I was on the design and developement team for Stanadyne Automotive/Delphi for the direst injection program of E85. We had tons of problems and as far as I know they are NOT completely fixed. To start with, the fuel pump could NOT make the min required cycles during test due to Material failure of the springs. We had to go back to the material supplier for a special grade of stainless.
As for "soaking" parts in E85 and not having a problem, well no kidding, you shouldn't. But when you run the stuff and get it flowing and moving it pulls water in, then the problems start. We ran "soak" tests with the same results that you got however during run in on the test stands and dynos we had a 65% failure rate. I don't think I really care foe a 50/50 shot that my car will run right or run at all. BTW the new cars comming out that run on E85 are required to have a limp home feature, does that tell you any thing. You should have seen the Dand PFMEA process we had to go through, what a nightmare that was.
