Been running E85 in a 4G63 for 12 years plus. I cycle between periods of 91 & E85. The reason for the high carbon deposits on a E85 motor is that E85 is lacking, in percentage, the PIB cleaning solution found in regular high octane gas (PIB = Polyisobutylene). Injector gunk is very common on E85 run motors due to the low percentage of PIB. Learned this from a petroleum engineer.
@@konic40 Fairly likely, as Isomers (branched molecules) usually have greater inherent detonation resistance, the more branched the higher resistance (typically). Pure 2,2,4 Trimethyl Pentane (Iso-octane) is RON and MON 100 per definition, and why a straight chain alkanes like pure (n)-Heptane is RON and MON 0 per definition. Infact, pure straight chained Octane (n-Octane) has a rating of -20 RON and -17 MON.
@@jda8176 I run a 1/4 tank 92 and 3/4 tank e85 with marvel mystery oil in the gas and in the oil before and after oil changes. And I use royal purple 0w 20. It always comes out looking golden still at 5k.
Mike is the only person I've seen talk about his blown engine with a smile. If I ever get some sort of terminal disease or cancer, I would like Mike to break the news to me. And if at all possible, read me a bed time story about bearing tolerances.
He learnt alot about the effects of e85 in a limited use street engine so that helps not much to smile about when your engine blows and you learn nothing 😂
It's because he got to prove people (I'm sure he is frustrated by) wrong. This is a pretty big discovery for another reason, for two he caught it before major damage could be done and is able to fix it. He was able to prove E85 just shouldn't be daily-ed.
My uncle bought a 96 dodge Dakota brand new. Changed his oil religiously every 3k miles. He only drove a few miles to work and home every day. I took his valve covers off after around 100k and his engine was pretty sludged up! He was very surprised but I explained to him that the short trips don’t evaporate the moisture out of his oil and that causes buildup. I think that truck is still running but definitely had some sludge issues. Short trip driving is the worst no matter what fuel you use!
@@antd2733 I’d say change your oil once every 6 months, and use some type of engine cleaning procedure once a year, something that’s legit and proven not to harm internal parts
We typically drain the oil and fuel after a race. Fuel goes in a steel barrel and we swap gasoline back in and the oil goes into a modified water heater. It cooks the oil for 4hrs at 240f before shut off. Then ready for next race day. Obviously not much in common with street cars. A dual fuel system based on temperature would probably work best
I am a lifetime race engine builder for 45+ years. What this man is saying is all true. I see a lot of cylinder wall wash etc. E- fuels are great for HP. But like everything good comes with a price to be paid. GREAT VIDEO !!!
There's a genuine and honest lifetime race engine builder named Andy Randolph (NASCAR and formerly General Motors) who would say you don't know what you're talking about. Here's an interview I did with Andy a few years ago: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xLztoTpsk5I.html
In formula 1, grand prix, 24 hour lemans, etc. they all use straight methanol. When they tear down the engine after a race, you cannot even tell it did a lap.
Had a flex fuel vehicle and I always put 91 in after 2nd to 4th tank and changed the oil at 2,500 miles. I didn't do alot of short trips with but kept on top of the issues discussed.
For my Evo, I only use E85 during track days and go straight back to 98 after that, otherwise it fouls spark plugs, injectors and even rusts the exhaust. The condensation issue with E85 can't really be fixed unless you use it up regularly and drive decent distances weekly, it needs heat to boil away the condensation. C16 race fuel is the best I've used - clean and zero detonation, but E85 is much cheaper.
Awesome and hard lesson learned. Very informative to see the engine internals and diagnosis what happened. I love having E85/Flex Fuel in my turbocharged S2K but will be more careful and aware after seeing this video. Thanks for everything, guys!
I have a 2013 impala, I rarely run E85 in it, but I do drive city all the time, so it’s definitely going to cause more frequent oil changes. I was happy to see on my most recent oil change, my oil life meter was at 0% with 1800 miles left to go according to the oil change sticker which was set at 5000 miles. I run mobile one synthetic 5W30 but I always change mine at around 3000 miles due to my frequent short trips around town. Normally my oil life monitoring system seems to run me to about 5K before indicating a need for an oil change. This time it was around 3K at 0% life left. I guess the oil life monitoring systems are coming along because when these first came out, it would run people to 10k at times or more before indicating the need to change the oil. Thank you for this amazing video, and for sharing your knowledge with the world!
