Is E85 bad for your motor?

[SlipperySnake]

I just talk to the owner of strictly performance, Richard, he said that it eats away at the bearings and piston rings and also dilutes your oil. He said to stick with 93 octane tune unless I want to change my oil every 500 miles. I've read nothing but great stuff about E85! So what's y'alls opinions on this. I was kinda surprised by his reaction to this. All I did was call to see how much it would be to get a tune and I got a huge pep talk about how "bad" it is... So y'all tell me..:shrug:

 

[walked_u_hard]

car will blow up in 500 miles

 

[65fastback2+2]

ask him what ford says about their flex fuel vehicles that can be run purely on ethanol

if he was right, they would need special oil, special rings, it would be listed in their owners manuals to change the oil every 500 miles, etc. but its not, because none of those issues are actually real.

at best, run a tank of 93 through every several thousand miles to make sure the injector tips stay clean.

oh, and drive it like you stole it

 

[safado]

Guess I should have rebuilt my motor 15000 miles ago....weird I considered Strictly one of the few shops "in the Know".... Ford and GM sold all those flex fuel cars knowing they would need new motors.. Bastards!!

 

[CobRoush-00]

Never heard of that before. My friend has an 03 Cobra and he runs E85 in it for almost 2 years now. Never a problem. This guy must know something no one else knows.

 

[SlipperySnake]

I'm assuming he just doesn't know how to tune with E85 so he just tells everyone it's terrible so he doesn't have to tune it. It's his excuse so when the motor blows because improper tuning he can say, "I told ya so" and not have any responsibility.

 

[LTHL VNM]

hmmmmm, i don't know where to start so to avoid anything getting out of hand please just PM me. I worked for Richard, he tuned my car before i switched to E85, and he knows his way around the mod motors.....but for whatever reason, he avoids E85 fuel tuning.

 

[Fire04cobra]

I could understand if it was running pig rich all of the above could happen. sounds like someone cant tune for it.

 

[Z06KILLR]

Its horrible stuff. Unless you want to make insane power for $2.60 a gallon with high compression/timing/turbo/supercharger/etc then its badass.

 

[SlipperySnake]

Hehe of course!

It's not really going to ruin my rings and bearings though is it? I wouldn't think so.

 

[Ironhand]

LOL

If anything E-85 will clean the top of the pistons due to higher spark timing and less carbon.

Will E85 dilute oil and hurt bearings? Yes but only when you wash down the cylinders and start putting E-85 in your oil pan and the oil pump picks it up and puts it into your bearings. Which can be avoided with proper tuning.

My 03 Cobra is setup for E-85 and we also run my wife's 12 Fusion almost solely on E-85. If it was that big of an issue then makers of cars like Ford would void warranties if it was used instead of equipping the car with an E-85 sensor so it can be "flex fuel".

 

[SlipperySnake]

I agree^

 

[c6zhombre]

not sure why Richard is so stubborn about captain obvious. I've been to his shop and he seems like a nice guy..... but he's got his head buried in the sand on this one :bash:

 

[SlipperySnake]

Ya he is a very cool guy, guess he just hasn't figured out E85 yet. It's all good. He still builds some wicked stuff!

 

[04sleeper]

There are over 10 Million Flex Fuel car on the road today. Not really that big of an issue.

E85 = Liquid Gold! :rockon:

 

[Turbo98]

Unfortunately, there are still a lot of nay-sayers out there. Even some of the good tuners still aren't 100% on board when talking to them. It's still relatively "new" in the last 5 years or so. All anybody has to do is do some research and see all the cars running it and the power they are making. I'll never go back to gasoline, that's for sure. The power is crazy.

 

[gt347mustang]

Sounds like you need to look somewhere else.

 

[SlipperySnake]

And I have done so!