well until today I had the thoughts that water by itself was a better anti detonate/coolant than methanol or mixes.

Here is a great link with some really good NACA and SAE papers!-
http://not2fast.wryday.com/NACA/

Read NACA test 812 and it shows 70% methanol/30% water was MUCH more effective then water alone.
Some other chemicals I am not familiar with were even better than methanol at the same 70% mixture with water.

Tons of info in these papers.
Well water kills power no matter how you slice it when compared to a fuel of similar detonation properties.And mixing becomes a PITA.
So I am going to try stright methanol injection for next year.Plus I won't have to buy larger injectors as my 42.5s are maxed.

It's a proven fact methanol makes more power than gas and has huge charge cooling action. There is NO need for any sort of intercooler with a methanol fueled engine. Infact it's not unusual to see the intakes ice up with methanol as a fuel.
Several Import guys running 8's or better in 30psi boosted 4 bangers have swithced to methanol and ditched there intercoolers in the process.

But I think to do this with good results and still using gas as the prinary fuel source, you need to run at least .5lb of methanol to every 1lb of gas.
That's a good deal of flow.
I am thinking of a dual staged system with 1st stage on at WOT and second stage on at 10psi and with 2 nozzles, 1 before and 1 after the blower.
Inject with 100+psi and good atomizers and no worry about impeller damage for the pre blower stage.
I plan on making about 725-750 flwhp, setting the fuel/air ratio to about .076(~13.1 A-F) and injecting about 25 GPH of pure methanol.

Should cool the charge DRAMATICALLY(I'm non intercooled). I am not concerned about corrosion and my pump will easily handle that flow and pressure, My biggest concern is can the intake handle this much wet flow?
Much will vaporize, much more than if it were 27GPH of water or gasoline.
I may add a flow straightener at the throttlebody to help keep flow into the intake as straight and laminar as possible. A ls6 MAF screen fits perfectly.
And of course the system will have to be dead reliable.Not a problem either as these pumps are real workhorses.
It's nothing new of course as the Turbo buick guys have been using straight alcohol for a long time.

Any thoughts on this?

 

ethanol,alcohol and methanol will ice up intakes
my boss old car was a alcohol big block with a 8:71 blower
and it did that after every run!!

I would think an intercooler would still be beneficial
especially for street applications

 

Maybe having an intercooler for just street driving and kick the methanol in when you want a lot more boost. We're thinking about doing a water/alky kit with my setup to assist the intercooler.

 

Well I have 3 choices. Add an intercooler which is the most expensive route and I will still need better than pump gas and I will also need larger injectors.
Add a separate fuel cell and run pure race gas, but that is a strip only option and I can't afford to run race gas full time and again I'll need larger injectors.
Or try the methanol injection.
I already have the equipment for that so I am going to give it a try.
I have tried methanol only but no where near the amount I am planning now.
It should be interesting.

 

Steve . . . this seems to go against the article you posted in my thread . . . I was all ready to try pure water!! Have you tried just water to actually see how well it works?

And is methanol in this context different than denatured alky?

- Dug

 

Dug, yep it goes against my previous thinking of how great water is.
Yes I have tried straight water and straight methanol but manily stuck with 50/50 for tuning as I thought it was the way to go.
The best acceleration run I ever had was with NO water and 7GPH of methanol through the blower inlet.
I had no knock but had 40 degree higher charge temps than with 15gph of water/alky after the blower.
So I went back to water/alky and did no more tests with methanol only.
What I probably should have done was to try more methanol. But I was still thinking the methanol was less effective than water for detonation.The buick guys have been saying it for years, run straight alky. Now this SAE paper proves it in my mind they are right.
Straight water will stop detonation if you run enough. But at the same time it takes away a lot of potential HP.
What it does is allow you to make more power, but not near as much if you used a fuel only that allowed the same detonation control.
And I am all about making power.

I think water is a good cheap way to help stop detonation.
But it looks like using methanol only or at least 70% is the way to go.
Denatured is ethanol with a sprinkle of methanol or other solvents added to keep the wino's from drinking it.

Methanol is the alcohol of choice for making HP.
But it's not exactly a simple fuel to deal with. Need lot's of volume, teflon lined hoses etc.

 

70 30 mix thats the same winsheild washer fluid

 

check this out.
This has considerable impact on nozzle atomization as higher viscosity fluids are harder to atmomize.
Score another check mark for methanol only!

 

Steve, great info again!!

I have a question then . . . my kit ( SMC ) was designed to run pure denatured. Can I run methanol in it, or are you saying I need something additional?

I've got that 15gph nozzle on the way, do you think it would spray enough, or am I just gonna have to do some testing

 

Good information here too:

http://www.turbofast.com.au/racefuel13.html
http://www.hpt-sport.com/gasclass.htm

That 2nd article states this:

How would this affect the A/F? I'm thinking that the engine would have to be run richer to accomodate this, comments?

And could you in fact run windshield washer fluid??

- Dug

 

I have a similar setup on my car and have been playing around with it for a little while (I also have an intercooler). The pump/nozzle setup I put together can push some major flow. It can hit 300psi and I'm currently running an m10 first stage and an additional m10 in the second stage, but I've been blowing out the spark when I turn it above 100psi. I was running about 10psi of boost on a stock bottom end. Pictures can be seen here Look in the alky injection folder

I have been running a 50/50 mix and have not had the time to experiment with 100% meth. I've been doing other major mods to the motor recently, but plan to try pure meth once I get it running again. One thing I found was that it is pretty difficult to tune accurately with this type of setup. A progressive controller of some sort would be really nice and an onboard WB is a requirement.

 

No, The smc kit was not designed to be used with methanol. Purely a water or alky mix one or the other. I use straight denatured alky with my setup and appears to be working fine.

 

Dug,
I am not sure about that formula as we can only burn so much fuel.
I like the turbofast link, lot's of good info there.
The wideband measures oxygen content and gives a VOUT which the wideband display can transfer into a meaningful a-f Number.
here is a nice lamba to A-F table-
http://www.techedge.com.au/vehicle/wbo2/wblambda.htm
Shoot for 11-1 A-F on your display as that is a 4.8-1 methanol ratio.
I did not like denatured much. It seemed like it was less powerful and harder to tune.

QuickSilver2002,
I have the same pump. I run it as a return style system using a jet to control line pressure. I did take it to 300psi a few times when I was bench testing and detroyed my pressure gages in the process,lol.
Powerfull pumps!
I had to drop my plug gaps to .028 to keep them firing. I think eliminating the water will help in that area as well.
What is the white container next to your pump?

 

It is a small intermediate tank. I did not like the inherit surging in the diaphragm pump and this eliminated it (it is actually Cullen water filter container made for boats and RVs). It also helps provide full pressure right when the solenoid opens (no lag at all).