E85 fuel just as corrosive as pure Methanol?
 

I've read a few threads on here about the E85 fuel and also read several webpages with info about the fuel as well and it seems to be really decent stuff.

Now I just contacted one of the producers of Ethanol and E85 fuel in my area and they tell me that the E85 fuel cannot be used at all in a regular fuel system, they said its highly corrosive and will oxidize aluminum fuel rails, melt rubber o-rings ect. He told me there is not much difference between Ethanol and Methanol.

According to this video the E85 is actually better on a non-flex fuel fuel system...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=HuOs1yap8mU

What the hell....I'm sooo confused!!

Shouldn't the electric motor be sealed, so that armature wear issue is unrelated?

On a more highly tuned, more highly stressed engine then I think the tuning issue would be a much bigger concern, especially if you don't have that much extra flow available from the injectors.

I dunno about that whole thing. You can ask 5 people and get 5 different answers.

Ethanol people will tell you to use a car that's forged out of pure stainless steel encased in bomb proof lexan so in case there's a leak, you won't get hurt by the explosion - while people with '91 cavaliers bone stock fill up with it and drive for 50,000 km's and say it didn't do a thing.

Personally I've been trying different things and one of my on-going tests was to submerse a myriad of things in methanol for extended periods of time.

I've had some brass, some aluminum, and some rubber fuel line submersed for a little over 8 months and thus far the fuel line is the only thing thats changed AT ALL and its only become slightly more flexible.....the only missing part of a real world situation from the experiment would be pressure and temp changes. And reading some warnings for meth AI kits will have the fear of God put into you if you even think about AL or brass in the system.

Personally, run whatever you like thats high quality and keep an eye on it. They haven't had ethanol running in anythign long enough to determine with an iron fist what can and can't be used with it IMHO. Sure, there's going to be a few things that don't work right off the bat, but - even Howard Coleman has been using a N0S aluminum splitter when he had his Alkycontrol system on the car running 100% meth for a couple years.....never had any issues to my knowledge.

I think we're the guniea pigs on this one.

Damn, well I went to the UPI station down the road from us which sells E85 at the pump and they refused to sell it to me, not even fill up a fuel can to take back to the shop. I need to have a vehicle that is on the Flexfuel list to buy E85....

Kinda shitty if you ask me, I'm definatly going to complain to the UPI headquarters which is conveiniantly located in Guelph (15min drive away).

I'm planning on running my Renisis engine on E85 this summer if I get it together.

I also found it kinda funny that the video mentioned armature wear in the fuel pump, when really it shouldn't be exposed to the fuel at all....at least I dont think it should be.

Actually by the standard definition of corrosive substances, alcohol is not a corrosive but is a solvent.

I have never seen proof that alcohol will harm aluminum. Maybe if left to soak for a long time which will allow it to absorb water if exposed to the air, it might. But this does not happen in most cars.

I use to fly model airplanes that have aluminum engines that burn a mixture of methanol, nitro methane, and caster oil. All of this is ingested through the aluminum carb into the aluminum body and never ate away at any of it.

Who ever told you that have no experience or simply have no clue what they are talking about.
I've used both fuels and E85 is no way as corrosive as Methanol fuel. I can even claim that C16 race fuel seems a lot more corrosive based on the long term effects of both fuels. Just in oil contamination alone E85 is not even remotely on the same level as methanol. If you leave methanol in a rotary overnight the oil turns to 'cafe con leche' by next morning! :rlaugh:

Can't run ethanol at all, what BS 3/4 of the country has been runing E10 for the past 15-20 years. You won't be able to run high percentages of ethanol without modifications, mainly due to tuning. I can only run about 30% max when it's cooler out and about 40% in the summer. It's running a bit rich right now so it really likes it when I run it at about 30%. Higher mixtures you will need higher compression ratios to maintain power and fuel economy.

A lot of gas stations won't sell it unless you have a flex fuel car so they can't get sued when you fuck you're car up. Last time they gave me crap I said "look I work for a race team I know exactly what I'm doing and I want 4 gallons of E85 in my truck" (which at the time I did work for a race team).

They sold it to me and have ever since with no complaints or issues.

Cool good info crispeed, I know you have been playing with the fuel for a bit now. It just freaked me out when the rep for this fuel tells me otherwise.