Eccoboom!

[ttrull]

Well, someone said if Ford says 87 is fine than it is fine. I can tell you straight up that Ford is telling me that I need to be running premium. That is even noted in my service records at Ford now.

If there is anyone with access to the Ford service records I would give them my info to look it up (I'd like to know what it says exactly as well)

 

[yamahaSHO]

Ford says 87 is fine. They are the ones that beat this engine to **** and back. If they say 87 is fine than it is. In theory the DI engine puts the fuel in there right before the spark plug fires so there should be little to no detonation. That's the reason you use high octane - detonation resistance.

You're thinking of pre-ignition. Knock happens after the spark. I'll point you to a site you pointed to ealier: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_knocking

Note:
Engines using indirect injection generally have lower levels of knock than direct injection engine, due to the greater dispersal of oxygen in the combustion chamber and lower injection pressures providing a more complete mixing of fuel and air.

Your engine doesn't care about the octane. All it cares about is clean fuel (the fuel filters take care of that) and no knocking. Ford has sensors in place (knock) to detect knock and adjust accordingly.

WRX's and STi's have knock sensors and 3 ways of dealing with knock/preignition (in addition to lowering boost in high knocking events across the board), but have you seen the track record on their motors? Stock motors are blowing up and it's probably SOA's most frequent replacment. I believe there is a massive thread about it on NASIOC or IWSTI.

I'm well aware of detonation, knocking, and all of that. I've driven cars that REQUIRE Premium. I've also driven cars that pinged badly on non premium. I also know it's very bad for the engine.

I'll part with this, directly from the 3rd printing of the 2010 Taurus Owner's manual, pg. 353 (Emphasis mine): You can view the manual at www.motorcraftservice.com



So, Ford the ones who made the engine, have a vested interest in longevity, etc. say the engine is designed to run on 87. Designed to run, not "can run" or "may run" or "should be used only emergencies". That means Ford is on the hook for it. I'll trust they beat the snot out of it on 87 and it will last a long time.

They use to recommend premium on cars that didn't need it either...

Do what you want - if you're comfortable with 93 that's fine. I'll stick with 87, pocket the difference and still have an engine in one piece at over 100k.

This platform is pretty new, so you guys are the test mules as they can only do so much simulation testing before production.

Personally, with twin hair driers, I would run premium. It's your car; all we can do is discuss.

 

[pitaSHO]

So, if it's called an EcoBOOM, does that mean it happens more than once?

 

[EcoBrick Bob]

Over & over in one's dreams......

 

[cetroutt]

you sure it's not just a bad case of crank cancer?

seriously though it sucks that this has happened to you, hopefully FORD will take care of this for you and anyone else if it happens again.

 

[itguy08]

You're thinking of pre-ignition. Knock happens after the spark. I'll point you to a site you pointed to ealier: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_knocking

Note:
Engines using indirect injection generally have lower levels of knock than direct injection engine, due to the greater dispersal of oxygen in the combustion chamber and lower injection pressures providing a more complete mixing of fuel and air.

I think they are referring to Diesel engines since in that paragraph they talk about knocking and Diesels.

From this link:
http://www.caranddriver.com/features/04q2/will_gasoline_direct_injection_finally_make_it_-column

"The direct-injection system then takes this hardware up a notch. First, the evaporation of the tiny droplets of fuel injected directly into the cylinder (at between 450 and 1700 psi) cools the intake mixture, producing a denser charge, which means more power.

Furthermore, the cooler charge is less prone to detonation. Further detonation resistance comes from more rapid combustion, which occurs because although the overall charge mixture is stoichiometric, the charge is locally richer in the vicinity of the spark plug. This causes the mixture to light off more vigorously and progress more quickly. Faster combustion means less spark advance, which is inherently more efficient and further reduces detonation sensitivity."

Not sure which is right but it's an interesting discussion. Too bad I play with servers day in and day out rather than cars!

This platform is pretty new, so you guys are the test mules as they can only do so much simulation testing before production.

Personally, with twin hair driers, I would run premium. It's your car; all we can do is discuss.

True - I'll stick with what the book says and hope it all works out.

 

[gmail]

I think they are referring to Diesel engines since in that paragraph they talk about knocking and Diesels.

From this link:
http://www.caranddriver.com/features/04q2/will_gasoline_direct_injection_finally_make_it_-column

"The direct-injection system then takes this hardware up a notch. First, the evaporation of the tiny droplets of fuel injected directly into the cylinder (at between 450 and 1700 psi) cools the intake mixture, producing a denser charge, which means more power.

Furthermore, the cooler charge is less prone to detonation. Further detonation resistance comes from more rapid combustion, which occurs because although the overall charge mixture is stoichiometric, the charge is locally richer in the vicinity of the spark plug. This causes the mixture to light off more vigorously and progress more quickly. Faster combustion means less spark advance, which is inherently more efficient and further reduces detonation sensitivity."

Not sure which is right but it's an interesting discussion. Too bad I play with servers day in and day out rather than cars!



True - I'll stick with what the book says and hope it all works out.

dont get it mixed up direct injection barely adds power.. more power comes from the fact you can run higher compression being that the fuel charge is cooler, plus the fuel tends to mix better but not always... a lot of the direct injection gas engines dont do a very good job of it.

at this stage automakers are mainly using it for bragging rights or at least they dont all have it down pat yet i guess would be best to say..


bottom line is direct injection is not worth the extra effort in my and others opinion as well..

i dont see direction injection conversion kits hitting shelves anytime soon.. granted for 2 stokes they are becoming big..

