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durability of injectors, reg, pumps with meth

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Old 12-16-2007, 10:53 PM
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Default durability of injectors, reg, pumps with meth

i have asked this question before and still dont know. we are considering a duel fuel set up with no intercooler on a project. cheap 87 octane on a couple of central injectors and strait meth on the big injectors, maybe a few extra meth injectors or as many as 16 if needed to handle the power.

what is the durability of all of the fuel system parts when using meth? talking alcohol rated pumps, injectos, reg. can you leave the meth in the system just like gasoline or will everything die.

most people i ask say the stuff can't take it and it needs to be flushed after each day of racing.

one guy a was talking to at the track was running in the 7's with no intercooler and 16 meth injectors. he told me they never did any extra maintainance. 3 years on the same pump, injectors, reg and no failures. this was an all out race car but i wouldn't think that would make any difernce since the important question here has to do with the corosive effect of meth and if it will kill the fuel system parts without flushing after each race day.

soo, what do you guys know.
Old 12-17-2007, 09:43 AM
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Running 100% methanol is much more corrosive than running a water/meth mix like a lot of guys (like myself) do. Just change the pump and check the nozzle(s) regularly and you should be fine.

FWIW, from what I have seen, it is more benefitial to run an intercooler AND methanol injection vs slightly more boost that can be had by running no intercooler as you will be limited by the possibility of detonation with the higher IAT's from more boost and less cooling ability with no intercooler.
Old 12-17-2007, 10:46 AM
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I am thinking about the same set-up, i guess one of us will find out! Some of the regular racers that are local said the same as you heard, they just fuel up and race. They don't drain the system between races at all. It will be interesting to see what happens when the fuel in the tank gets warm from driving the car.......


Kurt
Originally Posted by parish8
i have asked this question before and still dont know. we are considering a duel fuel set up with no intercooler on a project. cheap 87 octane on a couple of central injectors and strait meth on the big injectors, maybe a few extra meth injectors or as many as 16 if needed to handle the power.

what is the durability of all of the fuel system parts when using meth? talking alcohol rated pumps, injectos, reg. can you leave the meth in the system just like gasoline or will everything die.

most people i ask say the stuff can't take it and it needs to be flushed after each day of racing.

one guy a was talking to at the track was running in the 7's with no intercooler and 16 meth injectors. he told me they never did any extra maintainance. 3 years on the same pump, injectors, reg and no failures. this was an all out race car but i wouldn't think that would make any difernce since the important question here has to do with the corosive effect of meth and if it will kill the fuel system parts without flushing after each race day.

soo, what do you guys know.
Old 12-17-2007, 11:12 AM
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hey guys we run a bs3 24 injector methanol setup on our BBC drag car. as mentioned the methanol is very corrosive. you need to have a dedicated fuel tank and preferrably stainless steel everything(or anodized). keep injector screens handy is one thing i would strongly suggest. alot of the alky guys just run out the fuel tank and run a little gas through for storage..one thing that i notice really helps is VP brand fuel as opposed to regular industrial m1. on our procharged car we still see 200 plus intake temps though but the turbo guys seem to be ok. my main question is that alky changes your a/f vs. gas and i dont know if a mixture of this quantity will be hell to tune. we use egt and spark plug readings only on our blown car but the turbo guys seem to be alright on o2 readings.

kurt- i'd be more than happy to give you a seasons worth of tuning methanol efi knowledge in exchange for knowledge with an lsx motor build for this season.

Last edited by shankels94ta; 12-17-2007 at 12:47 PM.
Old 12-17-2007, 04:43 PM
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Originally Posted by 427
I am thinking about the same set-up, i guess one of us will find out! Some of the regular racers that are local said the same as you heard, they just fuel up and race. They don't drain the system between races at all. It will be interesting to see what happens when the fuel in the tank gets warm from driving the car.......


Kurt

if we run duel fuel we wont turn the meth pump/pumps on till maybe 70kpa and start spraying those injectors at ~100kpa. at idle and cruise they shouldn't be running. maybe have a fuel presure switch that makes sure the rails are primed and up close to presure at all times but not runing the pumps unless above a certain kpa in the intake.
Old 12-17-2007, 05:35 PM
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I've always wondered about something like this also except like INTIMD8's setup. Using the first 8 injectors to run pump gas. Then, the next 8 to run pure alcohol. I think it would be an awesome setup. I just don't have the money to set up something like that.
Old 12-17-2007, 05:40 PM
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Originally Posted by parish8
if we run duel fuel we wont turn the meth pump/pumps on till maybe 70kpa and start spraying those injectors at ~100kpa. at idle and cruise they shouldn't be running. maybe have a fuel presure switch that makes sure the rails are primed and up close to presure at all times but not runing the pumps unless above a certain kpa in the intake.
that sounds prety good to me-
Old 12-17-2007, 05:43 PM
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I would be using a mechanical pump for the methanol because of the volume I would be using. I did try shutting off the pumps until just before I needed them in the Nova, but it did not work. I could not keep the rails under pressure when the boost came up, forcing a lean condition that scared me. I did drive on one pump, then add another on full throttle with the dual fuel system.

Kurt
Old 12-18-2007, 01:32 AM
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Could you use the BS3 to trigger an output for the alky. fuel pump before WOT to give it a chance to prime before firing the second set of injectors? Every time you hit 60% TPS the second pump could come on, keeping it's prime.
Old 12-18-2007, 05:55 AM
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Originally Posted by Whistler
Could you use the BS3 to trigger an output for the alky. fuel pump before WOT to give it a chance to prime before firing the second set of injectors? Every time you hit 60% TPS the second pump could come on, keeping it's prime.

thats what i was talking about. kick it on at lets say 5inchs of vacume but not ask for any fuel from the injectors till more like 3psi. give it a window of time to get presured up. it would be kicking on quite a bit but not on at idle or cruise.

thing is if you punch it from a 30 roll and it downshifts it can go from high vacume to high boost prety fast, even with a somewhat laggy turbo. i could see it having presure but just kooking the fuel in the rails and leting it boil where it shows presure but is really just a bunch of air and still take some time to purge itself.

what about a fuel cooler of some kind? i know on our fairmont project the fuel gets hot. maybe all fuel gets hot and have just never had a fuel cell before where i could fell how hot it was. definately seems like a bad thing.
Old 12-18-2007, 07:40 AM
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use a manual prime button to purge the system before you plan to floor it or make a pass down the track... just like most all alky kits have now, maybe use a second fp gauge too.

just mix some 104 unleaded in 15% with the alcohol for some 'sneaky punch' e85 and it will keep your fuel system straight.
Old 12-18-2007, 08:17 AM
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I used 50% throttle position to kick my second system fuel pumps, but the pumps could not pressure the rails fast enough.
I do run fuel coolers on both fuel tanks in the Nova. I sank two trans coolers in my water tank for the intercooler, the return fuel cycles back to the tanks after they pass through the coolers. It has worked well on two Power tour trips and one Drag week.

Kurt



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