delkat

iTrader: (2)

I've been running a built motor (BBX/30psi/Boltons/450whp) on E85 for about 15K miles. About 5K miles ago the engine started using about 1 quart of oil (Amsoil) per 1000 miles. When I had a leakdown test it showed 2 cylinders where leaking down at 25% and the car was down 50HP. The car got worse and started going through oil at 1 quart per 500 miles and you could see it on the back of the car (wicked white). When we tore the motor down all 4 intake ports and intake valves had significant deposits of black sludge similar to what has been seen on injectors using E85. The shop had to spend significant amount of time to remove the deposits. The build up was so bad that it could have been keeping the valves from sealing completely. The shop had never seen anything like this with E85 applications.

After doing some research, it seems that it is common for flex fuel vehicles to have issues with deposits on the back side of intake valves and in the intake ports. There are additives that can be used to alleviate the issue but they are not the same additives available for gasoline since they won't mix properly with the ethanol. Redline makes an Alchohol Lubricant that is supposed to help with these issues. Does anyone have any recommendations for ethanol compatible additives that would help to combat deposits?

So is it possible that I had a ring seal issue and the blow-by from the 2 bad cylinders was causing excessive oil to enter the intake manifold via the EGR system and the deposits were a result of oil getting into the intake?

It doesn't seem likely that the leak-down issues were a result of the sludge build-up since the car probably wouldn't have been using oil and spraying it out the exhaust. There was no sign of oil in the intake tract through the intercooler lines.

Has anyone experienced anything like this?

I really don't want to spend another $5K in 10,000 miles because of this issue.

scheides

iTrader: (10)

You said the leakdown test showed 25% leakdown on 2 cyclinders, that was that confirmed to be through the intake valves?

$5k is a lot to spend to yank the head, clean it up and re-install, even if it needed a valvejob.

There's a product called Mopar CCC (Combustion Chamber Cleaner) that has come very highly recommended for situations like this, but you could always try something like seafoam too. Still, just because you're using E85 shouldn't mean gunk should build up like that, do you always use the same station for it? The gunk build-up issue has always seemed to me to be an issue that was station-specific.

Paul Walkin

iTrader: (6)

Sounds like bad rings or you overfilled the motor with oil repeatedly.

Both situations will cause the intake to pull oil.

Your problem is OIL not e85 related

delkat

iTrader: (2)

We believe the original leakdown issue to be ring related. That's why the motor was pulled for a full freshening (rings, bearings, etc). It doesn't seem likely that the initial cylinder sealing issue was caused by the deposits. It may have contributed to further cylinder sealing issues as it got worse.

Because the deposits were evenly distributed among all 4 cylinders and not just 2 and 4, which had the leakdown issues, it seems maybe it was EGR related from the crankcase being overly pressurized by the ring blowby in the 2 bad cylinders. I just want to make sure that the EGR "theory" is valid since I don't want to go through this again in 10k miles. If the issue is E85 related I need to find some compatible additives or switch back to 91.

And no, the car was never overfilled with oil.

DiLuong

Switch back to 91 and enjoy your X on the road instead sitting in shop day after days brother,,Good Luck brother

Sharkbite2000

iTrader: (21)

Or just give it a litte C-16 and hit that sucker that should clean her out

scheides

iTrader: (10)

This is aweful advice. E85 should have nothing to do with day after day after day driveability. If E85 is easy to get, use it!

Kracka

iTrader: (49)

The problem is most likely the crap your blender mixes in to the ethanol to make it E85.

whtrice

iTrader: (6)

If you are having that bad of a blow-by problem you need to fix it. No amount of cleaner additive in the world is going to help you until you resolve that issue.

Supraboy1

There are several issues that no one is addressing.

1. E 85 DOES not have detergents like regular gas. Its not required per federal law and therefore those that sell it don't add it.

2. E 85 is caustic to rubber. Period. look it up. Unless your tuner replaced all lines with Neoprene or some other suitable fuel line replacement you leaching rubber into the engine which creates lots of gummy crap all over.

I'm not saying, since I'm not there, that this is the only issue but you should run gas from time to time to clean the engine up.

www.mightyautoparts.com/pdf/articles/fm0808.pdf

ugakirk

iTrader: (14)

This.. unless the tuners already did it. And the link isn't working for me..

And Haha @ Supraboy using a Mighty Auto Parts link.. I own a Mighty franchise.. just thought it was funny..

blk-majik

iTrader: (6)

More details on the 'built motor'? Was is re-sleeved? What pistons are being used? If you're going to have the thing torn down again anyway, you might want to have an independent shop (ie, not the one who built/installed the thing and have a vested interest in blaming someone else) do that simple job and take measurements of the bores and make sure everything's within tolerance. Seems like your guy is taking you to the cleaners on shoddy work anyway

I'm a bit hesitant to jump on the 'blame e-85' bandwagon. I mean, I'd expect injector failure before it gets bad enough to cause sticky valves! How would that explain burning 1qt of oil every 500 miles? Sounds like bad rings to me.

In the mean time, it might be worth draining a bit of oil and sending to Blackstone or one of the other analysis labs. If there's rubber in it or other funky stuff, they'll be able to tell. If its rings, you'll have a bunch of carbon and hydrocarbons in your oil. If the machining went wrong, you might even have shards of your sleeves in there. Either way, that $20 can tell you a LOT

whtrice

iTrader: (6)

1.) Ethanol is a great cleaner. I have seen in several enigine tear downs and the piston tops are far cleaner then if they ran on straight gasoline. Of course if your engine is sick and venting blow-by then oil is going to saturate everything.

2.) You guys need to see this recent thread and quit posting about your "battery acid" corrosive E-85 speculations ......

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/al...years-e85.html

delkat

iTrader: (2)

As I already mentioned, we re-built the motor last week because of what we believe was a ring seal issue causing leak-down at >25% in cylinder 2 and 4. The motor is not sleeved since I don't plan to make over 500whp. The cylinders were properly honed during the re-build and we are using coated JE pistons and Seal Pro rings.

It's hard to say what the cause was of the ring issue but I have had injector and injector connector issues during the past year so maybe that was the culprit. We believe we have fixed the leak down issue and maybe the gunk/deposits in the intake port as a result.

This post was primarily to see if anyone else has experienced anything like this with the deposits in the intake ports/valves and also to validate the possibility of oil being the cause due to the ring seal issue.

If I have enough blowby in cylinder 2 and 4 can it pressurize the crankcase enough to cause oil to enter the intake manifold through the EGR system and cause the deposits we saw on disassembly? The oil useage became obvious about 5K miles before the rebuild.

whtrice

iTrader: (6)

Like you explained I think that is exactly how the deposits formed in your engine. If you had that much leak down in #2 and #4 and consumed at least a quart in 1k your motor had issues.

Glad you got it repaired and hopefully got your injector issues sorted out too. Where you running DW's by chance?