Ethanol Goooo....and cleaned.

**Erron Spalsbury** · 12-28-2013, 03:03 PM

Well, after almost 6 years of running nothing but E85 in the race car I finally got the injector E85 goo build up. I started to notice some misfires and under boost an entire cylinder would completely cut out. Literally running on 5 cylinders. Pulled the injectors and saw the tale-tale sign of the E85 black goo build up. I cleaned the outside of them (which did nothing) and reinstalled. I put in 5 gallons of 91 and swapped to the 91 fuel map and went for a drive. Took all of about 5 minutes of driving before the system cleaned itself out. Morale of the story, if you're running nothing but E85 it's a good thing to swap back to 91 for a minute just to clean out the system every now and then. They must have been pretty bad too, the drive with the 91 in there was so nice. The car began to purr like a kitten again.

**familyMAN** · 12-28-2013, 03:19 PM

Wonder what changed. I bet it has something to do with the station's mix or tanks and not build up because others have gotten it very quickly.

I had an issue with sediment out of nowhere. Still haven't figured out which station it was because I had filled up at three different ones over a period of a month. Inside of tank was coated with "dust" that clogged two of my injectors. Switched from 40micron stainless filter to a 6 micron fiberglass so it clogs first. Hopefully everything runs lean and I catch it instead of one or two clogging and I don't!

Thanks for posting. I need to run some 93 through. Haven't made a map for it but that shouldn't take much work.

**green-lantern** · 12-29-2013, 01:44 PM

Originally Posted by familyMAN

Wonder what changed. I bet it has something to do with the station's mix or tanks and not build up because others have gotten it very quickly.

Maybe, it might also be the condition of somebody's fuel system and filter. from what I understand ethanol will clear crap from the system and then the crap ends up clogging fuel injectors.

I had no idea pump gas would clear ethanol goo out.

thanks for posting

**Erron Spalsbury** · 12-30-2013, 10:51 AM

Originally Posted by green-lantern

Maybe, it might also be the condition of somebody's fuel system and filter. from what I understand ethanol will clear crap from the system and then the crap ends up clogging fuel injectors.

I had no idea pump gas would clear ethanol goo out.

thanks for posting

Sort of, it's kinda the other way around. Ethanol will clean the valves and pistons and really any amount of carbon from the intake and combustion surfaces. It does it like no other too. My heads and pistons have a mild yellow tinge to them after years of racing on them, look almost new really. Ethanol as a solvent however, it's quite poor. Try cleaning up some grease with it, it doesn't work.
Gasoline on the other hand is a great solvent and can clean out residue quite well. Seems like I'll just have to bounce back and forth every once in a while. My 91 map isn't setup for knock control or boost, it's just my yutz around map. I think I saw all of about 3 psi on my drive.

**kywhitelightning** · 12-29-2013, 03:07 AM

Thanks for sharing this. The thought has crossed my mind a time or two about switching but I can't pull myself away from gas for one reason or another. This adds to the list of reasons to stick with gas. Glad you got it back to normal with no ill effects.

Jeff

**Unlogic** · 12-30-2013, 01:36 PM

All people I know here in Sweden that drive on E85 have this ethanol goooo buildup problem every other year or so. Even my mothers Ford Focus biofuel has had gooooo issues. Ford eventually advised her to only use petrol after they had cleaned her fuel system 3 or 4 times within just a few years time.

**TurboSinceBirth** · 12-31-2013, 12:45 AM

I've ran ethanol for a few years and never had an issue with this. I use about the same station too and a top tier one at that. I know some that have had problems with this black goo of death. It's all related to the additives the station uses when they mix their ethanol. Google it and you'll even find some chemistry tests on the composition of the black residue. If you have a problem with it you need to get your fuel elsewhere. Soaking in premium or running a tank every once in awhile will fix it if you have no other station options. Using a gas station that doesn't sell much ethanol is a problem also. I was originally worried about it given the fact I'm on the original stock fpr and an OEM fuel filter using well over 400 lph of fuel supply WOT, but I've never looked back. Seriously, do some research on the black goo. It's kind of interesting.

**Erron Spalsbury** · 12-31-2013, 11:09 AM

Originally Posted by TurboSinceBirth

I've ran ethanol for a few years and never had an issue with this. I use about the same station too and a top tier one at that. I know some that have had problems with this black goo of death. It's all related to the additives the station uses when they mix their ethanol. Google it and you'll even find some chemistry tests on the composition of the black residue. If you have a problem with it you need to get your fuel elsewhere. Soaking in premium or running a tank every once in awhile will fix it if you have no other station options. Using a gas station that doesn't sell much ethanol is a problem also. I was originally worried about it given the fact I'm on the original stock fpr and an OEM fuel filter using well over 400 lph of fuel supply WOT, but I've never looked back. Seriously, do some research on the black goo. It's kind of interesting.

Yes sir, neither did I. In fact, we had (for the most part) determined that our premier gas station, Western Petrol, had the cleanest e85 since those that went there didn't seem to be having these issues. We starting really getting into this back in '09 on our local DSM forum here in Colorado. We had one of our members dig REALLY deep into it as well. Here's a snippet from his findings.

"I'm in Austin Texas now, but I do check this forum about once a month and saw this. Anyway, using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) I found that concentrating the fuel from the pump at the gas station gave me an identical spectra to the goo on my injectors. This is pretty definitive proof that it is coming from the fuel, although I suppose it is possible that a typical rubber or plastic that gets dissolved in the fuel at the gas station also exists on our cars, and that is the source. That being said, I dissolved some samples of rubber and took NMRs and they weren't even close. Since it remains sticky even when concentrated to dryness under high vacuum, I doubt it is plastic. Also, even though it is black on your injector, that color is caused from soot and isn't the natural color of the goo. It is actually clear.

At the time, I was working as a medicinal chemist and really wasn't supposed to be using this instrumentation to analyze personal stuff, so I could only put so much effort into it (the NMR I was using was probably a $250K machine). Anyway, now this is what I do for a living (I'm working at an analytical lab here in Austin), so perhaps I could get in touch with whoever provided me the fuel samples again and help him out in an official capacity."

The entire thread is here..
E85 and injectors - Colorado DSM Club Forums

In that thread, there's one of our members that has had really good luck at about 65% gasoline. I may try that or go back and forth every couple of tank fulls.

**J. Fast** · 12-31-2013, 10:03 AM

The gum contaminants exist in pumpgas too. 1.5 gallons of racegas or a mixture of 50% tolulene or xylene to 10gallons of E-85 will clear up the issue. No need to change the tune. You can also pour in 1qt of 100% butanol or pour in gum-out and get the same results.

**J. Fast** · 12-31-2013, 11:53 AM

I remember the Coloradodsm thread in 2009. Sure wad a good thread. If you recall later in thread around post 145 and later it was determined the gum exists in pump gas also. Once you develop gum you have to clean the injectors with fuels free of the additives.

Additionally one of the remedies was to eliminate the fuel rail pressure on shutdown to keep the ethanol from hanging on the backside of the injectors and causing the pintles to stick when the alcohol evaporated leaving behind the additives. Remember too, Jake was using E95 and the contaminants were not present in his fuel.

I believe the issue has long since been resolved by improving fuel injectors and by changing the blending package. I still have yet to clog an injector or see buildup residue. It might also be due to the fact I bleed off my fuel rail pressure on engine kill.