At 74k miles I had an issue with cylinder 6... Good info thanks for sharing your experience.
E85 Lubricity Additives
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At 74k miles I had an issue with cylinder 6... Good info thanks for sharing your experience.
In the topic of E85 and cylinder failure issues... My cylinder #5 crapped out on me while running Full E85 back in July. I am almost done with my engine rebuild and I am scared of running with the same injectors ( all index 12 injectors..)
Any way to test the injectors besides just running them out of the cylinder head and checking if they are spraying?
Any way to test the injectors besides just running them out of the cylinder head and checking if they are spraying?
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I don't know if it was E85 related or not. And I should apologize for thread jacking here..
I am worried that cylinder injector failed and caused the issue. I will look for a place to test this injectors, if there is a way, but even so I won't know if E85 was what it failed the injector...
I will look into E85 additives, still have to do some research to see if I will be okay to break in the engine with straight e85, or should empty the tank and put 93.
Good point it’s speculation at least for me. I may of had a low octane... coincidentally I had cracked rings as martymill mentioned seeing.
I have used E85 without the above precautions, leaving it sit for a long duration, not allowing oil to come to temp etc... failure might have arrived from an amalgamation of events. Certainly too many confounding variables.
Moving forward since having the engine built I am more cautious.
I think that's more to do with the power levels, and mostly cylinder pressure, compared between the two. No one is running 700hp on strictly 93, and tbh I think when you consider the benefits of e85, you'd have more failures from 93 if it could reach the same power levels.
As for lubricity, that's an interesting point @fmorelli . Personally I've always been skeptical of the effectiveness of additives aside from a few proven ones (techron and waterwetter are the two I truly believe in most) but if the difference in lubricity could be proven a large detrimental factor by a third party I'd be interested in running an additive. So far the only one I've ever encountered is that Lucas one which seems to mostly be a stabilizer although it doesn't mention much of what it does even on the bottle.
Not talking power levels but lets compare same power level on 93 and e85 and not talking about max power either
We are talking stock engines, rebuilt ones you would take precautions and build with the right parts to help reduce the damage.
lets say 20 psi on 93 making 350rwk safely all day long on a proper tune
and say 15psi on e85 making 350rwk safely all day long on a proper tune
I can safely say the 93 engine will last twice as long as the e85 engine with regular maintenance.
Pick what ever additive that you like and use what you like for e85 but its still a band aid for the corrosiveness of this fuel.
I'm not saying its a bad fuel, quite the opposite its awesome for power and knock suppression but that's where its pro's end.
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Can't be. I hear the alcohol down under is pretty tastyMaybe australian E85 is shit
Filippo
This thread is 4 pages of nonsense. Blaming E85 for a cracked ringland, really? The reason we use E85 in the first place is to prevent detonation as we tune for increased cylinder pressures lol. It is way more likely that N54 piston rings just aren't all that robust. They are deisgned for cylinder pressures at 300whp not 600whp. We see piston ring failure on tuned stock motors all the time... E85 kills cams and bearings? Fuel should NEVER be in your oil in the first place... There are very few ways fuel can actually get into your oil: blowby, cylinder wetting (all those people who think it's OK for rail pressure to dip to 1000psi on an N54), or a broken injector. None of that is the fault of E85 itself. The resulting fuel dilution would be NO DIFFERENT than if you were using gasoline... Except for the fact that E85, and the by-products of combustion it creates, is more acidic than gasoline and it will deplete your oils add-pak more quickly over several thousand miles (we are talking about doing 7k oil changes instead of 9k)... Methanol is actually 10x more of a concern in this regard than E85. Additionally, oil manufacturers have revised their products over the past decade to meet the new specifications and tests that focus on oil quality when used in E85 vehicles.
The real concerns with E85 is the affects it has on your fueling system since that's really the only place fuel travels. It is more solvent than gasoline (hence why E85 engines/parts are nice and clean when torn down) and the alcohol has a drying affect on non E85 compatible rubber/plastic. N54 injectors do contain a piezo element though. I have speculated in the past that high E85 content might affect the piezo element itself since the material is surely designed to actuate based on the chemical composition of gasoline and not E85. So, I can see blaming E85 for injector failures (it's really an unsubstantiated claim though), but, everything else being said is just red herring nonsense.
