Ethanol Fuel Warning

[mphatc]

Friends,

I went boating for my last day in 2006 . . Late in the year here in NH . .

53 degrees, no wind, no other boaters, Winni was flat! if you can imagine that . .no waves . . . only a few loons and me . . . :wink:

After warming up the boat at the dock for 20 minutes in 49 degree water . .I headed out . .

The air was crisp and I was really appreciating the windshield on the Corsican . .as we were running along at 4600 rpm for 7 - 8 minutes:) :) I was realy enjoying the moment . . . Then . . . I heard and felt a big PPSSHHIT followed by a few pssshhits . . . . after which I slowed the boat to 3000 rpm . . I wasn't stopping in November in the middle of this pond . . .

Long story short . . I now have ZERO compression in my 38 hour old Ford 302! Engine number 3 in three years . . another very long long story

As far as I can tell after removing all the plugs and reviewing the set up . .

It has to be fuel:confused: . . . ethanol fuel . .

My engine is a 96 302 ford .030 over running J&E 9.0 : 1 CR and has 10% ethanol fuel that WAS 93 octane . . but it is as best my whole family can remember atleast 8-10 weeks old . . there was no boating in October, and we were in CO over Labor Day W/E.

Now knowing that there are ethanol fuel problems, this morning, after trailering the boat 7 miles to my shop I sampled the gas at the carb by drawing off 1 gallon into a clear jug . . no visable separation or water . . and then I started the boat on the muffs, retarded ignition timing 3 - 4 degrees . .reset the idle . . and off to the lake I went.

I have run this engine all summer , and run it hard , often at full throttle for several minutes . . , never a hick up . . now this . .

Needless to say my afternoon was spent pulling the engine which I can now do in 1 1/2 hours . . . .

In many years of building engines, this is the 1st engine of mine ever to have failed from a burnt piston . . . and most of my engines are high strung race engines . . being run at 7K rpm all day long . .

fwiw, defensive side of me . . :confused: I built only this 302, as my business is building engines and race cars . . the previous 2 were done by a machine shop I hired as my shop work load did not allow me any extra time :frown: :frown: :frown:

I want to cry, I can't afford this . . and feel very empty . . .

FWIW, to return to the ramp I had to run another 12 miles , all w/o a hick up at 3300 rpm . .on 7 cylinders, and those 7 spark plugs look like a perfect running engine . . .

Thoughts ???

Mario

[Pismo]

Ethanol fuel has become the new Global Warming (ie it is responsible for all the problems in the world). I doubt ethanol had anything to do with your failure. Ethanol has always been in gas, there is just a little more now.

[Mr X]

Agreed,
I thought Ethanol burned cooler than Gasoline...
Sound like maybe a lean condition or detonation.
What is your total timing? Have you been using the same fuel system and/or the same ignition system on all 3 engines?? It maybe something to check out.

[Carl C]

I also don't think that you can blame this one on alcohol. The 302 is a very reliable motor, as a direct decendent of the old flathead motors it has been tweaked and perfected over many years. Burnt pistons are not common to FSBs but I have seen numerous cracked skirts on high hour engines. My guesses would be pre-ignition or high operating temperature. :alligator

[mphatc]

From everything I have been able to read the 10% ethanol in todays fuel along with the other additives adds octane to offset the loss of MTBE, and it adds octane at a greater percentage than MTBE did . . but the fuel ages very quickly . . 4-6 weeks it looses octane, and mine was 8-10 weeks old. As it ages the fuel looses octane very quickly . .which was why I retarded my ignition timing to 28 degress total advance.
Several test show the ethanol fuels show a loss of power in engines, on the order of 3-5 % . .

some info here:
http://www.daybreakfishing.com/ethanol-fuel.html

The ignition system is the Prestolite with a Pertronix and has been on all 3 engines . . neither engine showed signs of detonation.

The first engine was the original since 1969 H&M 302 and was replaced because the block had an external crack from freezing.

The second had bad machining causing the headgaskets to leak immense quantities of water into the oil, when that was corrected it wore out the rings in 35 hours because of the wrong texture hone. Needless to say this machine shop has a few issues with me . .

The third is the present engine, same block as the above, new J&E pistons bored and hones .030 with a lower than stock compression ratio . .

The present set up never ran warm, matter of fact I have had a very hard time getting this engine to run at 160 degrees in 75 degree water . .
None of the other spark plugs show signs of lean running and never have, They have been inspected atleast 4x over the summer . .

I can't understand how a run in the mid 4000 rpm range , and never an indication of warm coolant temps can cause one cylinder to run lean

I warmed the boat at the dock for 10+ minutes, and before I could even throttle up I had to motor out of a wake free zone for 1/4 mile . . so there was plenty of cooling . .

Help me to understand what I am missing . . other than a piston and a ton of money!

