My lq4 is e85, non intercooled, with bw s475. Considering adding a meth kit. Is the methanol worth the investment with e85. Is the hp gains the same as with gas. My setup is fuel injected, so it is really hard to know what IAT's are cylinder. Just running 10# of boost now. Does anyone have any experience using meth with e85 non-intercooled?

 

Your IAT sensor should be telling you what IATs are. Run pure meth with E85. Water is less effective than it is with gas.

 

i run pure meth with 93 n it works awesome. I dont agree with adding water

 

I've done quite a bit of research on this myself. As I understand, if you're looking for cooling, run washer solvent or 50/50 mix. It shouldn't change your fueling as much. If you're looking for a little extra fueling, run meth. Water and washer solvent will cool better than meth. This is all that I've heard talking to different people, so don't kill the messenger! Lol. Now, I have a similar setup to you and called a reputable company and talked to the owner for about 30 mins. Very knowledgable guy. I told him I planned on 15 psi of boost. He told me "well on e85 at 15 pounds, it's not necessary, but we can discuss a system." I thought that was pretty stand up. The guy that's selling the kits didn't try and jam a kit down my throat. Now I can't say that for another company that I called right before him. I was told that it would basically be a safety net and somewhat keep the IATs in check. If you call the main companies out there (AIS, Snow, Alky Control, etc.) you'll figure out who I talked to. I'm probably going to run a system on my car for the little bit of cooling it can provide. Don't know if this info helps or not, just thought if share.

 

You don't need a bandaid until you get cut. 10#s of boost with an LQ4 on E85 shouldn't have detonation problems. Unless you are dragstrip only, I would look into an intercooler before meth injection. Also, I have no idea why fuel injection would keep you from measuring IAT. I understand that you don't know ACTUAL cylinder IAT, but nobody else does either.

 

I'm wondering the same myself about e85 and meth without an intercooler. My plan is to run whatever boost it takes to go 9s on e85 with meth or water injected pre turbo on a L33 with just a LS1 cam.

 

I really don't see a need of adding meth with e85. e85 on its own should be MORE than enough to run more than 1,000 RWHP and go 8 second quarter mile times. Meth injection is ideal for pump gas cars with or without intercoolers. But if you are running e85, simply put, you are going to be wasting your money as e85 should take you WAY away from detonation all on its own.

Look at Slow86's S10 truck. He runs 8 second quarter mile times, probably pushing 1300 HP, all on the stock 5.3. Think its unreliable? He's been doing it for years and done countless races with it.

 

Research isn't really valid if your people you're talking to don't know what they are talking about. Internet research is a dangerous place also. Do you really think that washer fluid that is formulated, mixed, and mass produced to clean and defrost your windshield happens to magically fit the absolute perfect formulation to cool your IAT's and keep your engine away from detonation under boost? Now talk to the experts in meth injection. I'm not talking random people you meet on the street or even me. Talk to Julio at Alky Control, talk with the educated tech support guru's at Snow Performance. Look at what people here are doing successfully. My guess is your not going to find any of them running windshield washer fluid. I'm not saying it won't work, as I know some people that do it. But to think its more ideal than running straight meth, or a 50:50 water meth mix, then you are foolish.

As for what is ideal straight meth vs water meth mix, THAT is debatable. You'll find plenty of arguments on both sides of the table. Julio prefers straight meth, Snow Performance reccomends 50:50 water meth mix. Personally I believe the pure meth works better if you need it as a fuel where the water meth mix works better if you are using it for cooling purposes (this IS along the lines of what you were saying). You are not going to be wrong either way, but may need to find what works better for your setup. Straight meth is very corrosive, and very harmful to your health. Also something to consider.

 

Yes I have a IAT sensor. But with sensor does not let me know cooling affect of e85. I'll just have to watch plugs and could use a egt sensor. Running 10# for now, plan on turning it up. Just wondering what benefits meth would provide with e85.

 

Methanol does a better job of cooling the intake air than water, but water does a better job of cooling combustion. With E85, not much water is needed since it already burns cooler.

Lowering IATs helps with head/intake flow. For every 1 degree C*, the volume of air expands/contracts 1/273rd. Lowering IATs 50* C (90*F) from 200*F to 110*F changes air by 50/273rds or 18.3%. If your heads are choking, methanol in the intake charge would make a good difference.

 

I fully understand the benefits of running cooler IAT's. My point is that the e85 already keeps you so far away from detonation on its own (especially if we are just talking 10#'s of boost with PLENTY of room to turn it up) that adding meth would do nothing to enhance the safety or performance of the OP's car.

 

Water offers benefits well beyond just simply its affect on IAT

 

Just because water/meth isn't required to keep the engine from detonation, that doesn't mean there are no benefits to running it.

