[Saberscar223]

I’ve heard it’s 100% safe and I’ve also heard it’s bad for your engine does anyone know if it hurts the engine to convert to e85?

[Joshinator99]

Originally Posted by Saberscar223

I’ve heard it’s 100% safe and I’ve also heard it’s bad for your engine does anyone know if it hurts the engine to convert to e85?

Definitely safe. In the old days fuel systems didn’t handle the corrosive effects of alcohol but that’s no longer an issue. If you’re going to store the car for long periods of time I’d throw a bottom of Lucas Ethanol Stabilizer before you do, but even that is just being extra cautious.

[Need4Camaro]

Havent had any problems so far. The only thing Ive noticed is that it seems that E85 takes longer to pump so I do wonder if it has more viscosity than premium fuel and if its heavier on the fuel pump.

[OB0001]

Originally Posted by Need4Camaro

Havent had any problems so far. The only thing Ive noticed is that it seems that E85 takes longer to pump so I do wonder if it has more viscosity than premium fuel and if its heavier on the fuel pump.

Never had this problem, I have been running E85 in my Camaro SS and Buick GS for over 3 years now, pumping it same as regular unleaded fuel

[laynlo15]

Originally Posted by Saberscar223

I’ve heard it’s 100% safe and I’ve also heard it’s bad for your engine does anyone know if it hurts the engine to convert to e85?

Bad information travels faster than correct information. My C7 is running perfect after over 20,000 miles on E85. My 2022 Camaro has 7,000 miles on it running E85. Its much cleaner burning then 93 octane, smells wonderful where 93 octane smells like nasty ass all the time. I even run E in the winter, I just add Lucas Ethanol treatment with each tank of E, we have a winter blend and its usually about E55 in the winter here in Missouri. The key is a good tune, you'll make about 35 more rwhp and that's always a benefit, you will see a few miles to the gallon lose on you mpg, but you will probably save anywhere from .75 cents to a 1.00 at the pump per gallon, so that makes it a wash. I pay about 2.70 per gallon and I believe 93 is still close to 4.00 per gallon. Try it you'll like it and watch out for disinformation, its everywhere on the internet.

[Dynamical]

Ethanol absorbs water. If I was going to run more than what's in the regular pump gas I wouldn't let it sit in my gas tank for long periods of time. At the least I would add some kind of ethanol treatment.
I did a head gasket job an a 96 civic a few years ago, when I took the head to the machine shop, the old timer I know took me in the back and showed me what the ethanol does to valves. The head had about 150k on it so it took a while to show effects. Does Direct injection have a different effect?....who knows.
It's a good bang for the buck if you want more power. I know a guy with a Chevy Barretta big block full drag car. He had to start running E because it made his motor run cooler. It over heated without it.
Just run it nice and hard and don't let it sit in your tank for a long time. It's safe.
Just my .02

[GAOLDGUY]

Originally Posted by Dynamical

Ethanol absorbs water. If I was going to run more than what's in the regular pump gas I wouldn't let it sit in my gas tank for long periods of time. At the least I would add some kind of ethanol treatment.
I did a head gasket job an a 96 civic a few years ago, when I took the head to the machine shop, the old timer I know took me in the back and showed me what the ethanol does to valves. The head had about 150k on it so it took a while to show effects. Does Direct injection have a different effect?....who knows.
It's a good bang for the buck if you want more power. I know a guy with a Chevy Barretta big block full drag car. He had to start running E because it made his motor run cooler. It over heated without it.
Just run it nice and hard and don't let it sit in your tank for a long time. It's safe.
Just my .02

Would you mind please telling us what it did to the valves?

[Martinjlm]

Originally Posted by Saberscar223

I’ve heard it’s 100% safe and I’ve also heard it’s bad for your engine does anyone know if it hurts the engine to convert to e85?

Originally Posted by Joshinator99

Definitely safe. In the old days fuel systems didn’t handle the corrosive effects of alcohol but that’s no longer an issue. If you’re going to store the car for long periods of time I’d throw a bottom of Lucas Ethanol Stabilizer before you do, but even that is just being extra cautious.

