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starting to see some actual damage from e85 to fuel components

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turboglenn

15+ Year Contributor
6,375
111
Nov 5, 2007
RIpley, West_Virginia
Well after almost ,7 years of dedicated e85 use in my dsm, I have formed a theory on one of the things e85 can actually harm. and that is the brushes in your fuel pumps. over about the last 8 months, I've experienced one Bosch 044 external that would randomly quit running, and it has only been on the car about 2&a half 3 years, 1 complete failure of a 255 HP in tank, and one 255 HP in tank that also intermittently cut out both of which were bought together knew about seven years ago when I first did a duel in tank set up for e85. . the ones that cut out you could tap on them and they would start back up again for an indeterminate amount of time, and with my curious nature I wanted to diagnose their failures so i cut all these fuel pumps apart carefully and found that the brushes we're extremely worn so much so that they were falling out of contact with the commutator (
which kind of explains why pounding on the fuel pump would make it work again for a while).. I found one of my incredibly old 255 pumps from my old Mustang foxbody days and dug up a 190 Walbro which both were still working and I cut them apart for comparison of measuring the brushes and the wear. and the ethanol dedicated pumps although clean had severe amount of wear for their age, compare two pumps twice as old that it only been in gasoline. honestly it's no big mystery really it would seem pretty simple the oven all content would want to wait any lubrication residue left by the gasoline, causing an almost cool dry friction on the parts, and almost further backing that theory is the fact that the two walbros lasted almost 7 years, and the brand new external 044 died right around its 3rd birthday. and I say this is because the external pump doesn't sit in a big cooling reservoir and gets hotter, which further accelerates the wear. now I'm not breaking new grounds for coming up with unknown theories, but I wanted to post to see if anybody else had seen or experienced any odd failures in anything related to the fuel system after a good amount of time of daily driving on e85... black goo doesn't count we all know that exists, and for me it's always been a lot easier to get rid of them the Internet rumors of it plaguing people, I've simply run two or three tanks of pump gas to the car in the winter to help it start and I haven't seen any black goo since my first Terri years on the corn juice

I apologize for the poor grammar and run on sentences but I've been away from home for 72 hours with only a phone to use, to post this
 
I pour about 4oz of Marvel Mystery Oil in with each E85 fill-up. It will lubricate your fuel pump, also the injectors (which will have similar wear issues), and clean deposits (& probably the goo).
 
Several manufactuers now offer pumps that are specifically designed for high ethanol fuel. If they aren't advertised specifically as ethanol compatible, they almost certainly aren't.
 
I wonder what the ethanol compatible really means though.
They claim different design, materials, etc, but as you suggest, it could largely be smoke and mirrors. I really don't know.
 
my very first guess off the top of my head would be that they use either a Teflon impregnated bronze or oil-lite bronze for the brushes and for the commutator they probably use a copper alloy that's just slightly different probably containing more silicon. they're just two common solutions to toughening those two materials and reducing friction in them.
 
This is interesting. What about flex fuel cars that are constantly run with E85?

I've been running my 255HP on corn for a while now haven't experienced issues yet. Also, do ethanol additives actually do anything? Do they mess with fuel mixtures at all?
 
Since cars are sent from the factory ready for e85 now a days, I imagine it's not impossible to make a pump that will last against it long term, unless they are replacing these factory pumps often?
 
Oneslowdsm, those are all rally good questions, as for the additives, do you mean the 10% add to most pump fuels, or the detergents and such?
 
Since cars are sent from the factory ready for e85 now a days, I imagine it's not impossible to make a pump that will last against it long term, unless they are replacing these factory pumps often?
Many late model cars today are using brushless pumps.
E85/flex fuel & gasoline applications.
Much more expensive alternative, but a better pump all things considered.
 
Oneslowdsm, those are all rally good questions, as for the additives, do you mean the 10% add to most pump fuels, or the detergents and such?
Ok I was unaware what kind of pumps they actually used. Might be a option for long term solution then, if you can swing it in the budget.
 
Jay racing 341 pump crapped out on me after just a few weeks with e85. If I jerked it around really hard, it would occasionally work intermittently. I sent it back and Jay was able to get it to work but the flow was lower than it was supposed to be. He sent me another one. I had the same issue. Said F it, went with the walbro 450 E85 pump, had 0 issues with it last year and put a lot of hard miles on it.
 
Fuel a fuel lube like Koltz upon. 1- 2 oz per 5 gallons is all you need. Should keep the pump lubricated.
 
Jay racing 341 pump crapped out on me after just a few weeks with e85. If I jerked it around really hard, it would occasionally work intermittently. I sent it back and Jay was able to get it to work but the flow was lower than it was supposed to be. He sent me another one. I had the same issue. Said F it, went with the walbro 450 E85 pump, had 0 issues with it last year and put a lot of hard miles on it.

I just purchased a jay racing 341 pump, not installed yet. Having seconds thoughts now after doing more research on different car forums.
 
I just purchased a jay racing 341 pump, not installed yet. Having seconds thoughts now after doing more research on different car forums.


It may be isolated. When I spoke with Jay he said they have ran this pump on e85 cars and not seen any issues. All I can go off of though was my personal experience.

I don't want anyone to confuse what I am saying though about Jay Racing. Jay is a great guy, with great products, and excellent service and communication. The 341 pump just didnt work out for me on my application, and the 450 did.

As for 450 flow, I am trapping 130.75 on stock fuel lines, FIC 1550's, and a 450 fuel pump with no indications of running out of fuel yet. I am currently a believer in the 450.
 
Do you use it every single time you fill up or just once?
This last season I used 2 oz per 5 gallons with E85. E85 is corosive and will wear moving parts so any lube will help. I like this as its synthetic and from a high end race oil company. I orginally noticed it at bushurs shop at a shootout and they use it in there e85 as well. Its red so it turns the fuel a little pinkish.
 
The failures can be gotten away from by using a mechanical pump. :) That's my plan. I know that does nothing for people that have no intention of running one but it is a solution to worn out components inside of an electric pump.
 
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