OFT E85 Hard Starting... halp...
 

Switched over to E85 via OFT a couple weeks ago. No problems at first and major noticeable difference. On my 4th tank now and this week it starting not wanting to start in the mornings after she was sitting all night.

The first day it took a couple try's then the next day a few and now 5 days later it's taking 5-6 try's and making popping noises and stalling. Once it finally kicks over and fires up there are no issues. The rest of the day she fires on first try. It's just in the morning.

I've read that in cold weather the E85 tune can be hard to start but I'm in Socal and the weather was in the 70-80's when this started and we really haven't had any really cold weather.

I'm going to switch back to the stock tune for now since the popping is concerning along with the increasing amount of try's to get it to start.

I'm going to be installing a header next week and I'm wondering if I should have the car tuned on E85 at Church's?

Was really happy with the OFT E85 tune and don't really want to go back to 91oct but the hard starting doesn't seem healthy for the car.

What would you do?

While 70 is not cold by any means, very high percentage ethanol can still have a hard time starting in those temps.

Just making up some numbers:
70 during the day = ~60 in the morning = 45-50 overnight.

If the car is outside overnight the 45-50 degree temp will still be cold by ethanol standards.


Take a look at the thread about editing your off the shelf tunes. You just need to copy paste a few values on a few tables for cold crank adjustments. It let me run e85 with no starting problems when it was ~30 during the night.

@yip

^^This...

Or do what I do, add 1.5 gals 91 pump gas to every 9-10 gals of e85 and it will turn over with no problems.

This, just add a gallon of gas to your tank when near full. Lowers the ethanol percentage a bit but you'll still be well above the e60 minimum the oft tunes need.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

Look around for info on modifying the tune. I used to have similar issues in the morning, but I can start at any temp of day now.

x2 on this-plus it bumps up fuel mpg by just a bit and doesn't hurt hp/tq at all.

Thank you everyone for your advice and PM's. What a great community/forum!

I'm just going to fill with a gallon of 91 for now and will likely be selling the OFT soon and getting tuned at Church's.