You will make more power per pound of boost with properly setup meth and/or water inj. than without. That’s all there is to it. It will also allow you to run closer to peak torque timing at higher boost levels without detonation.

Between the two, water is the best fluid for removing heat. Water doesn't typically work as well as meth because it's not flammable. You need a monster ignition system to light off a water heavy AF mixture. Assuming you could light off the mixture, water would be able to remove more heat form the CC than methanol.

Because most of us don't have arc welder ignition systems, 100% methanol will usually trump any mixture of water. It simply allows you to spray a larger volume of fluid without ignition problems. If tuned properly, the more you spray the better it works.

The 50/50 water/Meth mixture is more for safety than anything else. It happens to be the max percentage of meth you can have and remain non-flammable. Making it cheap and easy to ship for alky kit dealers with zero fire liability. It also doesn't swell the O-rings (at least not quickly) in the push to connect fittings sold with the cheaper kits.

I'd install the typical 12gph pre-turbo and spray 50/50 if you're using the cheap "push to connect" fitting kits. If you have the nicer kits (alkycontrol etc) with braided lines and fittings run 100% methanol and 30gph. Which is about the limit for most single pump systems.


What are you IAT temps now? Good rule of thumb is to keep them under 220 when running "normal" timing. If you're using AUX injection of any kind you're IAT sensor readings are useless. Fluid saturates the bulb and reports back false cool readings.

On E85, I'd feel comfortable turning the boost up (slowly while reading plugs) at moderate timing until I saw 200* charge temps. Then I'd crank on the AUX INJ and start pulling timing out quick. The small cam SBE LS guys I know running successful hot air cars run single digit timing and max their GM IAT sensors quickly. The high RPM large bore guys with monster cams run much higher timing.

 

I think too many are running away from my point in all this. The OP will not benefit from this at all with his setup. That's my point.

 

Want to see how much heat water pulls out of the chamber and how awesome it really is?


Here is a single pull on a fresh plug, 20lbs of boost, 17* timing, e50, a2w intercooler, iat 80 upt to 110

On a br7ef plug, safe but about as far as I would push it, half a turn of heat and you can see where the strap is just starting to burn the strap back a little





Now here is all the same.. But this is 4full pulls on fresh plugs back to back, same br7ef. 20psi and 18* timing.

But this is spraying a single 7gph nozzle of 70% water

Zero heat in the plug and hasn't even started bubble the first coating on the strap





I data log everything on a vbox, car not slower. If I can pull that much heat from the chamber and not slow the car it is a major win



Here is another benefit, hard to get a camera to take a decent pic, but that is a spark plug hole and that is a piston crown, that is the arrow on the piston. And the dish lip, absolutely polished just like new still

 

Shows what u know

 

The dude is already running E85 on low boost. He has plenty of safety as it is and can already turn up the timing safely. Running meth on top of that with the same setup will not gain anything. Worse, a meth injection setup is not free and does have to be installed, so now you are out your own time and money too by adding the system that gave you zero power or safety gains.

Is your example on 10 pounds of boost and e85 (we both know it's not)?

So who is the fool here?

 

The point is running meth/water on top WILL pick up power every time. Regardless of the base fuel used. It's not solely to prevent detonation or add octane. Water alone has many benefits to combustion. Back to back runs at the same boost level will make more power with water/meth. Been proven a million times. Especially on a hot air car... even at 10lbs.

 

This is where we will agree to disagree. The dude is not running high boost, he is not running a hard setup, he is running a VERY good fuel keeping him safe.

I do not agree that adding meth injection will give him any significant or any at all increase in power or safety over his current setup.

I am open to be proved wrong. OP feel free to do this and show me. Or anyone else with a similar low boosted setup already on e85 and add meth injection on the same timing and boost level and show me dyno charts. My guess is you won't find much or any evidence of this because e85 is already doing everything needed that meth won't improve. You can show me how meth cools and keeps safe all day long. It's not needed. I believe in meth injection (I use it in my car). But I will need to see dyno'd evidence for you to prove my theory wrong.

 

I run Meth, e85 and a IC. I know its over kill but we are seeing more inconsistancy lately w e up here in MN.

Senario 1: e95 has been found latley. car is tuned for 12.0 e85. e95 will make the car go leaner quite a bit. Adding the meth adds about .5 pt AF after my car was tuned at 12.0

Senario 2: Car is also tuned down to e70. E60 has been founds also. Now Ill notice right away the the car going 11.0 when e70 but have not accounted for e60. Timing is safe pre meth at e70. Now w the meth it keeps my octane up as well.

For me the extra 350 bucks and gas station washer fluid is well worth it IMHO.

Currently my build is been together for 4 years at 8xx and driven every week multiple times.