Can you daily drive an evo on E85 or is the ethanol corrosive to the aluminum in the engine? I have seen and heard differing opinions on this.

I have heard some say that yes it is corrosive to the aluminum and also to the fuel lines.

And i have heard others say that no it is not because of the gas mixed with the ethanol?

Does anybody know?

 

Its safe. If you have an 8 be sure to upgrade the fuel pump to a walbro though.

On my 9 I can get away with 20psi on the stock injectors with stock pump.

 

Yes a good handful of people are doing it.

METHanol is quite corrosive, ETHanol not at least to any worrisome degree.

AMS did a test immersing all the fuel systems components for at least a month in E85 and no adverse affects at all.

 

Sweet!! That is very interesting!
I was just worried about the long term effects... Especially of the aluminum in the engine.

There is a few e85 stations around so I think I will give it a try!

 

Yes the long-term effects remain to be seen, but I doubt it will present any catastrophic effects.

Just keep in mind that the biggest concerns for DD on it are:

1) Availability
2) keeping tabs on the Ethanol content which switches accoring to temperatureseason/time of year
3) Possible cold start issues. Most people running it on the street regularly have just begun using it so I have not heard any concrete info about this yet.

Oh yeah, and I just saw that you're in NM too! Where?

 

I am from abq but just moved to colorado...

So there is nothing known about the long term effects of running e85 in a 4g63

 

Its all about the tune and availability.. all cars produced since 1996 can be converted to E85 with minimal issues, many produced after 2003 are flex fuel capable (they can detect the fuel type) and a majority of cars produced for 2008 are flex fuel compatible..

the evo isn't flex fuel, but can run e85 with at the least a proper tune and a few mods to increase fueling.

 

and that makes sense i am just worried about the corrosive qualities of methanol

 

Methanol is very corrosive..

Ethanol is what is used in e85, and that isn't very corrosive and won't do any damage to modern cars as they are tolerant to ethanol since 1996. All cars produced these days are designed to run on up to 30% ethanol content (more than that and it becomes a tuning or "flex fuel ready" issue, nothing more)

 

I'd like to do the same. Congratulations you just moved from a city with one E85 pump to: http://e85vehicles.com/e85-colorado.htm No shortage for you, and more pumps are opening all over CO. Boulder just got their first.

 

Ya I know it is pretty sweet one opened a mile from my house a year ago

 

so how are poeple compensating for these ethanol content issues?

 

If we had e85 in Florida, I'd compensate for the cold start problem and seasonal variations by living in a place that doesn't have a cold season.

From what I've read, availability is compensated for by buying 55gal drums and filling 'em up. Dedicated ethanol cars have fuel line heating, but the seasonal variation is usually sufficient to overcome the cold start issue. Compensate for the seasonal variation by tuning: Either have a summer and winter map, or make a happy medium that runs almost too lean part of the year, and kinda rich the other part.

 

To be honest the cold start thing really isn't a big deal (to me at least) my car takes about 20 seconds to start in the morning and drives like total $hit for a few minutes, but isn't it worth it?
Its been hitting low 40's here in Oregon and according to the owner of my local e85 station the ethanol content of his gas doesn't change in the winter.

 

awesome info thanks guys