good luck, hope you get it up and running again

 

Head is stock, and I'm stuck at 23psi due to spark break-up, but I wanted to run 25-26psi (more difficult at 6000' than elsewhere, but still). I was only able to do 23 when it was first tuned due to the old plugs, but I think I messed something up right after putting in the new plugs, because for that brief 15 mins with the new plugs when fresh, I was able to boost with no hiccups and able to turn up the boost. The problems didn't begin until I started flashing the car with the base ROM in my email, and I have no other ROMs for my car that aren't based on that one emailed ROM. All signs point to that being an unfinished ROM before the tune was completed...

I will go out and buy some BPR8ESs today, too.

 

Have you check for boost leaks?

 

whats your fear for making the plug .018"? especially old ones?

i always ran ~.026" gap on br9eix's, did some mods for more power, had break-up, mine was ~6,800.....brought the gap down to .022, still had an issue, i figured ,what the hell, let me try .018 = break-up gone. i put in new denso's IW27's @ factory plug gap = break up, put the plugs to .018 = no break up.

your misifre appears to be @ peak torque....may want to try & tighten up the gap.

 

Had a very similar problem check:

Coils
Plugs
Ground wires
Ignition

If there is still a problem:

pull the head and take a look

 

I may have misunderstood your comment, but what is stoichiometric for E-85. Switching from gasoline with meth vs straight E85 would be a different AFR for stoich. Sounds like you could be lean due to the change in fuel. Just an idea.

 

^ very true

 

It's in the high 8s or low 9s - something like that - but my gauge reads in terms of 14.7:1. It just translates the lambda values.

 

No fear of the .018, but I know that's not necessary for my power and boost levels. I have run a .024 gap at HIGHER boost levels for the past 2.5 years on these exact same plugs (same package even). Plus, it's less than optimal to run such a low gap, so although that may reduce the symptoms, I think it woud be nothing more than a band-aid for the real problem. I want to find the real problem, although trying the lower gap will stay on my list of possible things to test as I run through this process.

 

My thinking is if the barometric pressure was low the night before and it was marginal, the next day and if baro was up could have been just enough to put you over the 'top' so to speak. I would recheck the AFR, try 'richening' it up by a full point and see how it likes it. Better yet, get the stoich for E85 and go from there. Quick change to Fuel table and reflash will tell you in short order.

 

oh you can also put it on a dyno and see if the injectors are leaking

 

stoic AFR for E85 is 9.8:1 and you should say your wideband is UNcorrected for E85 as it is still calibrated for gasoline if your showing AFR's of 12:1.

whatever you are using for a wideband, is it possible to readout in lambda? then the AFR correction factors will no longer be an issue.

and 9sec9, the wideband reads lambda which tells us how rich/lean it is. if the wideband is showing a lambda of .8, then we know no matter what fuel he is running, it is rich. likewise if it was showing 1.2, then no matter what fuel he was using it would be lean.

additionally, if you have the AFR calibrated for gasoline (and really its not a calibration factor, it is simply a scaling factor from lambda), and it is showing 12:1 AFR, then no matter what fuel is being used it is still rich. if he has corrected the wideband to run on E85 and it knows that stoic ratio is 9.8:1, and he was still showing 12:1 AFR at WOT, then it would be running lean. but assuming he didn't touch the wideband, we should all go on the assumption that it is gas calibrated and 12:1 AFR is still rich from stoic ratio.

 

Yes, Kevin, it is calibrated for gas, so it's displaying values on the 14.7:1 scale, but it reads in lambda. I don't know how to switch the gauge to display lambda.

From talking with some folks, it appears this is a fairly common problem with E-85 - the spark blowout. One guy who tunes himself said he never got it to work on BPR9s or BPR8s and only can get his setup to work on BR7s (FP Green + 32psi) along with an aftermarket COP. I'm going to get some 7s and hope that I can get by without a COP for now, since I'm at much lower boost and power levels, but we'll see. He is also trying to get me an older version of EvoScan so that I can actually log and see where the AFRs/timing/knock readings are...

 

it should also be noted that switched to E85 you are now running 30+% more fuel for the same amount of airflow. sense the fuel is typically what blows the spark out, i would consider shortening the gap like aby@mil.spec has said. as you raise the boost you have a trendous amount of fuel in the cylinder and a high likelyhood of blowing it out. you'll see cars that run alcohol fuels run ignition boxes to keep the spark lit.

 

Ok, then I am going right now to get some BPR7s, and then I will start playing with tight gaps and see what happens. In the meantime, I am in dire need of a version of EvoScan that actually logs data. I've had 2 people try to email me the install files for .99 and .97, but they aren't coming through, so I probably need a hosted version that I can download from somewhere.