why not just see what the turbo is capable of?

 

It's unlikely that the turbo that shows up with the car is going to be usable. All the stuff that melts in the cylinder sticks to the turbine on it's way out. But who knows, maybe BW has more turbine wheels laying around than they have full turbos?

 

Any news!!???

 

We do not have the car yet, I actually haven't heard from Ben in a few weeks.

 

Thanks Dave!

 

I just heard from Ben a few minute ago.............I'm hoping he will post the same update he just sent me. I will leave it up to him to do. The problem/culprit was found.

 

Hhmm anxiously waiting

 

Interested to find out as well.

 

Well, after getting screwed by the shipping company, we dug into the car to see if there were any obvious issues while i figured out what made the most fiscal sence. Obvoiusly, having david offer to fix the car, is great;however, 1. If it isn't his fault, i'm not going to have him fix it and 2. the cost and time of getting the car there wasn't exactly cheap.

So story time:
I've bought fuel from the same e85 station for the last year and have had no problems. Also, the car was tuned with the e85 that I bought from that station... when I hit the track, i bring 55 gallon drums of the exact pump mix , from the same station. Obviously, i want to try and avoid mix issues and have a consistent blend.

Anyway, so when the car went to David's it went with a pretty much a full tank and 15 extra gallons of the exact e85 that i run. I used that "extra" 15 gallons to top off the tank and came home to get ready for Buttonwillow. On the way back from Ohio, I stoped and picked up fuel for my track day at Buttonwillow. Got a 100 or so gallons and came down to california to prep for my races and buttonwillow.

After having to source a turbo last miniute, I was able to make the buttonwillow race.
We ran two sessions.. 1st session roughly 10-15 laps for 20 or minuets straight. ( This was on teh full tank of Known good fuel still) Session number two camn, and before going out we filled it up with another 10gallons of the newly gotten e85 ( that i picked up after leaving buschurs).

Well, we lasted two laps..and boom... no bueno. We didn't even really think about the gas, as its neer been a problem. Fast forward a few weeks and I came across a few cars had similar issues with bad e85 (from the same place I get it)... did a little more digging and the refinery filled the e85 tanks with regular octane gas. This was the exact week I filled up after prepping for Buttonwillow. (comming home from Buschur racing)
It also explains why we were running so good, until we refilled gas.

Moral of the story: test test test test your e85 before using it. An expensive lesson to learn;moreover, it seems like i'm learning a lot of expenisve lessons lately.. I feel edumicated

So to be clear:

The car did not fail because of the Shop, tune, motor, or turbo. It Failed because of bad e85 that the refineary effed up on. David Buschur was willing pay to fix a car that wasn't even his fault it broke.

Everybody involved has helped me out so much.

Thanks to Mike@ Road Race Engineering, David Buschur and Geoff@ Fullrace. Haha... Its been a pleasure getting to know these guys. They are a huge asset and I'm very greatfull for there support


So maybe now i can get back to the track?? hahah

 

That sucks. Is there any chance of recovering cost from the folks who put normal petrol in a bowser you should be expecting E85 from? This drives me more to install an Eth content sensor in my next project and tune it to be proper flexifuel friendly.

 

GM ethanol sensor already installed with it controlling a 5D table for compensation in the vipec Winner winner chicken dinner.

 

One way to avoid this is to test your fuel as stated above but there are other ways as well. If a simple wbo2 is used when going from e85 to pump gas the afr's would swing VERY RICH. I had a situation where a local ethanol pump forgot to add enough gas and i got basically e100 and the car would run lean and barely run. You should always monitor afr's and knock. If you can get a flex fuel sensor and tune for it that is the best solution.

 

Seriously? If you read the entire thread or maybe even just the first page, you'd see there is a WBO2 and AEM Ecu logging... If there was knock or issues of such it would have been noticed...

the best solution... is to buy a Porsche...duh.. obviously its cheaper

 

Bah... showoff ;-P

 

I have a very special skillset. I can be very convincing