theres a few e85 threads going on at the moment and heres another one.
ive just had a little bit of work done to my head and my compression ratio is 11.2-1, open chamber head

this thing is pinging badly, ive taken the timing right out of it, richen the mixtures up added some octane booster. and it runs like sh*t.

so i have an e85 pump around the corner from me, so i drained the tank put a 20l jerry can of e 85 in, as a first run i set timing at 12 deg adv at 1000rpm(conservative) drilled some mains out to 200, f2 emulsion tubes, 160 airs. and the thing hammers with no indication of pinging, and i could still give it more ign advance.

i only went for one quick test this arvo then drained the tank and refilled the old fuel. and run it through.

so does anyone know if the weber carbs will hold up, or the mechanical fuel pump??

ive got a mech fuel pump diaphram and a piece of fuel hose sitting in some e85 in a container, ill let it sit for a month and see what it does.

but im really just concerned about the carbs, anyone with any knowledge or info??

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When the sign says "don't feed the bears", man you better not feed the bears.

also i think ive heard of people running methonol with webers, thats more corrosive than e85 no??

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When the sign says "don't feed the bears", man you better not feed the bears.

From my theory experience with E85, tuners have told me with an NA setup and stock compression is pretty much impossible to get detonation. Basically the more timing you put in will eventually peak, and then fall as you advance further, and then ping way after the power has started to drop.

With such a high compression ratio though I would think that you will experience detonation a lot sooner in comparison.

Its good to see that you've had a very good initial run with a fuel swap.

Can't help with the corrosion advice - but generally speaking most rubber hose and seals will eventually fail with exposure to ethanol. If you were to consider it a permanent swap it may be worth investing in a few fuel line setup from tank to carby.

Good stuff!

Done a bit of digging around on the net.
Seems there's a couple of people running e85 through webers, I going to call up weber performance centre where I bought the carbs and ask him if he has any experience.

But it also seems e85 isn't really that corrosive, I might just replace all the rubber fuel lines with new ones.
Keep a fuel filter before the pump. But I might add one after the pump aswell incase the mechanical fuel pump starts to break up. Then there's the screen filters in the webers themselves. I'll just check the filters often to see if there catching anything.

And I'll pull the tops off the webers and check the float bowls etc for corrosion or anything nasty.

But I do want to run it full time, I'm literally 5 mins from the e85 pump, although it is a flex fuel pump. So apparently e70 in winter and e85 in summer, but should still be fine with e70.
I may just tune it on e70 so I don't have to adjust anything for winter.
I think you can get an ethanol or octane tester, if it's selling e85 I can mix pulp to make it e70 so the tune can stay the same.

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When the sign says "don't feed the bears", man you better not feed the bears.

Dan from weber performance centre says you cant leave e85 in the carbs, after running e85 you have to drain the carbshe says it eats everything. But he made the reference to methanol as well. It sounds a bit extreme to me, but I really don't want to take any chances and ruin the carbs.

Still thinking I'll run the e85 full time though, I'm thinking if I can still run the mechanical fuel pump when I get home I can just run a hose from the mech fuel pump to a jerry can with pulp 98 in it. Run the unleaded through the carbs, so unleaded is storing in the carbs and fuel pump. It will literally take a few minutes.

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When the sign says "don't feed the bears", man you better not feed the bears.

I don't have any specific experience with carbs and E85 but know a few guys that run it in holleys. I would be very suprised if you have any corrosion issues. I have been using the United E85 for several years using aluminium tanks and lines etc. I have recently removed the tank and the foam withinit to inspect it and no signs of corrosion. I would be more worried about steel bits really. You can also get a corrosion inhibitor from places like revolution racegear, this is usually used with methanol but can be used w E85.

Regarding the comp ratio, the faster NA guys I race againsed have a comp ratio higher than 14:1 using E85, so you certainly wont have any det issues. I have run 35PSI on top of 9:1comp with no probs either. Its bloody good stuff!

Keep us updated on your progress.

I wouldnt even worry about having e85 in the carbs semi long term.
E85 is listed as corrosive to aluminium but in reality it doesnt seem to do much damage.

I would be more worried if you were using a 2000 series of aluminium. These are very prone to corrosion due to the higher copper addition.
No car parts are made out of this series of aluminium that i know.

I have heard that even normal fuel line seems to be ok with E85

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Circuit Race 1600 in the build

Yeah I'm not really too concerned about it. But if I'm running the mech fuel pump it's going to be be so easy to flush the carbs and pump, for a bit of piece of mind I may Aswell do it.
Im just stoked the pump is so close to me. I was pretty stumped When i put my head back on the engine and heard the engine pinging off it's head, then I googled e85 pumps on the central coast(and I think there's only one) and it's the closest servo to me, I didn't even know they sold it.

I'll do a bit of tuning on the weekend, but I think I'll need a bigger idle jet, pump jet. The main circuit seemed alright (200 mains!) but will probably tweak it more.
Was running about 12:1 afrs on the main circuit on an petrol wideband which equals about 8:1 e85

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When the sign says "don't feed the bears", man you better not feed the bears.

I posted an article or a link to an article that mentioned an additive to stop it corroding carburettor.
Ask Imago he may remember it and know where to find it

this might seem a bit extreme but what about a system like when switching from petrol to gas visa versa. run a reserve tank in the car so after you have fanged around on e85 switch it to sh*t fuel a few kms before you park it up.

I run basically the same compression ratio and engine has always ran on Avgas. But I have ran it on 98 with octane booster and had no issues. Suggest you get it tuned on a dyno to see what it is really doing.

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Original 77' 260Z 2+2