E85 in cooler temps equals cylinder misfires

[redfire03 svt]

Any of you E85 guys that drive in cooler temps having cylinder misfire issues? Given I am in a E55, this is my first winter with the car on E85, and have noticed two distinct things, first the car hates to start with temps below 50*, and second multiple cylinder misfires.

The misfires occur right after the car was cold started and cruising out the neighborhood. Any one have any input or experience with this scenario?

Seems like E85 and cold weather are not friends, are misfires possible because the car and fuel is so cold. BTW, I also have meth on my E55 but obvisouly it was not spraying when this occured.

Any help would be appreciated:bored:

 

[04SilverSerpent]

I'm sure 04Sleeper will chime in, but I believe this is a tuning issue. If tuned right, you should not have any issues with colder weather.

 

[redfire03 svt]

Another issue is that the AMG ECU are locked down pretty hard, we dont have nearly the flexibility or aftermarket you guys have.

I am unsure of the cobra ECU's but on ours, you can tune a E55 and after a certain period it will adapt back to your driving style on a daily basis. Everything on our cars adapt to the driving style, trannys, ecu etc.

Is maintenance on Injectors and fuel filters, fuel pumps etc alot higher on E85? I have had my fuel filter, fuel pumps and injectors for roughly a year now, unchanged. You guys think that is something that should be looked at.

Again, the car did not exhibit anything abnormal, you would not have known codes were thrown had the CEL not lit up, strange. What are you guys seeing for a/f at idle, cruising and coasting on the corn?

 

[04SilverSerpent]

The A/F reading is still the same..it's just a conversion of the lambda I believe...I still see 14.7 at idle. There shouldn't be any need for maintenance on the injectors or fuel filter..but you want to make sure your pumps and lines are good with e85. I am by no means an expert like 04Sleeper is.

 

[02SILVERBULLET]

My lightning tends to miss if not given enough time to warm up. I hope to start tuning myself soon and see if i can get it worked out.
My most recent tune revisions for cold start up work awesome, but if i try and drive even at very light throttle just pulling off the curb and down the street it coughs and pops really bad.

 

[Swervedriver]

Reluctance to "catch" when cranking with E85 means the tune needs to be adjusted to inject more fuel during the cranking cycle.

Do you have a wideband in the car? If so, what is the AF when you're cruising out of the neighborhood cold and it misses?

 

[redfire03 svt]

Yes sir, I have a wideband. Once it cranks, the a/f jumps around anywhere from 14-16 while cruising out the hood. The car does not stumble or buck at all, if there was no CEL light to come on, you would never know the misfire occured.

I know it has something to do with the weather because we just got a cold spell here in GA, into the 20 at night and the two days my codes were thrown, it was in the high 30s. The week before that, the temps were unusually high and in the high 60s, car started up on the first crank and no codes at all.

 

[redfire03 svt]

Here is a vid of the wideband immediatly after the code was thrown. I turned it on to watch what was going on. On coasting is where you will see fuel shut off and see A/F hit 21, all other is just crusing on surface streets. Off course once I started logging the codes did not get thrown again, go figure:

 

[c6zhombre]

I have no issues the times I've run my car sub 45 degree weather. No misses. Tuned by 04sleeper.

I think if you have the ability to datalog the startup and first couple of minutes of cruise....and then give it to your tuner, maybe they can cleanup that portion of the tune or decide what the issue is if other. Do you test your fuel before fill up? That might also be good info for the tuner to know the % ethanol.

 

[Snakenhorse]

Any of you E85 guys that drive in cooler temps having cylinder misfire issues? Given I am in a E55, this is my first winter with the car on E85, and have noticed two distinct things, first the car hates to start with temps below 50*, and second multiple cylinder misfires.

The misfires occur right after the car was cold started and cruising out the neighborhood. Any one have any input or experience with this scenario?

Seems like E85 and cold weather are not friends, are misfires possible because the car and fuel is so cold. BTW, I also have meth on my E55 but obvisouly it was not spraying when this occured.

Any help would be appreciated:bored:

It seems like You have an issue with you cold Start tune. YOu should be able to start the car at any temperature however if it is very cold you should let it run until it idles for a few minutes. The 15% of gas or more in the mix should help so you don't have any issues. Definitely, I feel like the tune should be optimized for your car.
Never step deeper than half of a throttle when the engine is cold and specially in cold wheater. Wait until the coolant temp reaches the normal operation range for you to go WOT.

How do I know this?

I saw a guy put a hole in his car's engine block more than a decade ago. The idiot waited 1 min. or so and then started to rev. his engine while still very cold and was winter outside too. Any type of alcohol fuel depends on the heat to work properly and the hotter the better for the Ethanol to work properly.

 

[injfuel]

Any of you E85 guys that drive in cooler temps having cylinder misfire issues? Given I am in a E55, this is my first winter with the car on E85, and have noticed two distinct things, first the car hates to start with temps below 50*, and second multiple cylinder misfires.

The misfires occur right after the car was cold started and cruising out the neighborhood. Any one have any input or experience with this scenario?

Seems like E85 and cold weather are not friends, are misfires possible because the car and fuel is so cold. BTW, I also have meth on my E55 but obvisouly it was not spraying when this occured.

Any help would be appreciated:bored:

I live in ohio and my car would do the same thing when it was cold, I very rarely drove it in the winter but if there was no salt on the roads and was dry I would take it out , would stumble and stutter when I first took off until it was at least 1/3 of the way up the temp gauge, thought I had a leaky hea gasket or a ring going bad but when warm weather came no more problem

 

[ZOSO]

A little timing and more fuel when cranking and your issues will go away. I worked all winter a few years ago on my cobra and Dont have cold start issues. And thats down to zero degrees outside.

 

[redfire03 svt]

Just wanted to update you guys on this thread, since the weather has gotten around 60* now, the misfires no longer occur. Nothing at all was changed on the e55, just warmer weather.