Does anyone here run one of these and if so , is it store bought or did you make it up yourself? Hows it working? Any HP or ET gains, any downsides? Thanks
Use a small shot of N2O, Not nearly as corrosive as the methanol. If you do use some let me know if there is any rotor etching or any other negative effects.
I'm interested to see what kind, if any gains are possible. Granted mine is not blown (turbo and no intercooler) but the gains should still be worthwhile. I have read nothing but good things....I like to lurk around the buick GN sites, and some of the non-ic guys are able to push their boost up to 20-22 psi and nearly add 100 HP just by spraying windshield washer fluid into the intake. Impressive!
Ethanol has an effective octain rating that allows for 12:1 compression with no spark knock. it requires a bit less advance overall but likes a lot of initial advance. It will run cooler than gasoline and produce more power as long as you take advantage of the "octain rating". In a production motor the engine will use nearly twice the alcohol as gasoline and get less power than you get with gasoline at the 8.5:1 compression ratio. There is no advantage unless you either run some kind of compressor or very high compression ratio. ( unless your car overheats all the time and then with alcohol you can forget about overheating.)
Umm....PaulS....we're talking about METHANOL not ethanol. Ethanol is not available in all areas yet. Methanol is, for the most part.
I rigged up a squirter out of a motorcraft 2 barrel on one of my 429s. Ran windshield washer fluid/water mix through a washer bottle and pump. Used a micro switch on the carb against the plastic squirter cam on the holley that would come on at 3/4 throttle. Wired the carb switch to an "arming" toggle switch inside the car so that I could turn it off and on. Aimed the squirter jet at the back of the primary throttle bore and when the it would kick on, the stream drew down through the middle of the carb booster. Biggest trick I found was to put a piece of rod in the water supply line just behind the squirter. This served to decrease the area behind the squirter and increased the pressure so therea was a real hard stream and not a dribble. I could shoot two streams of water 20 ft across the garage by holding it up. Had the washer pump mounted to the news paper tube hood scoop. Looked like real ham & egg work to say the least. I ran it at the track and made some gains but it was in combination with some other changes so I will refrain from reporting numbers. Fact is I could advance the timing by 6 degrees without audible spark knock. This was on a 429 with milled D3VE heads domed forged pistons at 10:1 compression. When I tore that motor apart, the pistons were just brown/black in color with absolutely no carbon. Cleaver
What kind of pressure was the pump putting out? When I looked at some meth/h2o kits that were designed for turbo/blower applications, the pumps were putting out 100+ psi. They have to be high as sometimes the pressure in the manifold can get as high at 35-50 psi on race applications. A 10 psi pump won't cut it if you have any boost in the intake....it'll just try to push the meth/water back into the reservoir. Great idea though, and I might try to make something like that work on the XR
thanks Thanks for the replys - very interesting stuff, wish I could talk to someone with a blower car that actually set up their own system. I hate to spend 500.00 bucks w/o knowing that its worth the money...
There are several good systems on the market. The little known thing about this is that a tune should be done. With alky/water injection, ignition timing can be advanced and fuel leaned out for max power, otherwise little gain is obtained except keeping carbon low in the chambers. But!!!! if the injection fails in some manner after the tune, the motor can go into a lean condition real quick so has to be treated important as well as any other part of the motor. You can expect temp drops in the areas of 60 to 80 degrees with the correct amount of injection volume. What you are working with is flame speed, detonation suppression and temp drop. allowing you to do this as well as raise the boost if you want to.. With all these parameters you can see the need for the tuning for max power over just injection into a motor without any tuning.
