I agree that it might have something to do with the places you fill up.

 

I've run about 3300 gallons of E85 or more in my evo. Been running E85 exclusively in the evo for three + years now. Changed my injectors twice during the last 3 years and injectors were clean everytime. Car had 7,000 miles on it when I switched over to E85 now has over 63,000miles.

 

It has a lot to do with where you get your gas. One station here makes cars do this and the others do not.


-Em

 

anyone have this issue with e85 from chevron? I imagine all chevrons are the same and its the only station around here that i can get it from.

 

Just run a tank of 93 octane, it will burn off =)

 

thats disgusting. I pulled injectors where i ran like 1500 miles with E85 and they were perfectly fine. I would not want to keep getting it from that same pump, maybe the tank is contaminated or something...... with that said thats not normal for e85.

edit: those are probably old injectors and ran pump gas and the e85 is just eating the gump off that the pump gas created over time. last time i did a boost leak test my pistons still looked new and shiny and motor has over 1000 miles on it now. and E85 is by far the cleanest smelling burning fuel around.

 

Stinker E-85 FTW!!

No problems at 5,000+ miles of E-85.

 

Better stop using e85 then. cause i dont experience this where i get my e85 from. Worley and Obetz / Amerigreen.

Sounds like the place you're getting E85 is garbage. ALL of my parts are clean.

 

its where you get the E85 from down here no one has reported anything at all seems to be just you northern states

 

How many miles on the OP's car?

 

Now that is interesting.

 

So what accounts for people using E85 from the same station and not reporting the same results?

 

As quite a few other guys have said, E85 keeps things clean and wont cause buildup. It may dissolve gunk and bring it to the injectors, whether its from the tank or from contaminated fuel at a station.

Im not sure why someone would think E85 would be the real source of the gunk, or why someone would say it smells bad when burned. E85 is mostly Ethanol, also known as drinking alcohol, which burns clear with virtually no smell. If anything, its cleaning out crap in the tank or lines and you should address that.

 

Do I know you? Or do you know who the friend is that I'm referring to? Or any other proof that you fill up where he does?

See above, and even if he's filled up at the same station, was it from the same batch? Maybe the station gets fuel from different refineries. I couldn't tell you. I know that I've seen over and over that some stations have E85 that produces this stuff and some don't.

The following are quoted from a big thread awhile back on DSMlink from a member who took it upon himself to perform some testing. People from various areas shipped him E85 to perform the testing:

"Well, here is what I did just so everyone is clear. I filled a 40mL vial with E85 and blew it dry with nitrogen gas and mild heating (about 150*F). After there was no fuel left, I placed it under high vacuum to remove any remaining volatiles for about an hour. I was left with a clear sticky residue that smelled bad - like nasty frying oil. I dissolved this sample in the NMR solvent and analyzed it and it IS the same goo that was on the injector. There was smaller amounts of some other stuff in it as well, but the same peaks I saw in the black goo were in this residue. The black goo IS coming from the E85. It isn't naturally black, though. I suspect it just has soot mixed in with it that is giving it the color.

So the next challenge is figuring out why is this crap in our fuel, and if it is in everyone's fuel (particularly people who aren't having this problem)."


"It is possible, but I'm thinking kerosine isn't viscous enough to be this molecule (unless there is something else in there that is adding viscosity). This molecule seems to have a viscosity of chewing gum which would require probably 30 carbons. Kerosene has at most 15 carbons. Now if there was a chance that "paraffin wax" was added to the fuel, that would be a different story (except that as far as I know, paraffin wax has a very low melting point).

I could always analyze some kerosene and rule it out, though. Maybe it does mix with something that is in the fuel that makes it very thick."


"Ok, it isn't chewing gum, of course. I think gum is a generic term for high MW sticky solids. Anyway, if you look at table 1 in this article, it mentions that there is up to 5mg of "solvent-washed gum content"/100mL and up to 20mg "unwashed gum content"/100mL. It think this might be what is sticking to our injectors.

Later in the article it also mentions that mixing E85 and pump gas WILL cause additives to crash out and stick to the injectors and intake runners. I don't think this is what we are seeing since I saw the molecule in a clean sample of E85, but it does open that possibility for others who are mixing."


"I'm now convinced that the "gum" mentioned in the article I posted above is what is accumulating on the injectors. I think there are varying quantities of this gum in the fuel depending on where you are located and where you buy the fuel."


