If you run E85 as your primary fuel or even more importantly converting a car to E85 or flex fuel, you need a large-capacity ethanol-resistant fuel filter. We have seen E85 destroy OEM filters, especially with older cars converted to E85, sometimes the ethanol dissolves the binder in the element and it disintegrates or starts to shed fibers sending these fragments downstream to clog your injectors. Ethanol also tends to scrub dirt and debris out of your fuel system especially when converting an older car to E85. Because of this, you need to replace your OEM filter with an exceptional fuel filter. We selected a DeatschWerks DWFF-160 filter with a 5-micron element. This filter can run a large -10 hose and has a large clog-resistant stainless steel filter element. The large 160mm long element can hold more material without losing flow if the E85 dislodges accumulated debris out of the older fuel system. We like to run a fine filter for E85, hence the 5-micron screen. The filter is available in 100, 50, 10, and 5-micron filter elements.
When we originally built our VG30DETT engine, the biggest available injectors were Nismo 550cc/min parts. Back in the day, these were considered to be huge and at the limit of what the OEM ECU could control. This limited power to around the high 500 whp level and if you wanted more power, you had to increase the fuel pressure to 4 bar. Now with modern technology and turbos much more power is possible from a 3 liter 6 cylinder and with flex fuel and E85 550cc injectors are grossly inadequate. DeatschWerks came to the rescue with a set of 1200cc top feed injectors.
The DeatschWerks injectors are high impedance to keep the ECU happy and flow 1200 cc/min. The injectors are based on the Bosch EV14 OEM quality injectors. The injectors also come with a 450-point characterization summary to help your tuner dial them in for flawless drivability. DW injectors are characterized across the 33 categories outlined by the SAE J1832 standard. The injectors are measured for flow mass, and pulse widths at varying pressures and voltages that the injectors would experience once installed in an engine. The collected data is statically analyzed and formatted into a characterization summary and the summary is formatted into application-specific formats for different makes, models, and tuning platforms.
The DeatschWerks injectors come with these adapter pigtails which make installation into our car’s wire harness a snap.
3 comments
It’s amazing what they achieved with that car back in the day.
I’m excited to see what a VG30 Can do with modern controls and components.
LS engines will wipe their cam lobes when this thing fires up.
When you say “older” car, does my 2000 Subaru with 02-06 WRX OEM fuel filter fall under that umbrella for E85 woes?
We ran a 2005 with an OEM filter for a couple of years on e85 and nothing happed. More like a pre-2000’s problem.