Wow, the deposits on the pistons were surprising and the oil ring even more so! This is very valuable information living in the midwest with cheap and plentiful flex fuel options, thanks!
Oh ya, I also had a 2004 wrx that I was making 404hp for most of it's life, on E85. I sold that car at 192k on it with still the stock motor. I might be able to blame E85 for the 3 transmissions I blew up. But I sold that car with the stock 2.0 motor. Bought the car brand new in 2004. Started running E at about 60k.
We run E100 here in Brazil. Ethanol delivers better power due to higher octane rating. But we know it is harsher on the engine, it needs to be ready to deal with ethanol. It is recommended here to run a full gasoline (our gas means E25 actually) tank from time to time to help clean the engine. But tuners just change the engine to be E100 only, running more turbo pressure or, if it is a NA engine, modifying the header to run a higher compression ratio.
I run e98 in the best mountains of the US (colorado) were like 5300 feet elevation. The one time I put "gas" (91 octane) in the car it blew up cuz it ran lean around a corner (shop owner was incompetent but his kids built some great cars.) Didn't have a surge tank like I was told, bobs your uncle. Hasta la vista baby. Sionara sucka.. fun car, 730wheel
Hey you made me sub cause I like your straight forward results proven honesty! Considering the cost of quality oil for a car makes using E85 more costly and for the average owner whom neglects their car it could cost them big time. And for guys who store their cars more than they drive them they better take heed to your advice.
Absolutely right, even the garage kept cars need a long drive every once in a while to burn off the moisture and liquefy the sludge. Motor flushes at each and every oil change would be a wise practice on these low mile, low use engines. I try to take my cars for a long (1 hour plus) freeway drive before doing the oil change to get everything hot and hopefully drained out of the oil pan. I have used routine motor flushes and Seafoam in the crankcase of badly neglected vehicles to un-stick rings and noisy lifters with great results and improvements.
That makes perfect sense. I bought a car from a guy that was running e85, and now the car has massive rod knock. Haven't taken the engine apart yet to quite see the Damage done to the motor. Thank you for the info and video very helpful.
This is why I have a flex tune for my car. My commute is sometimes short, and I try to at least let the engine run for a while to get rid of moisture. I try not to run e85 all the time because of the need for more frequent oil changes and the build up of moisture. I try to run 93 every 3rd to 4th tank of e85 because from my understanding it eats up the gunk that can form from the e85.
As a full time e85 user for 5 years in all my vehicles i pretty much conclude the opposite. It dissolves carbon deposits, cleans fuel injectors, and alcohol does not magically turn into gunk; its a liquid or a gas. The injectors being clogged is from the alcohol cleaning out your fuel filter and those debris ending up getting stuck in the fuel injectors. The solution is to change and upgrade to a better fuel filter suitable for e85. Ethanol doesnt do any damage at all to the metals in your engine unless youre running your engine rich all the time. I run my engines at 1.1 lambda during normal driving conditions so im getting a similar amount of liquid fuel per air as it'd be getting on gas to avoid washing lubricant off the cylinder walls. If you dont warm up your car to 190°f youre treating your engine like shit whether youre running gas or alcohol. Alcohol is the superior fuel in all ways aside from cold starts and needing to refuel more often.
Awesome so helpful, i always try to get my car to full temp even before pulling out of the driveway but this just goes to show how important it is. Thx!
Without resorting to jerk status and bringing up the 'EJ Disclaimer', short trips are the death nail for pretty much any IC engine. I've been round and round with a lot of Toyota folks with short trips eventually leading to oil burning rings, especially in the low tension era. You pretty much nailed it across the board though. Ethanol isn't exactly and every day wonder fuel outside of specific conditions that everyone wants it to be. And that's just covering how hard it is on the fuel system by itself! I've not seen that kind of build-up in the oil system, but there's a first for everything, right?
I was surprised when he said it got frequent oil changes, I wonder if using a motor flush at every oil change would have kept the internals looking good or if the moisture still would have wrecked it?