Originally Posted by OB0001

Never had this problem, I have been running E85 in my Camaro SS and Buick GS for over 3 years now, pumping it same as regular unleaded fuel

The good news is you won't have to worry about any of the bad news I'm about to post below, so for Saberscar223, you should be just fine. For full disclosure I'm running E85 as much as possible in my car ($2.79 per gallon vs $4.19). Also for full disclosure one of my jobs at GM was leading the powertrain portfolio planning group, with responsibilities including analyzing product application mix to achieve regulatory compliance. That included setting up to achieve maximum credits where credits were in place. E85 usage offered a lot of credit reach at that time (not anymore).

The Good News:
In the late 90s or early 2000s GM made the decision to make all small block V8s E85 compatible. I was personally involved in making and executing the decision. The reason behind it is that GM was pushing the use of E85 to get maximum credits to help with fuel economy compliance. It was decided that eight cylinder Full Size Trucks and Utilities (Silverado, Sierra, Tahoe, Yukon, Escalade) would have a high enough penetration of E85 equipped applications that it made sense to harden the valves, valve seats and other components for all the V8s so that there would not be need to set up different RPO codes or to sort engines and components at the plant.

The Bad News:
Ethanol is very corrosive to certain engine components that are not properly prepared for use with high ethanol content. Beyond valve stems and valve seats I don't recall all the bad things that can happen or which components were most likely to be affected. I do recall those two because part of my team's role in the implementation was to confirm with Engineering that the correct valve stems and seats were specced for E85. That and I've seen teardowns off dyno of what valve stems and seats look like after running high concentrations of ethanol without sufficient hardening. It ain't pretty.

One more issue:
My team was only dealing with the powertrain end of it, so making certain that the engines we needed for E85 credits had a plan for hardening the engines. It was up to each vehicle team to make decisions on fuel pumps and fuel lines. E85 could also be corrosive to those components. For vehicle nameplates that had zero factory use of E85 it is very likely that those vehicles never saw an E85 ready fuel pump or fuel lines, so those could be long term failure points.

For OB0001, I cannot recall if Regal GS engines (2.0T I believe?) ever had E85 hardening done and in fact I sort of doubt it. I do recall we did not take the "harden them all" approach with the LGE family of engines, even though a lot of them did get E85 applications. And unfortunately I can't think of a single boosted E85 application during the time I ran powertrain portfolio planning, so you may want to keep an eye on that one.

[arpad_m]

Originally Posted by Martinjlm

The good news is you won't have to worry about any of the bad news I'm about to post below, so for Saberscar223, you should be just fine. For full disclosure I'm running E85 as much as possible in my car ($2.79 per gallon vs $4.19). Also for full disclosure one of my jobs at GM was leading the powertrain portfolio planning group, with responsibilities including analyzing product application mix to achieve regulatory compliance. That included setting up to achieve maximum credits where credits were in place. E85 usage offered a lot of credit reach at that time (not anymore).

The Good News:
In the late 90s or early 2000s GM made the decision to make all small block V8s E85 compatible. I was personally involved in making and executing the decision. The reason behind it is that GM was pushing the use of E85 to get maximum credits to help with fuel economy compliance. It was decided that eight cylinder Full Size Trucks and Utilities (Silverado, Sierra, Tahoe, Yukon, Escalade) would have a high enough penetration of E85 equipped applications that it made sense to harden the valves, valve seats and other components for all the V8s so that there would not be need to set up different RPO codes or to sort engines and components at the plant.

The Bad News:
Ethanol is very corrosive to certain engine components that are not properly prepared for use with high ethanol content. Beyond valve stems and valve seats I don't recall all the bad things that can happen or which components were most likely to be affected. I do recall those two because part of my team's role in the implementation was to confirm with Engineering that the correct valve stems and seats were specced for E85. That and I've seen teardowns off dyno of what valve stems and seats look like after running high concentrations of ethanol without sufficient hardening. It ain't pretty.

