So, I've learned a thing or two about modern gas. It sucks.

I've had the fuel (a few gallons of 93) in the tank for less than a year. It's sat and I didn't put any fuel stabilizer in it. Didn't think much of it.

Fast forward to early this month. Wade tuned the car at idle, fans would turn off and on and temperature was completely under control...the car was running great. I put the new NGK plugs in and was ready to complete the final little bits before I drive it.

Literally, I went to start it after doing the idle tuning. It started and was running so rich, it was terrible. 8:1 at idle. I thought something slipped via a keystroke...so I pulled 40% fuel at idle in an attempt to get it to idle closer to 14:1. It ran for a about a minute, pushing fuel out of the exhaust like I've never seen. I simply didn't know an engine would even run that rich. I calibrated the O2 sensor just in case...didnt help. There was no reason that the software couldnt control the fuel curve, I had a hardware fault.

I checked the plugs, and some weren't firing.I went into diagnostic mode when I saw that some of my plugs were completely clean. I pulled the fuel rail out after I noticed that there was a ton of fuel coming out from one side more than the other. Low and behold, my #6 injector was stuck wide open. I bench tested the injectors with the rail attached. As soon as I turned the fuel pump on, it sprayed with just pressure from the pump on the line. I quickly turned the motor over and fuel sprayed out of the #6 cylinder. It probably has .25 of a liter of raw fuel in there. Thankfully it didn't fill it up while running, so I narrowly avoided hydrolocking a motor with 0 miles on it.

I went into recovery mode and checked compression. My other cylinders were at 195 and that one was at 165. I was assured by my confidants and engine builder that it was simply because the cylinder was washed with fuel. I'm going to re-test with some oil on the rings to verify that the compression comes back up.

I pulled the fuel rail and injectors and starting figuring what I need to do to fix this.

-Clean injectors and rail ultrasonically.
-Replace 10micron fuel filter.
-Change the oil and filter. It HAS to have fuel in it.
-Fresh gas, and fuel stabilizer in the tank.
-Run some non ethanol unleaded race fuel.
-DONT LET THE CAR SIT MORE THAN A MONTH WITH THE SAME FUEL.

Several sources confirmed that this 10% ethanol fuel can't be trusted, and it is very likely to make the car gum up sensitive parts with gunk when the ethanol dries. Apparently real e85 is worse at moving gunk around in a fuel system than this currently blend.







Lesson learned, don't let a car sit and clean the injectors when in doubt. I was orginally apprehensive about posting a mistake on my part, but I hope that someone else can avoid a problem by reading this. It's not a true account of the swap to this engine if I dont post the highs and the lows.