The toilet is what you put on when you're tired of fooling around with a carb! It just bolts on in place of a carb on any regular intake manifold and provides excellent consistency, excellent throttle response, and it's so simple it's funny (no floats, one jet, 2 lines, and a 4" dia butterfly). http://www.killerrons.com explains how it works a little better than Ron's website.
This poses another question...how does it work better than an alky carb? It's got to have a distinct advantage as the cost is twice what a carb built for alchohol would cost. Also is their a certain type of alchohol used? and it's cost vs. 116 octane racing fuel? Is it more advantageous to run it on a high comp motor or low? Boy...we have opened a can of worms here. The old noggin is in high gear now
Mechanicl injection is a step up from a carb, but a step below EFI. ANY mechanical alcohol injection will be at a minimum a tenth faster than a alky carb. Cost? Well, seeing that Rupert and Pro Systems want $1200 for an alky dominator (and the Dominator is all we should be concerned with in a drag car), plus the pump, lines, and whatever else you'll need, like a primer for starting, idling on gas or a home-made lean out valve to warm it up faster...the cost isnt' that much different. If you called James Monroe and tell him your application, he'll give you a price...and it's usually the same as what's listed on his site. How does it work better than an alky carb? Well, for starters, it's 10 times simpler. Carbs have 2 floats, 4 jets, 2 power valves (if you use them...most of us don't), boosters, high & low speed air bleeds, 4 idle mixture screws...you know the drill. All that stuff can be adjusted, and that's just that much stuff to confuse you. With the Toilet (or any other mech. injection) you have 1 "pill" (actually a return jet), one pressure line from the front-mounted pump, one return line back to the cell, and a line from the cell to the pump. That's it. There are also some nozzle jets, but you don't need to worry with those after you get it dialed in. In fact, once it's dialed in, you don't need to touch it. I haven't touched mine in 3 years, literally. Once I got the 68 pill and the barrell valve set, I tried different stuff to see if it would get any more consistent, and it didn't change, so I just put it back the way it was. How many folks can say that they have bolted a carb on (espeically an alky carb) and haven't had to touch it in 3 years? Another advantage is throttle response. Mechanical injection is instant. Very little part throttle, it's either on or off basically. They don't have much of a part-throttle metering system either, so if you're looking for a smooth running engine, mech. injection is not for you. The injection systems (all of them...from top fuel cars to sprint cars to indy cars) all must have some sort of mechanical fuel shut off, because there are no floats, no bowls, just a pressure & return line, the engine will continue to run in any direction, including upside down. So, if you somehow got on your top (let's hope we don't do that) it'd run just fine. Wouldn't have any oil pressure, but it'd run great. That shutoff valve...you can pull it about halfway out when the engine is cold, and it leans the engine quite a bit....enough to achieve 1000+ EGT and warms it up pretty fast that way. Not as fast as a gas engine, but close. You can't do that with an alky carb...you have to find a way to make a lean out valve, with something like a hose on the base of the carb routed back to the shifter or something...with a valve on the end that would allow you to create a controlled vacuum leak. Even then, it'll idle REAL fast. James came up with a Primer Plus system...which is like a nitrous spray bar that goes under the carb/throttle body, that is hooked to a cheap fuel pump and a 1 qt fuel cell...it allows you to start & run on gas, then switch to the injection for the burnout & run. Then you pull out the mech. shut off valve, and go back to gas to drive back to the pits. That saves a ton of fuel. I don't have one yet, but may look into it more in the future. I don't know what you pay for 116 gas, but alky is $2.00/gal here. $2.50 at the track, and that's where I generally buy it. It's the same stuff you can get at any race track (methanol). Not the stuff you drink. Drink Methanol and you'll go blind! What is it's octane rating? About 114.....BUT, take into consideration that alky gets REALLY cold when it evaporates, and it acts kind of like a charge air cooler....which is why you hear of alcohol injection on turbo/supercharged cars. So, if you take that into consideration, you'll find out that it's superior to 116 race fuel with the exception that you'll "generally" use twice as much. With a primer plus system from Monroe, you'll use the same amount of alky as you would gas...maybe a little more, but not much. Ok: Advantages of alc injection over alky carb-quicker response, MUCH MUCH simpler, easier to tune, less parts to go wrong, set-it-and-forget-it type thing. Disadvantage, without the primer plus, you'll use a bunch of fuel..a little more than you would with a carb (not much though) and sometimes they can be a bear to start especially when cold. The primer plus system takes care of that. Advantage of alky over gas: Runs cooler, more power (you'll typically pick up .3-.4 and a few MPH over a gas carb), easier on parts (burns slower), safer (alky fire can be put out with water), cheaper, burns cleaner--so clean in fact that it's impossible to read plugs, more torque, better response, MUCH more consistent (alky doesn't get affected much by weather changes...and injection is even less affected than a carb is). The consistency is what sold me. I have left the same dial in on the car for 5 race meets during the summer....and our summers here, we start at 10 am (temp around 80, humidity 85-90% and the middle of the day it'd be 105 and hum. approx. 