Last month I removed my fuel system to upgrade to the CJM S2SE fuel system and a larger fuel pump so that I can go ahead and turn up the boost and push the stock engine a little harder.
This gave me the exclusive opportunity to examine the effects of long term E85 use on the 370z.
Since switching to E85, my car has only run E85. In the 3 years there is only a single exception of one time when I pumped 3 gallons of 93 in the tank to extend my range to the next E85 station. My car was stored winters with E85 in the tank. No special precaution taken at any time, not even when driving the car again after winter storage.
This over 40,000 miles, and 2 years 11 months of straight E85. The car is 60,000 miles now.
I will let you come to your own conclusions while mentioning my findings. Please note that this is a visual inspection. Due to the appearance and function of the components, I did not deem it necessary to send anything out for flow testing etc to measure exact performance.
Pump module looks great from the outside. The factory hose left in there along with the CJM fuel pump install kit components are all looking good.
Everything that fuel travels through was pulled off the car. The inside of the fuel tank looked perfect, good as new. So did the factory fuel pipe (not shown).
The Aeromotive pump which is "not rated" for E85 looks the same as when I put it in.
Hard to photograph the internals but everything that could be seen in the inlet and outlet looked good as new. This pump was just installed into a different car to continue its life as it has continued to perform flawlessly and quietly.
This stuff is a little bit of a mystery. Hard to say where it came from. It looks like pieces of plastic or rubber, but when trying to remove, it was very much like a tar and smeared on the plastic and was extremely sticky.
Everything I could see in the injectors looked great and clean.
The fuel dampers looked slightly questionable. I cannot say if this is just some junk that got in there, or if something inside them was starting to come apart. It looked similar to the tar in the pump module. I went ahead and replaced them with fresh ones.
The rails looked good as new anywhere I could get light and line-of-sight
Injector outlets looked clean
My lower intake collector showed no signs of corrosion. My intake ports also looked very nice. My car has never had any sort of PCV catchcan or anything... ports look great. I would figure the E85 has been keeping them clean.
So as far as my conclusion... I have no idea why people are so afraid of E85 damaging everything! So maybe the dampers were damaged? Hard to say for sure... but even if they were, thats a cheap price to pay. I have seen other vehicles that developed some white residue and corrosion. So far, with my findings, I have to say that I believe their troubles were caused by an extra factor. Perhaps their local E85 station is storing it wrong? Or perhaps their local supply has some additional compound in it that is causing the problem?