@@davidparker9676 Honestly I don't think anything short of pulling the pan would have given an advanced notice that that much sludge was down there. Chemical flushes *might help to a small degree (once you're aware of the problem of course), but without added pressure over what the vehicle's oil pump can supply, you're only going to dislodge what a topical rinse would move. Nature of a hygroscopic beast unfortunately.
@@C-M-E I agree that this would have blindsided me as well. He never mentioned how many miles were on the engine, but he did know to change the oil more frequently due to using E85. I think that going forward, a chemical flush at every or every other oil change would be wise in such a scenario. It seems that the rings get gummed up first and accelerate the rest of the problems.
I've ran E85 for years on my Evo and STI. Definitely run some regular gas once in a while if you're mostly running ethanol. My current car is built for FlexFuel, but I still run regular pump gas and change the oil often. Great video!!
E85 will absolutely do everything said here and more. Including stripping oil from valve stems, drying out valve stem seals and oil leaching into the engine at idle. It happened to me in my F150 5.0L over one winter.
I love ethanol content, I'll give my experience, here in Brazil i have a fuel injected 125cc street bike that can run on E25 or any blend of ethanol up to E100, the bike has 28k miles and mostly ran on pure ethanol with few times on E25. I use Motul 5100 15w50 and in the last oil change I opened the side engine cover and the oil pan is very clean, only small traces of water mixing with oil, I change the oil every 1300 miles. I'll have to replace the spark plug soon and will take a look at the piston. And here we have E100 and E100 with additives, available, I mostly run the additive variant (they claim to have corrosion inhibitors, friction modifier and detergents).
I run e85 about 90 percent of the time on my brz. I haven’t had issues and that’s because I’m very crazy about my maintenance and making sure my car is warmed up. I think that’s what has help me with my car. I do use royal purple as well.
On my older vehicles I still run conventional oil for this reason. handles moisture better. I did a video about converting my old cars over to 0-w40 synthetic but I dont think they make enough oil temperature to burn off the moisture. My modern cars oil temps go over 220F easy so there is no problems. Im going to monitor my Hondas oil temps this summer and see what I got and go from there.
I daily drive my 2012 mustang gt on e85 for 5 years now. I recently replaced the oil pan / pick up tube., Everything was okay. A good & big catch can helps a lot
Another epic video sir! Thanks to the green deal I am planning to get two separate maps to run e85 and 93 for my subie and this video will definitely help me in the future 👍🏾
Great information. Your humility is admirable and you have acquired the expertise you have by always being willing to learn something new. One of the best life skills I think.
I wanted to comment and say how much I love this video. You always come through with great content! By the way, huge shoutout and thanks for responding to my messages back in November about how I should be rebuilding my EJ205. It's been an incredible 2300 kilometres since then, and my engine is running better than ever, all thanks to your guidance. Keep up the excellent work! 👍🔥
@@baelm In my case all of my pistons were burning oil, it had some piston slap and I eventually (somehow) broke one of the camshafts. These happened probably due to a bad previous engine rebuild. I had a lot of questions in my mind regarding if I should do a forged or a stock rebuild for a daily. As you know, forged engines have piston slap when it's cold as well, and I don't quite like that. I just can't get used to it. Reliability and longevity was what I desired the most and I didn't know which build would be more suitable in this case. Mike advised me to go with a stock rebuild, and that I could upgrade the oil pump to 11mm for a daily. I followed his advice with the stock rebuild, but I got the 12mm oil pump instead. I don't have any issues so far, but I'm genuinely curious about how long this engine will last because I redline it every time I drive it x)
@@Gentleman1337 thanks for sharing what he told you, pretty sure i have piston slap as well but if i had to replace the whole long block i would wand to go for a 207 if possible
Awesome info. I have always been a big proponent of letting an engine come up to full temperature even if just doing shorty trips regardless of what kind of fuel.
The guy is constantly pulling out engines and rebuilding them, its not as massive of an undertaking for him as it is for some of us hobbyists. You can tell hes not hurting for money or equipment to fix it, I’m sure he got it all rebuilt in a pretty short period and its back on the road, and not to mention the content he got out of it, the video probably paid for the engine.
