View Single Post
      09-15-2013, 02:54 PM   #47
1911A145
Captain
1911A145's Avatar
34
Rep
770
Posts

Drives: 135i
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Port Saint Lucie, FL

iTrader: (4)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stohlen View Post
A pump is a pump. It doesn't care what kind of liquid its pumping. 5 tanks of an ethanol mix isn't going to be enough to corrode the internal seals of the pump and cause a failure. Especially because modern cars are built to tolerate ethanol to an extent (because regular gas is E10-E15.)

Now if you didn't tune for that ethanol and just threw it in your tank, and that led to a failure, that's your fault not the ethanols.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveAZ View Post
That's a little difficult to diagnose postmortem without a whole lot more information. i.e. logs, mods, tune info, Fuel info, car history, and which pump are you even talking about? Did you know we have more than one? If so, what else do you know about the fuel system, or the tune you were running? Did you verify your fuel, how did you come to the conclusion you were running E30? What time of year was this?

Not picking on you and sorry if it sounds like it, but these are all things you should know if you're going to start operating your car outside the manufacturers guidelines.

Of the HPFP failures that people often associate with ethanol, as to how many cases that is actually true...and then if it is, what was the real cause? The properties of ethanol or the fact that an improper tune and setup will likely have your LPFP pressures dropping dramatically and starving your HPFP? Then add in the fact that this will cause your long and short term trims to go way outside the operating limits of the DME and forcing it to take drastic measures to maintain fuel pressures but not run your engine too lean.

Simply coming on here and stating...ethanol killed my pump, injectors, girlfriend....yada, yada without providing any meaningful supporting data or facts more than likely means you shouldn't have been running it in the first place. And "because my SA said it did" doesn't cut it.

When I first started this journey and was having problems I was told my HPFP was bad numerous times by peers and tuners. That was about 10K miles ago. Guess which HPFP is in my car....the original one. How many do I have in my garage...2 additional One new one that verified it wasn't an HPFP issue, and one take off that I got for experimenting with. Only one time did I have a real failure and I don't think it can be attributed to ethanol but I can't rule it out. It was a leaky injector and the reason I went looking for it...I changed my DPs and one of them was black. I hadn't had the car for very long but I was running about E25 at the time and had been for a maybe a month or so. I then pulled the plugs and injectors and found the offender...cylinder 5 was wet. Every other problem I've had has been attributed to tune, LPFP setup, or just my own learning curve. Of those, none of them were failing parts.

Again, I'm not here to debate E85 or here with an agenda, I don't care what you run in your cars. But, if you're going to point fingers, then be prepared to back it up with data.

As I said, I am obviously a bit biased...but it's not just because I use, it's because I studied up on it. I can tell you the pro's of E85 just as well as I can tell you the con's of it from production, to properties, to usage. Obviously a lot of that information is debatable and some times it even comes down to the lessor of two evils. So again, make your own choices, but make educated ones, not...

"5 tank fulls of E30 and my stock fuel pump was toast."

or

"Those injectors are rated at 200 PSI." and "There is a recall of the programing of the fuel pump that needed to be done by BMW."

Where this guy got this I have no idea given that our rails see pressures upwards of 3000PSI...maybe he meant 200bar

and reprogramming of the fuel pump? The pump itself (impossible) as the HPFP only electrical part there is on the HPFP is the flow control valve. Maybe you mean the reprogramming of the DME to cycle the LPFP to pressurize the system when you unlock your car or open your door?

or

"E85 fuel is very dense and does not burn completely"

Really? The SG of ethanol is .787 and the SG of gasoline is .739...what do you consider "very dense"? What other characteristics of ethanol can you tell us about. How about what temperature it burns at, or its rate of atomization compared to that of gasoline since that is also what you seem to be quoting. Hint, there is a reason methanol (also an alcohol) is used for CP injection.

or

"Indeed, it is a fuel that corrodes rubber"

True, but can you tell us how much rubber we have in our fuel system or what materials our fuel system consists of?

or

"Ran 30/70 e85/93 for 2 or 3 months had to replace:
1 LFPS
12 plugs
6 injectors
Just sayin

DPs FMIC JB4 ISO"

I don't even know what an LFPS is...not even going to touch this one
To the both of you...

I was talking about my factory, LPFP. I am running COBB's E30 mapping, with E30 fuel (confirmed) and had zero issued on my logs and all supporting mods.

This was even confirmed by COBB's engineer himself about the LPFP issue and ethanol. It is hit or miss. I never said anything else failed. Others have. I love E-85 mixes on our cars, but after my experience on my third LPFP now, I will stick to 93 oct. which hasnt given me any issues to date.

BTW, a LPFS = Low Pressure Fuel Sensor on the fuel rail right next to the HPFP.
__________________
| COBB E30 | VRSF DP's | ETS 5" FMIC | BMS DCI |

393 RWHP / 434 RWTQ
Appreciate 0