Would temporarily used E85 fuel safely clean up the combustion chamber?

[Atesz792]

It's just a wild idea, and I'm pretty much a noob in this subject, so feel free to call BS.
I have seen a few pictures of disassembled engines on this forum, and it appears they have a deposit-coated combustion chamber in common. Now I don't know how big a problem that is unless it causes detonation.. but I'm almost certain it doesn't do any good in there.
I've also read that internal parts of engines run on E85 (fuel with 85% ethanol, 15% regular gas in case it's not available in the US, I'm in the EU) are supposed to be as clean as new. So my idea is to take a few litres of E85 with myself in a safe container, run gas tank dry, pour in E85, start up, use it all up, get some fresh regular gas in the meantime, fill up tank when it is dry again, go home, do oil change (I'm up to it anyway...)
So I guess what I'm asking is:

-Would it be safe to do (that's my main question as I know this bike is not engineered to run on alcohol-based fuels so I don't know about its effects on gaskets etc... but then again a minimum of 5 or 10% ethanol is required by law in all our fuels here)?
-Would it even benefit me in the long run?
-How could I temporarily(!) richen up the fuel/air ratio? This would be necessary with the high amount of ethanol. Would just applying some choke do it (remember engine would already be warm), or does that only affect the pilot circuit?

Thanks in advance

[Badot]

I wouldn't worry about it unless it gives you problems, some amount of buildup is always normal and accounted for in the design of the engine. Even if you clean it out, it'll just get dirty again in a couple of miles unless you constantly run E85.

E10 still 'dries' your rubber parts, just nowhere near as much as E85. I have no idea how susceptible the GS parts are to it, however.




Slightly off topic, I'm in the US and haven't ever seen an E85 pump, and can count the E85 vehicles I've seen on one hand. To me it seems like it was more of a brief fad here than anything else.
It's the American way. Feel good about yourself supporting E85 while driving around your Hummer.

[Old Mechanic]

E85 has much lower BTU content than regular gas, pure alcohol is about 60% the BTU content of regular. Without massive changes in the fuel air mixture (much more rich) the bike will probably run like crap, if it runs at all on E85. I have no problems with E10 here in Va USA, didn't have a problem with E10 in my 1971 CB350. You might just try a fuel system cleaner-additive like seafoam or BG44K.

regards
Mech

[Atesz792]

Badot: Thanks four your input. E85 is common here, almost every fuel stations have it in stock, but I don't really think it sells well. When they started selling it, the price difference (no tax on the alcohol part) was enough for people to buy it... now the absolute difference is still the same, with the prices about 1,5x as much, so relatively you pay more if you use it. Not much Hungarian people will do that...

Old Mechanic: Thanks for your input, too. That's what I was referring to with the last question. As I am just looking for a temporary solution to richen the mixture, some ridiculous idea might just do the job... opinion?
Yeah, the main cause of even asking this is that the only thing I found locally was some Diesel injector cleaner... and I thought that's a bit far from the GS

[RossLH]

You could theoretically rejet for E85, but the jets would be huge you'd have to fill up obnoxiously often. Stoich for straight gasoline (E0) is 14.7:1, E10 is about 14.14:1, E85 is 9.77:1, and straight ethanol is 9:1.

However, your bike would smell great, and in my experience, E85 cleans the hell out of engines. A friend of mine, after he put 50k miles on his car, did some upgrades and ran it on E85 for 30k miles. When he took the engine apart to upgrade the internals, the pistons looked brand new. Awesome stuff.

[The Buddha]

You can also cheaply and freely de carbonise the bike by spraying water in the airbox when its running ... or I think wetting the air filter with water may do the trick, but you have to do it in a hot motor not cold. You also need to run it till the water is all gone for sure, inside and the filter (if you wet the filter).
Cool.
Buddha.

[Old Mechanic]

You might be able to run it with the choke on all the time, at least for a while, or use the choke for acceleration. Give it just enough choke to keep it running while you have the E85 in the tank, or run it a few miles then dilute the E85 with E0 to get the mixture close to correct.
Or just pull the plugs and spray some top end cleaner directly into the combustion chambers, let it sit for a while, fire it up and blow the crud out.
Bottom line for me is if the bike is running fine and has no spark knock, I would not worry about some carbon. It actually raises your compression some and makes the engine more efficient.

regards
Mech

[Atesz792]

Thanks for all the help 
Mech, you convinced me to leave it alone unless it knocks with your comment on efficiency
I guess I just got carried away by reading some 'cleaned my baby out with some seafoam' comments.

[Blueknyt]

you would have to richen the mixture by almost 30% for E85 (IIRC from a GSer that converted over)  which means you use about that for same number of miles.  Also, to realy get the biggest bang for buck while using E85, that compression ratio really needs to be bumped...consiterably. it does burn cooler compared to unleaded, cleaner too, but its weak.   its also hard on fuel system parts, rubber, steel and alum parts.   Budda, yeah, you can decarbonize by spritzing cold water down the intake of a warm engine.  its slow, and its very temporary, the idea isnt to stuff a garden hose down the intake while taching out the RPMS. rather chilled streams squirted down carbs one at a time while holding RPM's high enough to keep the engine from stalling. you want the engine warmed up when you do it. ive done it many times, it does work, but like anything else, there is a point at which it wont help.

[weedahoe]

What ever happened to people just using Seafoam?

[Atesz792]

What ever happened to people just using Seafoam?

Seafoam is not available where I live.

[weedahoe]

Design your contry restrict it's usage? If not, order it from eBay and import it. I do it all the time for various things. I even have had to had guys in other countries order things for me, have it shipped to them and then they personally ship it to me because my country would not allow it shipped here.