 

[SHO Continental]

its a SHO because the trunk badge says so...
but if thats super high output then my god whats a viper or z06 vette?
extremely super high out?

Skip right over the Z06 and go to the ZR1. 638hp 6.162L is 103.54 hp/liter.

SHO is 365hp 3.5 which is 104.28 hp/liter.

There you go, consider your mind blown.

 

[SHOtime2511]

A lot of the reason for direct injection development is to allow the use of alt. fuels like CNG and E85 to operate at the efficiency as gasoline.

I'm not going to speculate on the casue of the engine failure without some pictures of the carnage.

 

[shaker281]

positive not many engineers had a feeling Semi-Retiree Joe Blow GoldsteinBerg Sho owner was that much of cheap skate and wanted the cheapest gas possible for his twin turbo direct injection high compression engine making 365 horsepower to save 2 dollars

Oh, I get it! The guy with the Jewish name is the cheapskate! A Canadian antisemite, eh?

 

[Unknown_Driver]

Oh, I get it! The guy with the Jewish name is the cheapskate! A Canadian antisemite, eh?

slicha about that uncle leo...


you have nothing to worry about

 

[jedhead]

Skip right over the Z06 and go to the ZR1. 638hp 6.162L is 103.54 hp/liter.

SHO is 365hp 3.5 which is 104.28 hp/liter.

There you go, consider your mind blown.

And the 4.4L LC3 in my STS-V is 106.6hp per liter. Premium is required. My current tune has less aggressive timing than the stock tune because of the crappy 91 Octane gas we have here and the stock tune was pulling timing at high boost.

Bob

 

[Sho Amo]

and i have 400hp out of my 3.2

 

[yamahaSHO]

171+ hp/liter on 91 octane (w/o water/meth) here.

I just recently switched to 93; I'll hit the dyno again this summer.

 

[typhoon5000]

Still no pics yet?

 

[zblackbeast]

IMHO if you have the coin to afford a twin turboed performance car, you can afford the 4 dollar difference over a 16 gallon tank fill up, that is if the price difference is ~.25 cents a gallon between the two like it is here...

 

[Sy1100]

So lets get this straight, the type of gas thats is/was used has nothing to do with the problems I have had. The cars are tuned to use everything from 87-93 oct. Ford does say not to use e85, so the ones listed on the owners manual are safe to use, so whatever gas is used is a personal preference and is useless to debate over as everyone there own oppions. So here is the update, I droped the car off on Tuesday 6-7 at 11pm, got word on 6-8 that the car had a hole in the piston and was toast. I called Ford customer service on thursday 6-9, talked to a lady and went through everything that has gone on with the car from 3k miles till current, including the fact that the dealership could not give me a time of repair, and that this was unacceptable. She talles me that she is "escalating" this to a reginal director and that they will be in contact with me in two days, but seeing as this is thursday, that it will more than likely be monday, I tell her no problem. On Friday 6-10 I get a call from the reginal director, we go over all the problems I have had and how extermely upset I am about the car having this many problems and that basicly the two options that I feel ! give me a new car or 2 buy this car back. The director tells me he will be getting in contact with the dealership to get more info and that he will "escalate" this to the legal department. Monday 6-13 the dealership called and left a message saying they recieved a motor today and that the car should be ready by mid-week, i tried to call back and left messages but did not get a call back. 6-14 Get a call from the director on my voicemail saying that the dealership got a new motor and that car should be ready by mid-week and that he is still waiting to hear from legal. So today I went to the dealership to get a heads up after not being able to get a hold of my rep, I got to see the motor (pics to come), I asked if I get to keep it since it came out of my car and was immediately told I would have to pay the core charge or actually no ford wants this sent back to tem so thay can tear it down. The motor itself was never torn down but scoped so there is no carnage pics. Thats it for now sorry about the cliff notes but if this doesnt go the way I want my lawyer is all ready to go.

 

[yamahaSHO]

So lets get this straight, the type of gas thats is/was used has nothing to do with the problems I have had. The cars are tuned to use everything from 87-93 oct. Ford does say not to use e85, so the ones listed on the owners manual are safe to use, so whatever gas is used is a personal preference and is useless to debate over as everyone there own oppions.

I will someday look at how these are 'tuned' for different octane for these cars. My guess is that it's 'tuned' to handle knock like most motors. Problem is, it has to see knock to adjust for it (short-term/long-term/course/fine/etc). If these were designed to run on E85, then I'd say it has a sensor in the tank to measure content.

Good luck with getting the replacement.


Paragraphs please...

 

[somedude_001]

It sounds like they are handling the engine replacement fairly so far. I hope all goes well in the end.

edit: it is a turbo engine, that runs fairly high compression and a good amount of boost. I would bet that them saying it can handle low oct fuel is more from the marketing dept than engineering. I would not run low oct fuel in this engine if it were my car regardless of what the manual says. BEST case the car pulls timing to compensate or reduces boost and on either front it means you are down on power to save 3 bucks at the pump and worst case... it breaks

 

[Sy1100]

well got off the phone with Ford they wont buy the car back, or offer me an exteneded warrenty after I said I needed to get legal advice. so its off to the lawyer.