Wow, great info to know about e85. I’m currently commuting about 100 miles a day so I’m feeling that hefty gas price,E85 is a much more affordable to use but now I know to change the fuel to regular gas every 3rd tank. Thanks for the info👍
Can confirm this with carbon build on a engine that I built and was running E85, the tuner I used at the time (many years back now before I started tuning myself) tuned it with excessively low lambda/AFR with pretty mediocre timing advance for no good reason and didnt tune anything regarding the transient fueling as intended. Basically washing the oil film off the cylinder walls and all that. The piston crowns were completely covered in sticky carbon crud as well as parts of the piston ring land. That engine was filthy inside after just 5000km with two oil changes and a lot of longer drives. A lot can be avoided with proper tuning and stop using excessive AFRs/lambdas except for those short drives which are the worst and always will be bad. Now doing everything myself I havent experienced this type of carbon build anymore.
Fantastic info! The content of your video here shows many years of experience. Easy to understand and practical information that can be applied to many different situations. Thanks guys 🙂
i live literaly 30 seconds from work.. i really try to let her (8.1) warm up at 5:30 am .. Now i will make sure i do. Especially here in Southern Oregon winter time. Thank you very much.
Evo8 ethanol 100% of the time. Oil changes very very frequently. Fic2150s cleaned yearly by fic. Warm up is very important. Ive never seen oil or a pan sludge like that even on my own car thats wild. Ive been using amsoil zrod in mine for like 8 years on the same motor. My oil pan has never looked like that so i wonder if there was some kind of reaction from the oil you used. I havent been in my car for about 6 months and its going into the shop for yearly services il pull my pan and see if i have anything similar. Good info in this video though
Wondering if you could do a video on the use of water methanol injection? I've been running a Snow system for a couple of years and I've noticed more catch can liquid, similar to a milkshake, since installing it. Love your content... I always learn something from you. Thanks! 🤘🏁
I thank you for the education on E85. I just got a Dodge Grand Caravan GT on flexflue so I needed to know how often to use gasoline. I heard it was a 50/50 mix. Your advice is every third tank. I'm going to do that, I just want better so I don't have issues. Again I appreciate your videos so much. Wiley
with all due respect these problems are NOT E85 related. maybe tune related but i have multiple cars over 10k miles, all sorts of driving strictly on e85 and never had this happen to me on any of my cars
@@motoiq late to the reply. but again, there’s no way e85 did this to your car. the communities im apart of (coyote, gt500, hellcat) nobody has ever had something like this happen to them and i mean nobody since 2011 when i got into all this
If you drive in this sort of cycle this will happen to your engine faster than it will in a gasoline engine. Ethanol makes about 3x more water in combustion and it is mostly due to this.
Use motor flush at each oil change. Let the engine idle for about 20 minutes then drain. Been doing this for years, never any issues. Internals stay clean, even after 100k miles.
Insufficient crackcase ventilation is often a factor here as well. Water and other combustion byproducts degrade the oil. When the oil doesnt get hot enough, it can't evaporate the water. And restrictive breather setups will reduce the evaporation rate even when the oil is up to temp.
good to hear, thanks for your experience! I'm very happy to never run for any less than 15 minutes, but generally nothing less than 30 minutes. My engines are always properly warmed any time they're fired up.
You mean the constant, never ending Smile that he has as he talk? Kinda gets annoying because he facial expression just never changes. He’s Happy the entire time. It’s not…. Normal to be this happy and smile constantly. Ugh, drives me crazy. 😖😒😑
Good stuff. I suspect this is one of the reasons Ford recommends running a tank of gasoline at least once per oil change in the flex fuel F-150 5.0 engines. Although this video has me questioning whether that is frequent enough. In my case it's not really a concern because I end up switching fuels more frequently than that just because of variations in cost and availability.
@@justingill5256 I have the Omega tune in my 2017 as well. Very pleased with it. The transmission tuning that's part of it also makes the truck more fun to drive. E85 isn't available everywhere around here, so I switch back and forth a lot just because of what's convenient.