Lubricity of E85 is what this thread is about though. MAYBE you will shorten the lifespan of your fuel pumps since they aren't being lubricated as well. That's about it. Oh, and then there is also the fact that there is no pump fuel out their (E85 or Gasoline) that doesn't already come formulated with lubricity and cleaning enhancers... You think they just pump raw ethanol into fuel pumps at the gas station? It's a formulated product... Does E85 use wear down cylinder walls, piston rings, valves, and other combustion related parts? I don't think anyone has ever present any DATA to support that there will be any measurable difference in wear on these parts in an E85 engine vs a gasoline one across hundreds of thousands of miles. If this were a real issue then manufacturers wouldn't be building flex fuel vehicles. You can HYPOTHESIZE that the solvent properties of E85 MIGHT cause more wear on these parts by removing oil from these surfaces, but, it's just not a substantiated claim by any means. I think oil manufacturers who formulated the fuel products know enough about this to ensure there is enough lubricity additive in their E85 products to prevent any kind of wear issue.
It's much more realistic that E85 just works your fuel pump and injectors harder and THAT is more a reason to blame it failures than "lubricity." The simple fact that you need to pump and burn 30% more of it means an instant 30% drop in pump and injector life-span vs running gasoline. Applying the same logic to oil life-span you get teh 6-7k miles changes instead of 9k changes referenced above. These aftermarket lubricants are more for people buying chemical drums of alcohol and ethanol and formulating their own fuels. Like alcohol fueled drag cars... Or, for people storing fuel in the garage long term for use in equipment.
Cold start condensation and oil/water separation from cars sitting without being started will happen regardless of what fuel you are using. Ethanol absorbing water as any measurable % of it's volume is something that takes MONTHS to occur. 6+ months in fact. Who doesn't get their car up to 200f+ at least once every 6 months?
GF-5 certified oils place an emphasis on new emulsification and corrosion tests. This covers pretty much every shelf oil since 2008. GF-5 oil has been mandated as factory fill since 2011. So, ignore that article written in 1990 about ethanol use in some farm tractor... it just doesn't apply to today's fuel formulations, oil formulations, or engine components.
The real concerns with E85 is the affects it has on your fueling system since that's really the only place fuel travels. It is more solvent than gasoline (hence why E85 engines/parts are nice and clean when torn down) and the alcohol has a drying affect on non E85 compatible rubber/plastic. N54 injectors do contain a piezo element though. I have speculated in the past that high E85 content might affect the piezo element itself since the material is surely designed to actuate based on the chemical composition of gasoline and not E85. So, I can see blaming E85 for injector failures (it's really an unsubstantiated claim though), but, everything else being said is just red herring nonsense.
Lubricity of E85 is what this thread is about though. MAYBE you will shorten the lifespan of your fuel pumps since they aren't being lubricated as well. That's about it. Oh, and then there is also the fact that there is no pump fuel out their (E85 or Gasoline) that doesn't already come formulated with lubricity and cleaning enhancers... You think they just pump raw ethanol into fuel pumps at the gas station? It's a formulated product... Does E85 use wear down cylinder walls, piston rings, valves, and other combustion related parts? I don't think anyone has ever present any DATA to support that there will be any measurable difference in wear on these parts in an E85 engine vs a gasoline one across hundreds of thousands of miles. If this were a real issue then manufacturers wouldn't be building flex fuel vehicles. You can HYPOTHESIZE that the solvent properties of E85 MIGHT cause more wear on these parts by removing oil from these surfaces, but, it's just not a substantiated claim by any means. I think oil manufacturers who formulated the fuel products know enough about this to ensure there is enough lubricity additive in their E85 products to prevent any kind of wear issue.
It's much more realistic that E85 just works your fuel pump and injectors harder and THAT is more a reason to blame it failures than "lubricity." The simple fact that you need to pump and burn 30% more of it means an instant 30% drop in pump and injector life-span vs running gasoline. Applying the same logic to oil life-span you get teh 6-7k miles changes instead of 9k changes referenced above. These aftermarket lubricants are more for people buying chemical drums of alcohol and ethanol and formulating their own fuels. Like alcohol fueled drag cars... Or, for people storing fuel in the garage long term for use in equipment.