50%, then nightfall brings high 70's and 100% humidity)....and my dial-in would stay the same and it'd run the number every time, week after week. Engine runs sooo much cooler. In fact, in the summer time, my car only gains maybe 10-15 degrees of water temp during a run. I usually only have to turn on the water pump once I get back to the pits and only in the later rounds (filled block). The fan is just there for looks. It hasn't been used in probably close to 3 years now. No, I don't use the water pump during the burnout/run. Don't have to. Disadvantage of alky over gas: alcohol dries stuff out. It soaks up water vapor from the atmosphere FAST if not kept sealed, and since the stuff evaporates almost instantly, it causes a drying action. That is what rusts & corrodes stuff. Since it absorbs moisture so readily, if the engine isn't warmed up & kept hot, it will cause "milk" in the oil...just from the moisture. Get it hot in the morning, race all day, and get it to 200+ before you put it up, and it won't milk usually. You'll use "generally" twice as much, so you'll have to carry more fuel with you. Where you'd usually keep 5 gallons of gas, you'll want to keep 10 gallons (maybe more) of alcohol. It's poisonous--will cause blindness if you drink it. It's also nasty to get in your eyes if you're not used to it....and also makes your nose & throat burn. Put some fragrance & top lube in the fuel can before filling them, and you can kill 2 birds with one stone---lube up the fuel system/engine top end and keep the fumes from irritatating you as bad. With either injection or carb, you're going to want to move the fuel cell out front of the motor...and use a engine-mounted pump. That will make it a LOT easier to deal with. You can put a cell out back & run lines (carb only) but it can cause headaches. Since it burns cooler, it's a bear to warm the engine up, but like I mentioned, with injection, it's not that bad. Carbs are a pain in the butt though! Hope that old noggin ain't hurtin' too bad there Rick...Trust me, I've been there. Once you get that thing on there & running (even if it's not tuned) you're going to think to yourself, damn, I should have done this years ago! I still remember (and won't forget) the first time I started mine on alcohol. It was idling, well if you call it idling, and our eyes were hurting from the fumes. I grabbed the throttle and gave it a whack and it scared the crap out of me because of the response. It's similar to a sprint car if you've been around those. A carb simply cannot match the response of injection....which makes injection the obvious choice for footbrake racers because it's so much more consistent at the starting line. It's on or off....no in between like a carb, so you don't have to wait that split second for the secondaries to open and the fuel to start flowing through the boosters. Oh and last thing, you can mix a little nitro with your alcohol and use it just fine with injection. I haven't tried it yet, but I do know of a person who has....mixed 20% nitromethane...410" SBC that made 640 HP on alky toilet....with the 20% mix, it made an even 800 HP. That's 160 HP increase. Screw nitrous!
This is why I wanted info from someone who uses it rather than from a website, the pros far outweigh the cons from the sounds of it. It would be worth it just to get the consistency it provides, not to mention the lower ET's, the primer plus would just make it that much better, i'll see how the car handles with the "new" motor, if it does well, I may be runnin alky pretty soon, thanks for takin the time to clue me in Todd...
riporter - be sure to check more than one source concerning running alcohol. a lot of what has been previously posted is accurate. some of it is opinion, which may not be quite true. i'm not looking to start any arguements, but people wouldnt be handing rupert, sinke, and others the money they do if alky carbs suck so bad and cost as much as a toilet. you can also find people who feel that flying toilets are a waste of money. i know racers happy with carbs; i know racers happy with ron's. when i went to an alky carb back in 1991, it didnt cost me $1,000. if i did it again today, the same way, it still wouldnt cost me $1,000. just check more than one source of opinion on the subject.
That's what this forum is for...to get differing thoughts and opinions and I appreciate and respect them all. I've bought 2 carbs from Patrick at Pro-Systems and he has always steered me right, although his quality control, or lack thereof is the reason the motor is apart right now. I'm gonna talk with him about carb vs. toilet, Todd has a toilet that works great for him and his setup, it may or may not work well for me, rest assured, whatever I do...if anything, I'm gonna make sure it's gonna work and work right before I put more money into the bottomless pit, I gotta say...this alky thing is a very intriguing possibility. All this talk could be for naught...I gotta see how the car is gonna react running mid 5's before knocking a few more tenths off with alchohol. All in all it's great learning about this stuff.
Why does the sound of "putting a toilet on your engine" sound inherently wrong? Does that mean you can "dump" fuel into the engine or "pass gas" through the manifold? I guess you can "flush" out your competition, huh?
Dave Shea's got a great point. Better check a few sources...same thing I did. Only reason I didn't go carb is because I found this setup on Ebay for cheap. Less than $600 for everything I needed minus fuel cell. And I had no idea at the time that I was getting the "good" twin-gear fuel pump.
After talkin with some racers that run or have run alky it seems the toilet is the way to go mainly because of tuning issues with a carb, I havn't spoke with the folks at Pro=Systems yet but they advertise a carb systems that is just as reliable as injection, I already have a carb that could be converted to alky so I could save a few hundred their. I'm gonna pay close attention to the racers that run alky at my track at the start of the season.
