E85 and Oil Breakdown

greggles said:

Quick search on BITOG (with e85 on tuned engines) appears to have lots of short OCI intervals. Doesn't seem to be anything in particular with one oil being better then the other, just that you need to cut the intervals down.

Most intervals across the board seem to be around 2-4k. (for tuned, turbo, Direct injection, E85 cars)

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Excellent research my friend.

I smelled a faint burn back-to-back days at high load. Was then 4k on OE fill, and during drain/fill it was as black as it can get. That oil saw a lot of E30 WOT for tune testing. Since putting in fresh OE, no smell and more peace of mind.

I wouldn't call it more then "cursory" research. You can always give yourself a headache by digging deep in to the BITOG discussions . But short intervals seemed to be very common with full E85 tunes.

UOA would really tell you what was going on, as color, smell, and even taste are not valid methods for determining how worn your oil is

All good points.

Just to add supportive finding on change intervals. From Penrite, an oil co. who's name comes up a lot when researching E85 oils:

"We get many calls regarding which of our oils are suitable for use with E85 fuel...

Many oils are suitable for use with E85 fuel, although the life of the oil may be different to an oil used with unleaded or diesel fuel, depending on the type of oil used and the application...

If you do choose to use E85 fuel, we recommend that you significantly reduce your service interval times to reduce the risk of fuel dilution of the oil, in both on road and competition vehicles."

http://www.penriteoil.com.au/commun...9-s-tech-tip-e85-fuel-and-suitable-engine-oil

It's really good info Crudulous, and thanks for bringing it up. I honestly had no idea prior to your post how quickly oil degrades with E85!

Gti jake said:

Anyone have a link for a reputable oil testing lab who can speak from experience? I run liquid moly at 7k drain interval but really should send out a sample to see if that's too long/short and how things look overall

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Are you running any extra E in your tank on that LM at 7K Jake? I just changed mine and put the sticker on for the next change after 7.5k but may rethink that and do it at 5k.