Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

E85 is not out of the question.  I would suggest that you can take the tinfoil hat off.  There are many people on these forums and others reporting that E85 sits just fine in a fuel tank without absorbing the Pacific Ocean.

And if you left the tinfoil hat on there are ways and means that you could get around any such problem.  Such as, put it away with a nearly empty tank, and put fresh fuel into it from a jerry can just before you use it.  Or any variation on the theme.

Let's face it....old petrol is worse than new petrol.  If you leave old petrol in a tank for 6 weeks it will change over that time.  If you ever find yourself leaving a car for a long period of time then the best thing is to leave it with as little fuel in it as possible and put new fuel in it immediately - well at least before giving it any curry.

I must be missing something here, 

20 minutes ago, lcxu105 said:

It only gets use maybe once a month and can sit upto six weeks at  time and not move.

So e85 is out of the question.

I must be missing something here, there is a general statement then E85 gets ruled out.... how are these two things related?  Pretty much everyone I know who run E85 use them about that much and leave them for that kind of time period regularly as we don't get E85 at the pump, so it's usually a race car thing and the cars tend to sit with it.  The only issue so far with my mates ones have been one which had non-E85 compatible foam in the fuel tank which got dissolved and caused issues in the fuel system... lots of crap through everything, but easily avoided by making sure everything is E85 compatible.

Most race type fuels have down sides and things to be aware of, if you're going to be paranoid then use 98.  

My car sat with half a tank of E85 whilst I had the motor and box out over four months. Starts and runs fine every time and the same fuel will still be in it when it leaves the garage in October, obviously I'll fill her up with fresh E but Iv never had a problem.

Another point- That fuel has been sitting in my tank since last December.

Plenty of people let it sit and never have issues.

Have used lots of old E85 that people have given away for sitting over 2-3 months. Oldest fuel I have used is easily over 1yr old and car ran fine, AFR was fine. This was giving the car a very hard time at Queensland raceway as well in 40deg heat

Doesn't matter.  Exactly what is going to happen anyway?  I won't type it all out again, but perhaps search for a couple of posts on here where I tiraded over the stupidity of thinking that gallons of water can get into your fuel tank through whatever air movement there is.

yes E85 is hygroscopic, ie will absorb moisture from the air, but at the same time, 98RON fuel has additives which are quite volatile and will "gas off" over time which will reduce the octane rating of 98 if left to sit.

A bit of absorbed water in E85 is less likely to affect it's octane rating, as it's the ethanol content that provides the high octane.

Normal 98 fuel left sitting could be closer to 95 octane by the time it's sucked into the engine - IMO a bigger risk on an engine highly tuned for fresh 98.

IMO the "sitting" time is not a good criteria for deciding E85 vs 98.

It's more about your horsepower requirements, availability of E85, ability to fill up on a long drive, carrying jerry cans of fuel etc

cheers

Mike

  • Like 1
31 minutes ago, lcxu105 said:

Ok than. I've heard that e85 turns into a jelly. Has anyone ever had this happen to them 

 

Whoever told you that please go headbutt them. I have been running e85 for the past 4 years and left 40L in the tank while the car was off the road for 10 months and nothing bad has happened.

1 hour ago, lcxu105 said:

Ok than. I've heard that e85 turns into a jelly. Has anyone ever had this happen to them 

 

Maybe if your E85 absorbs enough moisture over time and you add a few packets of jelly to the fuel tank it will, but honestly it aint going to do shit.

Opened up my filters two weeks ago after sitting around from November with E85 in the tank. These fuel filters were cleaned in July/August last year. This is what came out. Was pretty yuck.

Whole fuel system went in the bin!

AD372875-F66A-4E59-B5B3-A148391C7DB2_zps

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • OK, Step 3, if you need to remove the valve body, either to replace it, the TCM, or to do a more complete drain.  First, you need to disconnect the TCM input wires, they are about half way up the transmission on the drivers side. One plug and the wires are out of the way, but there is also a spring clip that stops the socket from sliding back into the transmission. On my car the spring clip was easy to get, but the socket was really stuck in the o-ring of the transmission housing and took some.....persuasion. You can see both the plug to remove (first) and the spring clip (second) in this pic Incidentally, right next to the plug, you can see where the casting has allowance for a dispstick/filler which Nissan decided not to provide. there is a cap held on with a 6mm head bolt that you can remove to overfill it (AMS recommend a 1.5l overfill). Final step before the big mess, remove the speed sensor that is clipped to the valve body at the rear of the box.  Then removal of the Valve Body. For this the USDM Q50 workshop manual has a critical diagram: There are a billion bolts visible. Almost all of them do not need to be removed, just the 14 shown on the diagram. Even so, I both removed one extra, and didn't check which length bolt came from which location (more on that later....). Again it is worth undoing the 4 corners first, but leaving them a couple of turns in to hold the unit up....gravity is not your friend here and trans oil will be going everywhere. Once the corners are loose but still in remove all the other 10 bolts, then hold the valve body up with 1 hand while removing the final 4. Then, everything just comes free easily, or like in my case you start swearing because that plug is stuck in the casing. Done, the valve body and TCM are out
    • OK, so if you are either going for the bigger fluid change or are changing the valve body which includes the Transmission Control Module (TCM), first you should have both a new gasket 31397-1XJ0A and a torque wrench that can work down to 8Nm (very low, probably a 1/4 drive one). You can probably get by without either, but I really didn't want to pull it all apart together due to a leak. First, you now need that big oil pan. The transmission pan is 450 long x 350 wide, and it will probably leak on all sides, so get ready for a mess. There are 24x 6mm headed bolts holding the pan on. I undid the 2 rear corners, then screwed those bolts back in a couple of turns to let the pan go low at that end, then removed all the middle bolts on each side. Then, undo the front corner bolts slowly while holding the pan up, and 80% of the fluid will head out the rear. From there, remove the remaining bolts and the pan is off. You can see it is still dripping oil absolutely everywhere...it dripped all night.... I got another couple of litres when I removed the pan, and then another few when I removed the valve body - all up another 4l on top of the 3 already dropped in step 1.
    • Yeh I think i'll message an old contact i had for ages that manages his own tyre shop now.. n tell him what i want n work with him before ordering..  Got this 17x9 +30 Driftteks on 245/45/17 PSR Drag Radials on the rear.. They fit well - for your reference in future - Rear guards  have been lipped in & minimal to non flaring of the rear Gaurds.    
    • If only it were that easy! I also needed to remove seats, shocks, brake calipers, send my car through a fence, and use measuring and ended up guessing because I didn't remove seats, shocks and brake calipers. It can be hard sometimes Can be a little more complex than 'just measure' if you want to truly measure the entire wheel through all of it's suspension travel. But if you aren't going for every last mm then yeah, you can check the space you currently have and guesstimate.
    • If you own a car, and it has wheels on it, and you know the offset of those wheels, and you have a measuring device, you have everything you need to work out if other wheels will fit.
×
×
  • Create New...