I have no idea what pressure the pump was making. Sounds reasonable about the point you make mavman, about the difference in pressure under boost. Everything I run still has vacuum under the carb. I might have to dig that thing back out. Never really satisfied my own curiosity with it. Anyway it was a universal washer pump. It will cost you a big $12 at Auto Zoo to play around with. Cleaver
Back in the late 80's I used a varijection water injection unit on my turbo 2.3 in my off road sandrail. It suppressed the detonation and worked well. There were so many different variables to deal with though. The orfice size, when it would come on, etc. In my Maverick I am using an intercooler and I've thought about meth injection, but you have to inject it after the intercoolers and that system is much more expensive (needs higher pressure like Mavman said) than the ones that inject before the turbo. Corvair used a system on their turbo motors that used boost pressure to charge a tank filled with water or alcohol that in turn would spray into the inlet side of the turbo. I think that a design like this is sold under the name iceman or something like that if I remember correctly. Anyhow, my personal opinion? Injection adds too much complexity and can fail at inopportune moments. I'm going to rely on the intercoolers (even though the temps here in AZ will probably ADD temp to the intake charge!) and a good tune up. I've even purchased a boost timing device to dial back the timing when under boost, but I've decided not to use it. If you can get your hands on it, read Corky Bell's book Maximum Boost. He goes into each of these subjects and makes some valid arguments. Good luck and let us know what you end up doing!
methanol The pressurized system you are talking about is made my Anderson Ford Motorsports, and is called Mr. Freeze
methanol The pressurized system you are talking about is made my Anderson Ford Motorsports, and is called Mr. Freeze
IMO you can gain a lot more power in other ways for 500 bucks. The main reason this works so well in boosted engines is the evaporative cooling effect it has. Compressed air is much hotter and the water/alcohol mixture instantly evaporates wich cools the intake charge. If you are fuel injected and computer controled it will make all the adjustments to the air fuel ratio automaticly. Cooler air is denser and contains more oxygen and therefore more fuel can be added. More fuel and air more power and when it comes right down to it the ONLY way to increase power in a internal combustion engine (all else being equal ) is more air and fuel in the right proportion. Thats not to say that you won't realize some gains by adding this along with timing and fuel delivery adjustments but I would not expect a whole lot of gain. If some of you guys or gals have a chance to see a tractor pull ( yes, I was a farm boy ) go into the pits and look for one of those diesels with the side panels off. If the air plumbing from the turbo is painted or polished and you follow its path you will be able to tell exactly where this is being injected. The paint may be burned on one area of the tube and then look like it was just painted. Thats where the mixture is being injected. Some of these guys are running 200PSI!!!!!!! of boost and air intake temps can easily exceed 400!!!! degrees and no those are not misprints. One guy in perticular that I talked to was talking about torqueing the 3/4 inch rod bolts to 300 ft. lbs!!!!!! Gotta love that. OK this thing is getting long and I need to quit rambling on about tractors.
Knew of one particular tractor running 290psi with 4 turbos, with rods weighing 13lbs a piece, spinning 6500 rpm. Diesel,, 6 cyl, probably 1150 hp estmated hp. Last year, went to alcohol, 2 chargers, 150 psi of boost, same ci, and so much more torque was produced, in its first run, it totally destroyed the hardened drivetrain componets like it was nothing! The 4 charger diesil always had gasket problems, maybe 3 runs and your fixing it, The alky, with the same gasket, showed no signs of failure. They got it back together, they estimated it to have 350-500 more hp, by the fuel swap, and dropping 2 chargers off. In antique pulling, they pull the injectors out of diesel engines, screw in a set of spark plugs, and run em on methanol and make alot of torque. 300 psi of cyl pressure out of a diesil engine, run that on alky,,, well, its a match made in heaven! Grew up in pulling too! The technology of yesterdays pulling, was a foundation for all the research for the sudden hair dryer craze. One day, I seen a fella,,, had a IH 766,, alky burner,, twin charger, 5500# super stock,, ATPA,, he wound it up, easily let out of the clutch,, the front whels came up off the ground 3 feet, and never touched the ground until it crossed the 320ft mark,,,, engine never got hot, I cant ever remember seeing it get overheated,,, and I traveled around the US following that tractor on the circuit. Nobody had ever seen that before,,, whooped all over the competition,,, till somebody figured it out too and got by him,,, so you can see how business really picked up when they finally got one to run back then,,,, like they do now!! Im also sorry for ranting about pulling too! But this guy hit the nail on the head,,, you want to see how its done,,, go to a tractor pull, that has super stock alcohol pulling tractors. Most in the pits want to tell ya how it was done! Everything from EFI, 3000hp 6 cyls, and some real good basic technology to ponder. Oh, we had built a fuel rail, with ford injectors to hook up to an old puller, run it on gas and swap it over on alky on the starting line,,, Would have its own alky tank and high pressure pump,, I built it, but never used it,,, Chad