@Jay Slabotsky 3.31 gears 21gt ported mani with cai, getting 49 mph out of 1st gear 87 mph out 2nd. Gen 3 with 3.31 gears gt ported with omega x tune is getting 49 mph out of 1st on a damn 10 speed 😯
I don’t daily my Evo, it’s primarily a track toy. I have a flex tune so I run approximately E60-E70 to and at the track. I fill with 91 on for the drive home and try to keep only 91 in smaller volumes till next track event - typically 4-6 weeks. In between I drive it for about 20-30 minutes weekly. Been doing this for about 7 years. Changed the pan gasket last year and it was clean. Save the E85 for the track
My friend had the same problem . Hes doing a preventive experiment using ats505 upper engine and crankcase treatment. So far the carbon and goo are staying away.
I do think this guy knows his stuff, probably most on EJ engines. His experience and knowledge when talking on his engines always lines up with my thoughts. But a great person always will admit fualt when he knows it, takes a lot to admit that you make mistakes. But this is what makes experience, not copied experience but learnt experience. I would have absolutely zero issues in trusting this guy to build my engine. Thanks for these informative information in your videos. I recently did a big end in my subaru, a mechanic of 18 years who also thought i knew what my motor could do too. Yes it had oil, but i have learnt i spun it from cornering and causing surge. Now ill baffle the sump and put preventions in place to prevent windage issues. Your videos have helped me prepare my new engine better. Thanks a lot Mr Subaru lol
That is one of the reasons why I enjoy your videos so much - no BS! :) I truly appreciate that you're willing to admit that you don' t know everything and can make mistakes. I had heard horror stories of potential build-up that ethanol can create (take this as RUMOR because I have nothing to substantiate it) on the fuel injectors causing poor spray patterns, and over time, clogging the injectors. Is there any validity to this?
Great video, I don't have E85 available to me but I've always made it a point to let my car fully warm up when I can, even if I'm going 2 miles down the road to fill up the gas for the work week or whatever I'll take a route that brings me in a circle around town that it can get nice and hot on but not take too much time.
ran e85 for 8k mi. straight, short trips, long trips, 3k mi oil changes with motul or Valvoline VR1, zero sludge. and no fuel additive. and no tar on the pistons. and this is a street engine.
Here in Zimbabwe, the ethanol in our fuel is made from sugar cane... It's not great at all. I've had inlet valves stuck closed so bad it bends pushrods on startup.. And no carb cleaner will clean it out of the carbs. The only thing I found that takes it off is lacquer thinners and Wynns compression stabalizer/carbon buster. Which is pretty harsh chemicals
I considered trying out the flex fuel setup with an under the table tune from a friend, after using my tgv wiring to connect to the ecu. Things have to be done “differently “ now since the shift in Cobb’s direction. And “Smeedia” is a big proponent for E85, and has so far shown no residual damage like this. But he also rotates his project vehicles way too soon to expose this fatal flaw with E85. Thank you for all your posts and honest appraisal of the Subaru platform. You have been amazing with your knowledge base and experience. I honestly don’t trust half of what is posted online, and the other half is researched in depth further if relevant to my situation. But when you talk about any subject, I can honestly take it to the bank. Thank you. And I’ve now decided against E85. It’s an added expense that isn’t really needed, and certainly not worth the risk. On another subject though, I’d like to ask your opinion of the “cylinder 4 cooling mod”. There are a lot of opposing opinions on the subject. The creator of “get-a-dom” has gone into extensive detail in his reasoning for his implementation of this mod and is convincing in his defense. But there are other builders that are telling Subaru turbo enthusiasts not to waste their time and money. And have gone as far as to say that it has negative effect on the engine. It’s my intention to keep my installed mod for prevention and longevity on both my daily, and my project car. Having you weigh in on this would set my mind, and I’m sure many, many others at ease too. I’m of the opinion that it is a plus. But as I’ve said, I hold your opinion canon for this platform. Thanks again for the posts on this subject.
I've found running ethanol that I have to run a high quality conventional oil with really frequent oil changes or else the deposits and sludge get bad like that. After talking with a few oil manufactures (Amsoil, Royal, Valvoline), the running theory/explanation is that the E85 doesn't mix well with synthetics and breaks it down differently as opposed to just thinning it out. This is layman's terms, I'm not a fucking scientist. While synthetic is better for cylinder wall protection, the little that gets into the combustion cycle (especially on cold starts) breaks down the oil funky and synthetic doesn't burn well as it is. This exacerbates the issue. The short trips is absolutely true. I had a bad season with a lot of downtime and short track outages and even then the buildup was significantly more than when I got real track time and some hot heat in that engine. Was an interesting experiment, this is just what I noticed. 4g63t evo IV swapped '98 mirage
here soon ill be starting a 455 olds build. that will run high compression. I'm glad i saw this video so i know some more preventive measure to to take.