Mario

[MOP]

I thougt about what you told me last night, you did not mention the water in the ports. There is more then a good chance that a gasket failed sprayed a little water into that cylinder and it went off Boom! Get that head off then let us know what things look like, I would like to see a pic of that piston I am pretty familiar with water wash. Jury still out on this end!

Ok another tilt on Ethanol! I gas at the street pumps, NY has had E in the gas all along. I just recently pulled the filters and pickups on both my tanks as I suspected a restriction, I found an aluminum shaving stuck in my aft tanks anti syphon valve. Anyway after 2 years running -0- water in the aft filter and about a table spoon in the front tanks filter, the front is the origianl tank and was empty last year. I am starting think we all are blowing the Alky problem up a bit more then it is.
Like I said "Jury" is out lets see a pick of the evil #3

[LKSD]

I'd have to agree a lot with MOP on this one.. Also did you get the top end apart yet to see the pistons? Or are you just going on a comp test?? If water got in there it could have caused dammage, But It is plausable you may have had a valve issue as well.. Keep us posted & some pics of the cylinder, the manifolds, gasket & head might help us to help you a bit more as to what caused this.. Sorry to hear about your less than pleasureable boating day.. Jamie / lakeside

[olredalert]

------Mario,,,After our last conversation about my engine problems, you know I feel your pain. Phils thoughts make some sense as the other cylinders show no degradation whatsoever. Beyond that, I would have to say that both my boats had full tanks of ethanol combo thru the whole winter two years in a row and show no signs of anything amiss in the spring at launch time. I know we will all be waiting for you to pull that head. Stick with it, my friend, it will get better........Bill S

[mphatc]

I pulled both heads off today . .

I'll admit right away that I jumped to a conclusion from my compression test . . there are no burned pistons, no piston damage at all . . no cylinderwall damage . . recall I ran the engine for another 12 miles after this happened.

what I do have is an intake valve that is partially sucked up into the intake port . .
The spark plug from that cylinder only has a partial ground electrode and certainly has been very overheated.

I can expect to see this on an exhaust valve, but not an intake . .??

Close inspection of all gasket surfaces shows no signs of water leakage . . my intake manifold has no water passages except the front crossover to the thermostat .

Phil commented on the water I saw when I removed the H&M logs . . this was on a couple of ports, yet I see no signs of water in the cylinders . . none of the pistons are washed . ..

I'll post pictures later.

Mario

[olredalert]

-----Defective valve??? Not properly heat treated??? Talk about wild guesses. At least the bottom end is OK and that is the important part.....Bill S

[MOP]

This is one "Tulip" that has saved you some grief:yippie: Like you said it had to come out anyway so a few sneaky upgrades are now in order, don't tell Linda I said that:crossfing

[LKSD]

I had a volvo client that had a similar issue to this. He had it other places & they sold him tune ups & injector cleaner!!:bonk: :bonk: :bonk:

He came to us & we fixed him up.. I dont seen the "tuliping" too much though.. So I can see why you may have first feared the worst.. My guess is the valve was defective or weak, unless you "floated" the valve train before a bit.. Keep us posted as to how you fair out.. :) Jamie / Lakeside

[olredalert]

-----I have a tulipped big-block valve laying around here somewhere that is so stretched that I could spin the valve spring around with my fingers. Came out of one of the 540s in my old Cigarette Mistress. Hard to believe it didnt break. I was always under the impression that the motor had run lean for a couple of minutes and luckily I heard the cylinder miss and shut that motor down until I discovered the problem........Bill S

[MOP]

Bill I know he was some happy to wipe the sweat off his brow!

[mphatc]

OK, here's some pictures . .

After discussing this with my machine shop this AM, they build NASCAR engines and a engines for few offshore race boats. . . and have seen this once or twice . . but never on an intake valve alone . . go figure . .

They suspect it is from a misting of water, possible reversion through my exhaust valve . onto the intake, which is the weaker of the two valves.

We are now suspect of the H&M logs, possibly they cracked in the mild cold weather we've had, night time temps as low as 26 degrees for a few hours??
They are old, and lord knows these fail . .

I'll pull the logs apart this week and pressure test them, I hope it is conclusive!

The only positive of all this is the chance to upgrade my cylinderheads . . and go with something better than the GT40P heads . . and I guess I'll buy a set of those Aussie Headers . .

Picture 0202 is of the bad intake valve. It is sucked in a good 3/16"
Picture 012 is of the matching piston
Picture 016 is of the front cylinder on the opposite head . . taken w/o flash.
this one was very wet at disassembly and water ran out of the exhaust port of the H&M log! Another reason I suspect the manifolds. Amazing I did not hydro lock the engine when I restarted twice after this happened!

I only hope I can find the cause, I hate not knowing why!!!

Mario

PS, I wrote in an earlier reply " yet I see no signs of water in the cylinders . . none of the pistons are washed . .."
I need to expand on that . .no signs of water during running time . . I often see car race engines with blown headgaskets, and piston crowns so clean you could eat off them, none of that here . . . .

[MOP]

Mount those old logs on the mantle, had a hunch!