thats because as mehanol evaporates on it;s way into the combustion chamber it absobs the heat and cools the charge i have a really good article on methanol form the National Association of Chemical Engineers that gives awesome examples and results from controled studies.

Only thing more efective in aiding and producing power Is notro methane ans thats because on average it is 52% oxygen.

 

My Question is:

Is Denatured Alky close to Methanol in its properties; Im guessing so since they both have additives to keep people from injesting them, Im also guessing that the racing meth from sunnoco also has some additives for conditioning the lines etc, but thats just a guess.

 

They're similar, but not identical. Methanol has a higher vapor pressure and lower boiling point than ethanol, and a higher heat of vaporization. Methanol doesn't need any additives to poison it! It's often used to denature ethanol.

Dave

 

Do you know What the flash point of both is?

 

Sucks we don't have Sunoco in the Northwest

 

You should be able to find somewhere near you that carries their race fuel and meth....

There are a couple shops around town here that carry it and only a few sunnoco stations that have their race fuel available at the pump etc.

 

Any industrial chemical supply house carries 99+% methanol in 55 gal drums. It isn't a suspect chemical in bomb or drug manufacture, so just about anyone can buy it - and they'll usually deliver for free. A drum usually costs around $150, so $3/gal for methanol is a cheaper, better proposition than buying denatured ethanol. All you need is a $15 polyethylene drum pump from Grainger, some common sense, and you're in business.

 

As does water, which has an even higher heat of vaporization. What's really working for you guys using methanol injection is that you're using so much it significantly improves your octane, so you can run higher boost and more advanced timing.

It's "volumetric efficiency" in a bottle! But it also promotes knock, which is why top-fuel dragsters only need spark plugs to idle and basically don't have anything left of them at the end of the run.

I know a lot of people are using alcohol with great results, but just be careful if you try to really push things to the limit. You're introducing wet flow into a system designed around dry flow so you have to leave a safety margin for non-uniform fuel distribution.

Dave

 

Well yeah, but . . .

Top Fuel dragsters use so much nitromethane that they're on the verge of hydraulic lock at WOT - probably because the stoichiometric A/F for nitro is like 1.7:1!! Also, the 7000+ degree flame front temp and 1400 degree exhaust valve temps guarantee the thing can run by dieseling alone (the spark plugs vaporize quickly). And what do they generate? Something like 700-800 hp per cylinder?

I think I'll stick to methanol.

 

Clay,

this is what i use and it works wonders .

 

^+1
I use the same stuff. Sunoco methanol. Cheap and da bomb!

 

thanks for the help. Gonna stick with the denatured alky for awhile. Thats what was in the car when it got tuned. Next time i get retuned it will be with the sunoco. Damn i should have waited to find out the answer. hey but theres always nextime.