One more issue:
My team was only dealing with the powertrain end of it, so making certain that the engines we needed for E85 credits had a plan for hardening the engines. It was up to each vehicle team to make decisions on fuel pumps and fuel lines. E85 could also be corrosive to those components. For vehicle nameplates that had zero factory use of E85 it is very likely that those vehicles never saw an E85 ready fuel pump or fuel lines, so those could be long term failure points.

For OB0001, I cannot recall if Regal GS engines (2.0T I believe?) ever had E85 hardening done and in fact I sort of doubt it. I do recall we did not take the "harden them all" approach with the LGE family of engines, even though a lot of them did get E85 applications. And unfortunately I can't think of a single boosted E85 application during the time I ran powertrain portfolio planning, so you may want to keep an eye on that one.

James, we flex fuel runners all owe you one (or more) for your part in the decision on hardening small block V8s. Here's a belated virtual thank you

On the longevity note, do you think running a full tank of 93 (better yet, ethanol free 93) time and again to flush out all the alcohol helps, or is that useless because, say, the problem is not related to dwelling time but actual exposure?

[OB0001]

For OB0001, I cannot recall if Regal GS engines (2.0T I believe?) ever had E85 hardening done and in fact I sort of doubt it. I do recall we did not take the "harden them all" approach with the LGE family of engines, even though a lot of them did get E85 applications. And unfortunately I can't think of a single boosted E85 application during the time I ran powertrain portfolio planning, so you may want to keep an eye on that one.
__________________

2014 Buick Regal GS are flex fuel compatible

[Joshinator99]

Originally Posted by OB0001

For OB0001, I cannot recall if Regal GS engines (2.0T I believe?) ever had E85 hardening done and in fact I sort of doubt it. I do recall we did not take the "harden them all" approach with the LGE family of engines, even though a lot of them did get E85 applications. And unfortunately I can't think of a single boosted E85 application during the time I ran powertrain portfolio planning, so you may want to keep an eye on that one.
__________________

2014 Buick Regal GS are flex fuel compatible

Agreed. It was the same 2.0 that GM was sharing with Saab and even back in 2011 Saab advertised the 9-5 with the 2.0 as “BioPower” and you could fill with E85 and it would flex the tune accordingly. No way they would do that without the hardware prepped to handle it and the engines were run as delivered by GM.

[Mike818]

I converted my Evo 8 to full time E85 back in 2010. The only long term issue is its slowly softening / dissolving the plastic fuel pump hanger. When I went to do a fuel system upgrade a few years ago the hanger was sticky to the touch and soft enough to dig a finger nail into. I know this is also an issue on the Nissan GTR. What I don't know is if it's applicable here, but probably worth looking into.


I also have several E85 dedicated 5 gallon fuel containers I've used for a decade + ( CA approved ) that have lots of small black tar looking deposits in them. I assume that is either coming from the pumps, or the containers are themselves slowly dissolving and forming deposits.

[Need4Camaro]

Originally Posted by OB0001

Never had this problem, I have been running E85 in my Camaro SS and Buick GS for over 3 years now, pumping it same as regular unleaded fuel

It may be my local fuel station. There are only two that serve E85 within 50 miles of me. So I dont get much opportunity to test other pumps, but on cold winter days it could take about 5 minutes to fully refuel the car. Right now it takes on avg about 3 minutes.

[Martinjlm]

Originally Posted by OB0001

For OB0001, I cannot recall if Regal GS engines (2.0T I believe?) ever had E85 hardening done and in fact I sort of doubt it. I do recall we did not take the "harden them all" approach with the LGE family of engines, even though a lot of them did get E85 applications. And unfortunately I can't think of a single boosted E85 application during the time I ran powertrain portfolio planning, so you may want to keep an eye on that one.
__________________

2014 Buick Regal GS are flex fuel compatible

Originally Posted by Joshinator99

Agreed. It was the same 2.0 that GM was sharing with Saab and even back in 2011 Saab advertised the 9-5 with the 2.0 as “BioPower” and you could fill with E85 and it would flex the tune accordingly. No way they would do that without the hardware prepped to handle it and the engines were run as delivered by GM.

Good to hear. I had completely forgotten about BioPower.