Originally Posted by razorlab

Make sure you have the correct parts that work with E85. On our cars it's a proper SS filter and pump and injectors that have a track record of working fine with E85.




A Huge monolithic company has to make sure their cars run in every perceivable place for a certain time, etc. They have to be 100% sure the parts they use are 100% E85 compatible.

Enthusiasts obviously do it a little different. Take the Walbro fuel pump for instance. Walbro themselves say they cannot state their compatibility with Ethanol. Does it work with Ethanol? Yes. Does it work for a long time in Ethanol? Yes.

I've been using E85 for over 3 years, exclusively, 24/7 365. Both my personal cars run on it.

My 2005 Evo has 7X,000 miles on it. It runs the OEM charcoal style fuel filter (built into the plastic fuel assembly, a Walbro fuel pump with a non-cotton based fuel sock and RC1000cc injectors. All the seals are OEM.

I'm actually about to pull apart the fuel system that has seen E85 for over three years and make sure everything is still dandy pretty soon here. I will be creating a thread about it as well.

My 2010 RA Sportback also runs exclusively on E85. It has straight for the last year and 10,000 miles. It runs a SS inline fuel filter, a Walbro fuel pump with a non-cotton based fuel sock and ID1000cc injectors. All seals are OEM and original.

I have a good friend that I tuned on E85 a couple years back. He has a very long commute and has racked up over 60,000 miles on E85 exclusively with no issues so far and runs the same setup I do, on a 2005 Evo.

I also have over 30 Evo owners that have converted to E85 and that I have tuned over the past years that have run into no problems with seals or anything that people seem to think will fail.

Motors have been apart and inspected and the only abnormal things that are found is how clean everything is.

Keep in mind I live in California which is pretty new to E85, the rest of the country has had it for much longer. I did a ton of research into enthusiasts who have been running it for over a decade. They all have pretty much the same results, minus some who ran/run it on much older cars that have crappy seals anyway, which need to be replaced.

I understand the hesitation and fear of Ethanol, but I've been running it for years now and haven't looked back. It's an amazing fuel and really not a big scary monster.

Originally Posted by FJF

I appreciate the complete explanation. In essence, in comes down to one factor - one's individual comfort level. If one is comfortable with some risk, the anecdotal evidence is all that's needed. OTOH, if one isn't much of a gambler and wants to keep his car for a long period of time, there has a to be a little more meat to this. For example, "the seals on a modern 4G motor are made out of such and such compound that resists E85 corrosion for a x-period of time" would make a difference in one's comfort level, as there would be an empirical solution at work. That's what GM was/is doing. To the mind of some like me, nothing less will do.