I thought my eyes were just lazy but that last pic(same one you posted on the micropump thread) sure is not straight. Sorry to hear. That's great that you could hear and saved the engine. Good luck with you re-build man!
Do you think with some super strong beam rods something else would give?

 

sorry to hear man... Hope u can get er up n running w/ the quickness... Evo withdrawals FTL!

 

I am pretty sure its not passing MBT that is causing the issue. The engine failures were seconds after experiencing misfires at peak torque. problem with these early cars is the timing is not locked like evo 8. It is adjustable by moving cam/crank sensor on the cam. It is supposed to be set at 5 degrees just like 8s but if you are actually at 10 degrees instead of 5 you have to add 5 to entire map when quoting numbers. When the car was dialed on the 20g I ran the car for six months and used up 160 gallons of fuel. On one sunday the car was driven hard on a 100 mile "canyon run" This entails exploring all the twisting winding roads at time attack speeds pretty much. left with 13 gallon tank full. And barely made it home on fumes. Averaging ~8 miles to the gallon for two plus hours of straight fun I would say the tune wasnt too far off. When I installed the green turbo I figured the timing numbers would be pretty close since this turbo should in theory have less back pressure than the 20g it replaced. I hate to quote timing numbers when you have to know what base timing is set at. And you estimate that by looking at the timing with a timing light. Ad to the fact I have always had misfire issues with this car on straight 93 and with 93/alky. just never bent rods with those fuels. One thing I did notice about spark misfire is retarded timing causes misfires. The closer you are to TDC the harder it is to ignite. Meaning 5 BTDC is far harder to light than 10 BTDC. Higher cylinder pressures are harder to light.

In any case I wish I had better answers to my issues. For this car I was having more fun with 93/alky so I am going to return to that. My nearest pump for E85 is 71 miles one way. Keeping a big tank in back yard isnt so much a problem but the limits of how far you can take the car is the big issue for me. 13 gallon tank becomes a 9 gallon tank on e85. 93/alky is just far more practical. you can go anywhere and get gas with out worry. 2.5 gallon meth fill lasts weeks.

 

If you don't want to state your timing numbers because of base timing difference, then just tell us the base timing as well.

In my experience and others that I have read, E85 needs little timing at peak torque...much less than you would use on say 93/meth or a race fue, as well as a pretty lean AFR. So what timing were you running at peak torque along with base timing?

I'm not trying to say you were past MBT, but I'm just curious. After I read your first post, that was my initial thought.

I run E85 on my stock turbo EVO8 and have been for about 6 months or so (less than other such as Bryan), and I'm around 400/400 (VDR dynojet), but my timing at peak torque is only about 0-1*. I kept it conservative for the reason of not having a dyno handy to find MBT and just from reading/researching timing values for E85. Most curves I have seen that are successful have very conservative peak torque timing and then ramp up agressively closer to redline.

BTW, I have experienced misfire several times running 30+psi of boost due to negative degree weather during the winter with stock plugs/ignition. So, I don't know if just the misfire was the complete cause. That would be something nice to see in an in cylinder camera or some high-tech setup from a lab. If there is a misfire, how much of the unignited mixture gets blown out the exhuast valve before the wasted spark fires again.

 

On second thought, depending on your cam timing and duration, wouldn't this simply cause the potential ignition of the mixture during one or both of the valves being open? If just exhaust valve, then mixture would be blown out the exhaust valve, and if just the intake, you would get a backfire? In either case, wouldn't there be less pressure on the rod, than during the normal compression/combustion stroke where the valves are both closed, or am I missing something here?

 

So why did you not set your base timing? It sounds to me like you know it in your mind, people are telling you, but you just don't want to accept the fact that you pushed it past MBT and/or are not keeping on top of the tune or just don't have the experience yet.

 

ok now this scares me because I was goign to convert over to E85

 

This is the exact reason why posting misinformation about E85 is bad news, yet it continues to happen for some reason. I can understand why, because it's a whole different fuel then what people are usually used to... but please people, stop with the "E85 killed my dog.." posts...

There is something else going on other then E85 that killed that motor(s)....

I've run E85 100% straight for over 2 years in my personal Evo, which sees sea level to 9,000 ft elevation, 110F to 12F. It's run mid 10 AFR to 13 AFR, 25-32psi, over 400whp, stock motor, seen misfires, 50% ethanol content to 85% ethanol content on the same tune... yada yada yada...

- Bryan

 

I agree, my car has been a hell of a guinea pig and is 3+ years on E85.. I pushed my car personal car to from 10:1-13.5:1 afr's on the dyno for hours at a time and have gone past MBT at just about every rpm on/off and before/after boost.. It is unfortunate that this happened but I would not imho say it is because of using E85 as a fuel, or not soley the reason for that matter.
Although I will say this, recently our local E85 station accidently had their ethanol tank filled with biodiesel, which caused some serious issues for people. Strangely enough, there were people running biodiesel in their evo's, 30psi boost pressure, ashes coming out of the exhaust, fuel dilution in the oil that one would not think physically possible, all while running E85 timing with missfires..This went on for a good 100 miles, but once the issue was resolved the car is perfectly fine.. I would think if an evo can run big boost on BIODIESEL, that ethanol would be a walk in the park..

 

What type of ignition system was being run on the OP engines? I just recently had a coil go bad and upgraded to the Spoolinup COP. Best move I've ever done. My car would only mis on E and not on pump (due to the oct rating). That's when I knew it was time to upgrade.

I'm not sure how meth is safer either, as long as there are a few failsafes in place. When I was deciding between meth and E85, it seemed like a no brainer....no pumps to worry about, no lines to worry about, no failsafes to worry about, no tanks to fill, etc.

That was just my logic though, not saying it's right....to each his own.

 

Same thing with Meth injection threads after a blown motor...

 

Failed fail safes are not a myth...they are a fact. Compare the amount of posts about a motor killed due to a faulty pump or fail fail safe to the amount of people killing motors on E85.

 

I, too, believe that misfires was "a" contributing factor to my rod throwing incident only a week after my E85 tune. I was tuned @ 29PSI on the stock VIII turbo. The night it happened, it was significantly cooler than the night I was tuned (even for Texas winter temperatures). I agree with those that have chimed in that isolating such a problem to fuel is a stretch without exploring all other avenues.

This is good to see (read about) and maybe you just have one of those EVOs that resist trouble. Wouldn't (lets say) 100-octane net similar power numbers as E85 not to mention safer overall?

This is just too funny!

I've heard good things about that set-up and I certainly need to look into it as I blew two spark plug coils (both in the second cylinder) less than three days a part. Not to mention that this occured just before my disastrous E85 tune.

 

A year and a half on E85 with over 25K miles, 375/388 on a Mustang, at 11.7 AFR with zero issues. The one thing I've seen over and over, is people think they can push the motor when it's cold. I stay out of boost for the first three miles and bring the oil temp. up to at least 185F, before WOT.

 

Yes and the 40+ other E85 Evo 8/9/10's I have tuned as well.

100 oct is not even close to the same league as E85. E85 makes more power than almost all race fuel, minus the exotics. E85 is just as safe as any other fuel when tuned appropriately.

- bryan