Cold start condensation and oil/water separation from cars sitting without being started will happen regardless of what fuel you are using. Ethanol absorbing water as any measurable % of it's volume is something that takes MONTHS to occur. 6+ months in fact. Who doesn't get their car up to 200f+ at least once every 6 months?
GF-5 certified oils place an emphasis on new emulsification and corrosion tests. This covers pretty much every shelf oil since 2008. GF-5 oil has been mandated as factory fill since 2011. So, ignore that article written in 1990 about ethanol use in some farm tractor... it just doesn't apply to today's fuel formulations, oil formulations, or engine components.
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You haven't read my post have you no one blamed ring land failure on e85 but a faulty injector because of e85 that caused a missfire.
I love people coming into these threads and comparing apples to oranges
Our engine is not a flex fuel engine in stock form and just by changing the oil is not going prevent this, i know because I ran gf5 oil when it failed and saw the damage caused on bearing surfaces, i was very lucky to catch this early and every n54 engine failure ive inspected that ran e85 had the same type of damage.
I changed my oil every 1.5k and ran on gf5 so that theory goes out the door
Condensation will happen in our engines yes but no where as much as on e85
Have you actually seen what happens to gf5 oil in the sump on our engines on not fresh oil when it hasn't been started for about two weeks in our engines once the engine starts ?
Its like black and cream froth on a long black coffee
As stated earlier Im playing around with sump oil warmers to prevent this from happening again and so far if has prevented this from happening.
I'll be pulling one of my cam boxes off in around 6 to 12 months to see if it helped.
For now if i was going to store a car over winter it wouldn't be with e85 in its tank.
I love people coming into these threads and comparing apples to oranges
Our engine is not a flex fuel engine in stock form and just by changing the oil is not going prevent this, i know because I ran gf5 oil when it failed and saw the damage caused on bearing surfaces, i was very lucky to catch this early and every n54 engine failure ive inspected that ran e85 had the same type of damage.
I changed my oil every 1.5k and ran on gf5 so that theory goes out the door
Condensation will happen in our engines yes but no where as much as on e85
Have you actually seen what happens to gf5 oil in the sump on our engines on not fresh oil when it hasn't been started for about two weeks in our engines once the engine starts ?
Its like black and cream froth on a long black coffee
As stated earlier Im playing around with sump oil warmers to prevent this from happening again and so far if has prevented this from happening.
I'll be pulling one of my cam boxes off in around 6 to 12 months to see if it helped.
For now if i was going to store a car over winter it wouldn't be with e85 in its tank.
N54 injectors fail with no E85 use. Hence why you're statements are a red herring. Show proof E85 caused your injector to fail. What part of the injector did E85 have an affect on? I mean, I acknowledged that it is plausible, but do you really think BMW went through 12 revisions of piezo injectors because some bros are running E85 through them? Honestly... come to terms with reality here. This isn't E85's fault. Do you even run 100% E85?
You acknowledge the failed injector caused you're issue but you're still trying to blame E85? LOL. It's not the fault of E85 that you let fuel dilution of your oil reach significant enough volume to cause bearing failure or that you let misfires continue long enough to cause a failed piston ring... It would be your own fault for not taking care of a failed injector.
I mean seriously, just think logically about what you're saying. Think about how much fuel dilution it would take to cause oil to thin out enough to eat up bearings. And now, think about how much fuel would need to be in your oil to cause significant water absorption, which would takes MONTHS to accumulate and pool up, to occur... This would be a complete user error type of failure. A quart of fuel in your oil might absorb a teaspoon of water if that? you would need GALLONS of fuel in your oil to absorb enough water, over a long enough time, for it to become a problem. The fuel itself would be an issue to bearings LONG BEFORE water absorption would ever be...
Here is an experiment for you: Put a 12 gallon bucket of E85 exposed to air in your garage. Lit it sit all winter. Get back to use come spring time with how much water it absorbed. You'll be lucky if you can even measure it LOL Then explain to us how that much fuel would ever get into your oil in the first place...
You basically hate it when people use facts to counter your completely anecdotal experience?
How is a sump warmer going to prevent fuel dilution? That does not address what caused the injectors to leak OR the fuel dilution that then occurs...
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