"Like I said 3 or 4 times now, I isolated the exact same compound from a virgin batch of E85 - and there was a fair amount of it in the fuel. This isn't coming from the car - it is in the fuel when you buy it."


"Alright - I guess our difference is in defining "reacting". Technically a reaction leaves an altered molecular structure which I didn't see. It is the exact same molecule. Perhaps what you mean is that something in our setup is causing the molecule to crash out of solution and deposit to the injectors. It is possible that because this molecule is not at all volatile, that as fuel evaporates and the molecule becomes more concentrated that this could cause it to crash out of solution more readily. In that case, it might be some difference in the evaporative fuel system."


"Well, the molecule is technically a super viscous clear liquid (it is black on the injectors, but I think the color was just because it was getting mixed with soot). You might not see it, but you would feel it. It would feel like someone coated your tank in very sticky honey or syrup or something like that.

I know the molecule probably feels like a sticky solid, but there are a lot of "solids" that are really liquid. The most striking example that I can think of is glass. You'd think glass was a solid, but it is just a highly viscous liquid. The proof is in the fact that really old windows are wider on the bottom than on the top because the glass has slowly flowed down toward the bottom of the window from gravity over several decade."


"The gum we are seeing isn't caused from oxidation, since the molecule is fully saturated (ie, hasn't been oxidized yet). Also, anti-oxidants are a bit of a misnomer for what they do. They are usually resonance stabilized free radicals. A free radical is an atom or molecule with an odd number of electrons. You need an even number of electrons to be electronically stable (to fulfill the octet rule, for example), but since an odd number plus an even number is always an odd number, you need two free radicals to react with each other to quench a free radical reaction (since two odd numbers add up to an even number). So an anti-oxidant is nothing more than a free radical that is stabilized via trickery (for lack of a better word). It is too stable to react with even numbered electron molecules, but it will quench other free radicals. So what does any of this have to do with oxidation? Well, some oxidizing agents, particularly some containing halides such as chlorine or bromine, oxidize via a free radical mechanism. That doesn't mean that all free radical reactions are oxidation reactions or that all oxidation reactions are free radical reactions. A better term for an "anti-oxidant" would be a free radical quenching agent. So, if free radicals were a problem in your fuel, then having anti-oxidants in the fuel would be desirable. I do believe they put anti-oxidants in motor oil, though."


"I think we may have a breakthrough on this problem. A local mechanic/DSMer has said that he has some experience with this problem even on cars running gasoline, and the issue was how fast the fuel pressure is evacuated from the fuel line. He said that if the fuel line held pressure too long, that the fuel would slowly drip out the injector after shut down and the fuel would evaporate leaving the deposit. I think we pretty much already figured that was the problem, but hadn't considered that if the fuel system didn't hold pressure so long after shut
down that we wouldn't have this problem.
I was thinking the easiest way to fix that problem would be to create a fuel pump switch that you would use to kill the engine when you shut down. If you remove the pressure during shut down, the deposits may not form. What do you guys think? Any better ideas to evacuate fuel pressure after shut down?"


"Alright, I've gotten my first sample from a gas station outside of Longmont CO. A DSMer from Colorado Springs CO (about 120 miles south of me) sent a sample to me. The top NMR is the actual gum that I removed from one of my injectors. It had 5 proton peaks that I labeled A, B, C, D, and E. The assumption was that this was a very large single molecule that essentially had 5 different kinds of hydrogens arranged in a recurring pattern. Now if you look at the lower NMR, this is what was left after Matt took a sample of E85 and concentrated off the volatiles. You can still see the same 5 peaks (and a lot of other noise that is likely the additive package that wasn't volatile). BUT, if you look closely, the integration of two of the peaks is different. Peaks A and C are significantly smaller in Matt's sample. This tells me that the gum is actually composed of two different molecules that are in a different ratio here in Longmont than in Colorado Springs. They are still both likely very large gummy molecules."




http://www.sae.org/technical/papers/2007-01-4071

Take it however you'd like, I'm quite convinced that the gunk is coming from the E85 itself at SOME stations/batches, and not from the car's tank/lines unless someone can produce scientific evidence to the contrary.

 

Did you really just post that?? do you realize that 95% of that is probably the same as speaking another language and no one is going to know what you mean with out being a chemist? Im guessing you copy and pasted that and wondering if you even understand it. If you do please dumb it down for the rest of us. I think the only paragraph that i was able to understand was the 2nd to last before the pics.

If you understand the rest more power to you..