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SVTPerformance's Chain of Restaurants
The Distillery
E85 eating main bearings???
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<blockquote data-quote="Jimmysidecarr" data-source="post: 11402765" data-attributes="member: 11681"><p><strong><span style="font-size: 12px">The reference to formic acid in that link is incorrect.</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="font-size: 12px">I talked to my Royal Purple technical services supervisor Chris today about this thread and some of the issues raised and here is his response. </span></strong></p><p></p><p></p><p>"The issue with the E85 is not formic acid. Formic acid is a product of the oxidation of methanol, not ethanol. Ethanol will oxidize into acetic acid; however, the real issue is that the ethanol itself is corrosive. It is a relatively weak corrosive substance (just a bit more than water), but will cause rust and oxidation. In an automotive application, high alcohol fuels can corrode metal components in the fuel system (and damage some polymers), and free ethanol can cause internal rusting of an engine.</p><p></p><p>In passenger cars made in the past 10 or 15 years, OEMs have made material changes to mitigate corrosion due to alcohol (i.e. more polymers in place of metals) and have started to use polymers and elastomers that are not as sensitive to the detrimental effects of ethanol. In a daily driven vehicle, engine corrosion due to ethanol fuel is not typically a problem, though, because most of the free ethanol will evaporate after the engine (and oil) are at operating temperature. In an infrequently driven vehicle, or worse yet, a vehicle that is operated routinely, but seldom gets to full operating temperature, free ethanol in the oil pan and other parts of the engine may cause non-trivial rust and corrosion issues.</p><p></p><p>As mentioned in post #24, the current API SN and ILSAC GF-5 oil specifications have added testing to help mitigate problems associated with free ethanol inside the engine by requiring the oils do a better job of keeping ethanol mixed with the oil. The downside to these new oils is restriction on phosphorus (and therefore anti-wear additive), but in most primarily street driven (and stock) applications this is not an issue. For highly modified engines using high alcohol content fuel, a good course of action would be to:</p><p></p><p>- Use an appropriate high performance motor oil</p><p>- Ensure that the fuel tuning is not allowing an excessive amount of unburned fuel</p><p>- Ensure that the engine is brought to full operating temperature when it is run (preferably for at least 15 to 20 minutes)</p><p>- Employ conservative oil change intervals based on time, rather than miles/kms for lower use vehicles</p><p></p><p>Be aware that the alcohol should not damage most engine oils. If enough ethanol collects in the oil it will either separate which could lead to “free ethanol” problems mentioned above, or it will stay in suspension in the oil and will degrade the oils performance as it accumulates. Or maybe a little of both. Also, oil analysis will not detect free ethanol in the crankcase if it has truly separated, unless it gets into the bottle with the oil sample. Another thing to be aware of is that TBN does not do anything to the corrosive action of free alcohol or water, so a high initial TBN will have little to no impact on the bad aspects of alcohol fuels."</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jimmysidecarr, post: 11402765, member: 11681"] [B][SIZE="3"]The reference to formic acid in that link is incorrect. I talked to my Royal Purple technical services supervisor Chris today about this thread and some of the issues raised and here is his response. [/SIZE][/B] "The issue with the E85 is not formic acid. Formic acid is a product of the oxidation of methanol, not ethanol. Ethanol will oxidize into acetic acid; however, the real issue is that the ethanol itself is corrosive. It is a relatively weak corrosive substance (just a bit more than water), but will cause rust and oxidation. In an automotive application, high alcohol fuels can corrode metal components in the fuel system (and damage some polymers), and free ethanol can cause internal rusting of an engine. In passenger cars made in the past 10 or 15 years, OEMs have made material changes to mitigate corrosion due to alcohol (i.e. more polymers in place of metals) and have started to use polymers and elastomers that are not as sensitive to the detrimental effects of ethanol. In a daily driven vehicle, engine corrosion due to ethanol fuel is not typically a problem, though, because most of the free ethanol will evaporate after the engine (and oil) are at operating temperature. In an infrequently driven vehicle, or worse yet, a vehicle that is operated routinely, but seldom gets to full operating temperature, free ethanol in the oil pan and other parts of the engine may cause non-trivial rust and corrosion issues. As mentioned in post #24, the current API SN and ILSAC GF-5 oil specifications have added testing to help mitigate problems associated with free ethanol inside the engine by requiring the oils do a better job of keeping ethanol mixed with the oil. The downside to these new oils is restriction on phosphorus (and therefore anti-wear additive), but in most primarily street driven (and stock) applications this is not an issue. For highly modified engines using high alcohol content fuel, a good course of action would be to: - Use an appropriate high performance motor oil - Ensure that the fuel tuning is not allowing an excessive amount of unburned fuel - Ensure that the engine is brought to full operating temperature when it is run (preferably for at least 15 to 20 minutes) - Employ conservative oil change intervals based on time, rather than miles/kms for lower use vehicles Be aware that the alcohol should not damage most engine oils. If enough ethanol collects in the oil it will either separate which could lead to “free ethanol” problems mentioned above, or it will stay in suspension in the oil and will degrade the oils performance as it accumulates. Or maybe a little of both. Also, oil analysis will not detect free ethanol in the crankcase if it has truly separated, unless it gets into the bottle with the oil sample. Another thing to be aware of is that TBN does not do anything to the corrosive action of free alcohol or water, so a high initial TBN will have little to no impact on the bad aspects of alcohol fuels." [/QUOTE]
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E85 eating main bearings???
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