Been using e85 in 4cyl cars for 10 years now. We live by oil changes often. Most these cars make well above 500whp and oil is changed at longest every 1k miles, most even more often, injectors flowed and checked often, anytime the engine starts the car runs up to temp to burn off moisture. Have never had any issues due to being very fussy with what we do.
I've been a mechanic since I was twelve years old. I learned how by working on my go-cart, if you want to ride, you got to learn how to fix things. Now I'm a few months shy of fifty. I'm a FAA licensed Airframe and Powerplant mechanic, have been since I was 21. I can't help but feel that our oil has something to do with the ridiculous amounts of sludge we are seeing these days. Back in the 80's and 90's if you opened an automotive engine up and it was full of sludge you could make a solid bet that the owner used an oil from the Pennsylvania region, Quaker State, Pennzoil etc. These oils, mainly Quaker State, gained a horrible reputation amongst mechanics of the era due to their tendency to build astonishing amounts of sludge. It's commonly believed this is due to the fact that oil from this region is paraffinic, whereas oil from the Texas and Gulf region is aliphatic. Whether this is true or a myth, it definitely made for strong feelings about these parrifinic oils amongst mechanics. I can't help but think that all of the videos we see showing jello consistency sludge in engines has something to do with the makeup of the oil we are using today.
@@motoiq see that’s why it only took a minute to go to school. If she took her time the car would have fully warmed up and get into operating temps jk hahaha. Good breakdown on the video makes me very cautious on short drives now like I gotta take the longer route now.
I’ve seen this before definitely mostly from short trips and not getting the engine and oil temp up enough for a good amount of time but also some synthetic oils can form that type of sticky sludge from E85 I’ve had better luck with good mineral based oils vs synthetic oils when running a alcohol based fuel
E15 does this too, just a little slower. It also rots out the bottom of fuel tanks & destroys soft carburetor parts, as well as some aluminum hard parts.
This is a really good video that people should see before making the switch. Everyone wants to talk about how fantastic it is but nobody wants to mention this kind of stuff. I've been running a flex fuel tune on my WRX for 4.5 years now using e85 probably 95% of the time and the last year or so has been nothing but problems with the fuel system. I've always taken the necessary precautions to protect the motor (2500 miles oil changes with Motul 300v, running a high quality oil cooler and IAG aos, always warming the car up before driving, never boosting until oil is up to temp, etc.) but I never did anything to protect the fuel system from corrosion. It started with the car eating fuel pumps faster and faster until I replaced the factory plastic sending unit with a Radium dual pump hanger. I've had to replace the wiring inside the tank 4 times now and have gone through 2 fuel level sensors. Worst of all my evap system is shot. The valve that relieves pressure when you pump gas has seized shut resulting in me being unable to put fuel in the car if it's ran for more than 10 minutes. It builds up so much pressure in the tank that it will push fuel past the gasket for the sending unit causing fuel to leak onto the top of the tank. So I have to only fill the car to only 3/4 tank otherwise I get a puddle of fuel on the ground. Now I have to take the back half of the car apart to replace the tank and evap canister. I've since switched to running 93 every 3 tanks with a fuel system cleaner and anti-corrosion additive but the damage is already done.
If your Radium hanger is leaking, it is possible that the metal bracket that holds some of the pump wires is preventing some of the bolts on the hanger from being tightened enough. Put some washers under the bracket so the nuts can bear down on the hanger instead of the bracket. Don't ask me how I know about this.
@MotoIQ That's a really good idea. I'll have to try that this weekend. I've already replaced the bracket, seal, and green o ring on the top but it didn't help. Thanks for the reply!
Yeah that bracket keeps the nuts from pushing directly on the hanger. Stack some small washers under the bracket so the nuts torque pushes straight on the hanger top.
