What's needed to run a Coupe on E10.

As if this subject hasn't been done to death already I just want to share my past 10yrs experience running a coupe full time on E85 biofuel............it's been fine, the end

........ to be serious the only issues I've suffered with Rocket Ronnie have been paper fuel filters, the pumps and lines are in perfect condition without any effect to them or there operation, they are after market braided Teflon lined but the first build used the OE pipes without any failures so from this the only parts I suggest changing on our road cars are the rubber feed and return pipes in the engine bay to the new SAE rubber standard, conveniently supplied by FCSS and in stock at £38.00/set.
The injectors were sent off earlier this year for cleaning and an inspection, all came back with a positive report of no damage flowing within 2% of each other, these have been fitted since 2013 so the initial "it'll eat injectors" is crap.
I've been asked about E10 and modified coupes and my feeling are if you're running bigger power above 300bhp discuss fuelling check on the dyno with your local rolling road, by doing this you'll have a true AFR reading to ensure you're fuelling is safe across the range, it's something I'm having done on my LE later this month after I've changed my engine bay fuel pipes, for standard Coupes I don't feel it'll make much of a change as the ecu's will sort out the difference themselves.
16v owners, yes you guys will also need to think about changing those fuel lines in the engine bay, not as easy to access in comparison to the 20v model and the design will need them to be made with banjo fittings which I'm having made so at a guess they'll be around £10.00 more.

I'm sure there's gigs of useful information out there to give everyone hours of reading, I found this Shell link to be very informative.

That’s great.

Currently I am on holiday in France. For my 2008 Ford Focus 2l duratec I accidentally used E85. About 1/3 of the tank was full with E10. Thirst I did not worry and thought thought 15% ethanol would be fine, but saw later that E85 has 85% ethanol. After using 10l I of fuel I added E05 to get a better mix and hoped it would suffice. After travelling about 100km my check engine light went on. The engine sound is ok, power is there. I changed to E05 for the next fill and noticed no difference in engine behavior.

I will use my OBD2 reader when I am at home to check what the error code is.

My guess: the ecu sees something off spec and gives this warning. E.g. I read that wIth E85 fuel consumption is higher than with E10.

Did you get a check engine light on the coupe? What are your thoughts on the ecu side?


Reminder to myself: order the fuel hose set together with the new barnacle widget. If still affordable after Brexit..

Your long term fuel trim registered a prolonged lean condition that it could not cope with. Adding petrol will clear it, no harm done so long as you did not rag the car.

I mix E85 and E10 at the pump aiming for E40/50 in a 2008 Ford 2.5T. The performance increase is considerable when the engine is turbo charged. LTFT runs at +12, if I went to more than 50% E85 then it is likely I would see the light come on due to the LTFT issue. E40 is recognised as the point where you can see a performance increased due to ignition advance

As Clanger has said above as long as you haven't ragged it you'll be fine, engine check was probably picking up knock because of it running lean.

‘ Adding petrol will clear it, no harm done so long as you did not rag the car.‘

With a trailer fully packed …


Engine feels and sounds good though

I’ll have to order some of these hoses

Thanks CC, it's very reassuring.

I'd put this down to a lesson learnt, check the pump in future

I did. There were some circumstances but still stupid.

Not if you purchased based on price

Ive run the Abarth 500 on it for a couple of tanks worth the last two week but getting slightly less miles to a tank although not a huge amount

I'll be sticking with VPower for now, nobody has said that is stopping?

Spot on. I am home and read the error code: running lean.