Is the IAT reduction in a turbocharged application running E-85 significant compared to gasoline? I see full methanol race cars running without an intercooler on big boost, I know there is a big difference in meth and E-85, but just curious.

My gears are turning and this could possibly turn out detrimental to my wallet

 

Yes and No...

Methanol's cooling properties are MUCH greater, but E85 is no slouch...

I have been thinking about eliminating my intercooler on my e85 powered grand national and then adding a methanol injection kit to reduce IATs. The tuning would be different than a stereotypical methanol injection system, and you would need to set it up to come on sooner, but I think it could actually do a pretty good job.

On top of that you have the E85 resisting detonation, so you can actually get away with a warmer IAT without detonation.

 

What I was thinking about was switching to E-85 and doing a compound boost setup, putting a turbo in front of my A2W intercooler Magnacharger, without a FMIC. I would upgrade to dual intercooler cores for the front A2W heat exchanger. I have considered running water/meth switched from the IAT sensor.

Thoughts?

 

The biggest advantage to running E85 is its detonation resistance. E85 is like running 100ish octane fuel at a fraction of the price.

 

Sounds like a tuning nightmare... matching the turbo for that combo would be hell... the trick would be finding the sweet spot where the turbo compliments the blower without being an exhaust restriction. If you were able to do it, methanol injection between the turbo and blower would be ideal. Do not use water... Methanol is much better for dropping IATs and you would want it to be completely vaporized before the blower.

 

Hellion Power Systems makes a twin turbo system for supercharged Cobra Mustangs, that's where I got the idea.

The concept in my head is pulley the blower down to get max low end tq and have the turbo carry things along at higher RPM. This would obviously be a SD tune setup. The blower I have is a MP112 on a LQ4 ( probably be a 408 by then) So the blower is right on edge of being not enough as it is. A concern I have is overdriving the blower pushing boost through it.

 

not any more. gas is now 1.79 for 91 and e85 is 1.55. so take in to count for the 25% more fuel burn and it real doesn't help any more.

i am still going to run it. but befor i was looking at 3.80 for 91 and and 2.25 for e85. that would of paid for itself.

 

Yup after you posted this I went and re read all I could find on the compound boost setups.... Honestly after reading all of the terminator stuff and seeing that it is working well in quite a few cars I think if you have the time and money it would be worth a shot!

Read everything, spend time on the 03-04 cobra boards and see if Hellion will talk to ya.

Im thinking a 408, blower, and a turbo would really be pretty wicked if you could get it to work right... Also if what i just read is true the turbo will make up for the lack of blower flow... You are basically multiplying boost pressures. You may also want to leave the engine alone if you're going to do this and just let the power adders do the work. Especially if you already have good internals. You are going to need bigger head studs and more than likely will need to O-ring the heads.

Lets say you are putting in 10lbs of turbo pressure... You are cramming in however much air the turbo can flow at 10psi that is then compressed again in the blower... not sure how all the math works out, but in the end it multiplies... 10lbs turbo pressure+a 10lb pulley would not equal 20psi total pressure but more like 30+psi. Just remember that boost pressure is not HP, it is a sign of resistance. Air flow is HP, but with this kind of setup you are compressing compressed air allowing for a massive amount of air flow.

So in reality a proper sized turbo running at 4lbs could add more than 100+ Hp, but it would actually make the blower more efficient in the process. The blower helps the turbo and then the turbo helps the blower...

Now for sizing the turbo what I read said to figure out what your blower+engine acts like... So a 408 with a 10lb pulley would act like a 600+ci engine at full boost. So you would need to make sure your turbo's exhaust housing can flow enough to support a 600+ ci engine. I think this is why a lot of guys run twins. That is also why I would run a smaller Ci engine and just let the blower/turbos do the work. People only step up to a larger Ci for turbo setups to reduce lag, but that's what the blower is for right? If you are going for an engine build, I would go for strength as you are going to need it because with both blower and turbo's you're just not going to need to extra displacement.

NOTE*** All number's used in this post are no where near correct, but theoretical examples... There are formulas out there to figure it all out, but I was just giving basic examples and trying to explain how it all works. This is all theory: I have not used a setup like this, this is just how I understand the concept. This IS a proven concept, it dates back to the 30's and 40's and is still in use by the US military and in industrial vehicles all over the world. It works, but the question is: is it worth the hassle/money to you for your application.

 

Your cylinder heads still need to be able to flow all this....just because there is pressure there, that don't mean you can flow it. And of course the mix is way hot at this point.

 

Oh I know, just letting him know what the deal is. To bring IATs down a bit I would spray methanol post turbo/pre blower. The trick would be getting the nozzle in the right spot to make sure there is optimum vaporization to make sure the charge is cooled properly. I think that plus the magnacharger intercooler would work pretty well.

Also I dont know if the magnachargers blower rotors are coated. You may want to investigate if people are spraying meth into the blower and if it will harm the rotors if they are coated.

The Cobra guys would be the ones you need to talk to about this kind of setup.

Remember this is all pointless if your engine and drivetrain cant handle the extra power. I could see this being a great truck setup though, lots of low end grunt!

 

Keep an eye out for a compound boost setup thread on here, if I can find some one who will trade me a Radix mp112 blower for a turbo kit

 

I used to work with older Detroit diesels that ran a turbo into a roots s/c, thought it was pretty neat then. I have an endless supply of rebuildable core turbos, and a pretty good working relationship with several local turbo shops. I guess if im going through all this stuff a FMIC is chump change, I should plan on it. Probably need to run BS3 or equivalent to drive low impedance injectors. This could get expensive.

 

Boy, there is a lot of incorrect information there.....