E-85 Question
 

Long term effects on engine?

Any negative effects on AT transmission FRS's?

Would it work for me, mine is my DD but a station rather close has E-85

Thank you.

^This. Also, if I may ask another question to piggyback off yours Obja, how would a flex fuel tune work with changing out the fuel in the tank? Do you have to run as close as you can to empty on 93 before adding E-85?

Like with anything more power = more wear and tear and we're really not talking about that much more power. Other then that there would be no direct effect of using E85 on the transmission AT or MT.

The point of flex fuel vs. a straight E85 tune is that it will detect the % of ethanol and adjust the tune appropriately. So no you wouldn't have to empty your tank, you can run it on straight gasoline, straight E85, or any mix in between.

Since it hasn't been mentioned in this thread, our cars are "not designed" to run E85. As far as I know, this only means the ECU isn't programmed to utilize E85, which requires a richer mixture (read, more fuel per air volume). I don't believe there's any hardware incompatibilities. So, simply dumping in a tank of E85 would cause the engine to run lean, which is dangerous. Running too rich isn't necessarily dangerous, but it is wasteful. Having the ECU flashed/tuned for E85 is not difficult for most dyno tuning shops, but it will void the warranty. E85 has a higher power potential, partly due to it's higher octane. By itself, the octane rating means nothing, but higher octane fuels are more stable and burn more predictably for more aggressive engine and ECU tuning and usage (such as timing, compression, forced induction, sustained track use, etc).

Manufacturers have been mandated to make cars compatible with ethanol additive for years, but to what degree is hard to say. For that reason most things like lines, seals, tanks and injectors should be just fine from a corrosion stand point. But lubrication is another matter and why you have E85 and not straight E100; this way the lubrication properties of gasoline on pumping components are retained. For most cars this is a non-issue, but with direct injection we have another variable--the high pressure DI pump. However, the FT86 is not the first DI car to be exposed to E85. The mazda folks have been playing with it for years on the Mazdaspeed DISI models and so far the best I could find is one report of a DI pump that was first blamed on ethanol, only to be fond to have a defective o-ring/seal upon teardown and not a mechanical issue (and those pumps are not the greatest). With the number of people running E85 on this car so far I doubt there are going to be any issues but of course at your own (warranty's) risk. I've run it in my car for at least a couple thousand now and my crickets are just as noisy no matter the fuel ;)

thank you

It's funny you should mention it, I've been on e85 for about 1500 miles (at ~3000 now) and was just thinking that I hadn't noticed the crickets at all lately. They've never been bad for me and always came and went to varying degrees. Probably I've just become accustomed to them. So I'm not recommending e85 to kill your crickets ;-)

LOL at the crickets

I know a lot of guys in the evo world found some very nasty side effects from running e85.. mainly gooed up injectors and intake runners... looked like thick black tar build up... I believe the issue was tracked back to contaminated fuel supply... Some stations have re used old diesel storage tanks without proper cleaning, some carriers as well. IIRC the heavy petroleum contaminants precipitate out of the spray from the injector and form the nasty black tar.

That said, if there were a station near me i would probably test the fuel a few times and then start playing around with it, but i would keep an eye on the port injectors to see if any issues started to develop.