tune to tune? I mean, won't the ecu eventually become corrupt after a certain number of flashes or am I making a bigger deal out of nothing. I think about this with each flash.

As far as I know the ECU is one of these

http://www.renesas.com/products/mpum...7059/index.jsp

Uses flash memory could expect about 10,000+ cycles if all goes well

http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rc...68911936,d.dGI

I personally have inspected my injectors Fter 8-12k of e85 use and they looked fairly clean. I rarely got below e50. I'll be pulling my injectors again in the next month or two as we'll and inspecting after another 5-6k of use. As others have mentioned running gasoline ocassionally may be a solution. However at this time I haven't seen any issues.

Also in the topic of Ecu flashing yes it can wear out. I haven't heard any reports of anyone having theirs failed yet. A number of people guessed possibly 1000-1500 flashes may be the life cycle. Personally I have roughly 600+ flashes on mine and I have had an odd issue where the Ecu randomly doesn't seem to operate but this may be rom based or another issue and nothing to do with my Ecu. Typically when the Ecu fails you can't flash it and if I reflash mine it works just fine.

I pulled my port injectors recently after running straight E85 (80%) for about 17,000 miles, with maybe 2 tanks of 91 mixed in there somewhere. Injectors looked fine.. I can post some pics later tonight.

Pics please

Oops.. Forgot about this. Let me take some pics tomorrow

Attachment 86767Attachment 86768Attachment 86769

A little off-topic, but I'm curious as to why USDM cars have grey port injectors while the ones in my JDM spec are orange. I wonder what the difference is? You guys also have clip on fuel lines while ours are clamped

http://i374.photobucket.com/albums/o...ps3d0aeb31.jpg

Is anyone running the OFT with a flex fuel kit?

And would it work for a mix of 93 and e85 work with the OFT e85 map?

Sorry for the noob question there is no much info im just trying to wrap my head around the basic ideas.

At this point, OFT does not support flex fuel. You can mix a little bit of 93 with E85 and use the OFT E85 map, but it's not ideal.

Gotcha thanks for the reply