That I you for this, it was very informative. The whole time I was thinking why not just let it warm up, it only takes about 10 minutes, and then you finally said it at the end. I think that’s honestly the best advice, you probably don’t need to go on too long of trips if the engine gets up to temp before you drive.
If your doing the short hop driving do you think it would help if you let the engine get up to temp, 160-180, before driving it? I only run Ignite Red E90 in my small tire Z32 which has a very small fuel cell & doesn't see much street driving but im curious because when I do drive it on the street I always let it come up to operating temp before I drive & ive never really had a problem but again that might be because its rarely driven for short distances on the street.
Here in Hawaii, ethanol was blocked instantly for all boats, (engines ruined from melting non metal gas tanks). It would ruin weed trimmers (2stroke) engines. According to one repair shop. One pump stated up to 20% mpg improvement with non ethanol gas. (I get 12% increase). I’ve been using non-ethanol for about 10 years. I’ve heard corn is used to create ethanol, corn is subsidized by the government.
@@motoiq Surprisingly yes, When I lived on the West side there was a fairly new self serve station that had several pumps (marked by yellow hoses). Now I live on the East side and found several. One particuar old installed new tanks, (need to add another one, this one also sells racing fuel). The problem is (maybe because it's Hawaii and we're a bit behind), no one I share this info with changes their fuel choice. There was an old school well respected Hot Rod expert here locally (Hawaii's equavalent of an expert like you) demo on TV how Alcohol burns clean. I found out from a guy I became friends, (Hot Rodder) with that this expert invested in Ethonol. He basically sold himself out.
Thank you for your content, I learn a lot! I.E. exhaust scavenging. I've always heard the term but never knew what it was. I am not a mechanic but my first car, (I bought in highschool in 1974) was a 1957 Porsche, (I was born in 1957). I did everything except engine overhaul and transmission work. I added braided sst brake lines and replaced the sealed beam headlights with halogen bulbs when they were illegal. I currently live in an apartment and can't even see my oil filter on my Toyota Matrix.
Thank you for this informative video! I have a 2018 Focus ST that I have been trying to find away to run E-85 However, this has shown I don’t drive it NEAR enough to convert to E-85! I am a pastor and live right next door the church, my wife and do all our errands and traveling in her car so my car is rarely driven. Thanks again.
I bought a Subaru engine once based on the low mileage of 14,000 miles. It was absolutely destroyed inside, nothing was salvageable. The oil was beyond sludge and the friction surfaces were all badly scored. I assume it was driven occasionally for short trips and the oil was not changed very much during those 14,000 miles. I have used motor flushes on any engine that has any evidence of dark, contaminated oil or sludge filled motors. I have noticed dramatic improvements on those cars treated with a motor flush at every oil change. I've also run a little bit of Seafoam in the crankcase of severely neglected engines to help free the stuck rings and continue cleaning the inside of the engine. Perhaps a motor flush on every oil change would have helped to break down the sludge in your daughter's car in addition to the shorter oil change intervals.
I typically use a synthetic 5W40 liqui-moly in my '05 Subaru Legacy (155K miles) and in my '03 IS300 (300K miles). I've almost always used Chevron Premium to fill the tank. I work about a mile away from my home and drive the IS300 most of the work days because it gets to operating temps a lot quicker than the Subaru. The EJ smokes on start up and hard acceleration whereas the 2JZGE does not. I'm not trying to badmouth the EJ but I feel like your E85/EJ fiasco has a little more to do with it's design (horizontal pistons, crankcase ventilation, etc) so don't beat yourself up too much.
E85 is an amazing racing fuel, I wish I would get my hands on E100 for a reasonable price but E85 is good enough, but, yes, you NEED to get keep E85's characteristics in mind. And one thing about an alcohol engine is you need to get it hot for extended periods of time to burn off all the water. The worse thing you can do is short drives espcally when its cool out. Another thing is don't park a car for extended periods of time with E85 in it. Not only does E85 exhaust contain more water vapor it likes to suck water out of the air and corrode your fuel system. You can wipe out a set of expensive alcohol fuel injectors or carb from corrosion. What I do if flush my fuel system with fresh, stabilized gas, including running the engine for a while, before I park my racecar over the winter.
