I speak from years of PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, not from books when I say that you are retarded if you empty your methanol tank and refill it with "fresh" methanol every time you start your car.

Wait a minute, where are you getting your "fresh methanol" from? Once you open your barrel of methanol and air mixes with the tank it is now tainted and you must throw out the 55 gallon drum of meth.

This notion is ridiculous. Keep reading books and you will never will have the experience to speak with first hand accounts of the subject matter.

Every once in a while someone who has read too many books comes along in the forums making everyone think they are going to melt their intake manifolds into pudding.

Its just not going to happen.

 

in my case, it was fine at idle... it was after about 20 min and driving all of a sudden my cel would come on. I'd clear it, and nothing would happen... same deal. After i troubleshot everything i could, i attempted to contact Al with no luck. Got a reflash from someone else, and my problem went away. Its just too bad it took me so long to find someone else to help that didnt want money for a tune

 

Yes, all of our kits are for use with 100% methanol.

At the same time, ALL methanol kits require periodic maintenance.

It is common for methanol fluid pumps to require replacement annually. In the case of the SMC flojet pumps, there are threads in this very forum with cases of losing three pumps a year.

Absolutely my car has switched maps. I am in charge of programming the safeguard parameters so it will alarm at whatever condition I input.

In customer cars I typically set the safeguard to cut boost with the following parameters:
IF BOOST>23PSI AND TPS> 70% AND AFR 12.5>, THEN ALARM
also I have a simple alarm for EGT ONLY that will trigger at a preprogrammed exhaust temperature.

It is likely that one or both of these safeguards would have saved this gentleman's engine if equipped with my ZEITRONIX safeguard system.

 

He meant methanol which is part of alcohol family that consists of single carbon atom. (CH3-OH)

 

I agree with you on this one.
Even though the research proves the methanol is corrosive to aluminum, if you look at the numbers, angstrom is such an infinitely tiny unit that is only used in atomic level ( or molecular level w/e ).

Even though it is happening, it isn't happening to the extent it will cause visible damage in real life. It's like worrying about destruction of your house from a small ant chopping up wooden pieces of your wall..

 

Let's not turn this into a bash-fest.

EVOclub4, let me know if you need help pulling the head. Where do you plan on doing it at? Sucks to hear man.

And why does everyone think we have 91oct here? We run 92, and as long as you don't get the crap from Tesoro, Aloha or Chevron (leaving 76 and Shell), you're good. And if you're really paranoid, you can go downtown and find you some 100 for around $9/gal.

 

One thing I'm wondering is about the high / low octane fuel maps...

I'm not bashing or questioning anyone's motives. I've had a few different tunes and one was Al's. I loved it. I currently have a different one though. Al doesn't really tune around me and I wanted a custom tune.

Anyhow, it's a known fact that when Al flashes a car, he does indeed use more conservative timing, AFR's, and boost levels. However, he does not create a seperate low octane map. The high and low octane maps are the same. This has its benefits, but also its drawbacks. Since Al isn't tuning a car on the edge of it's life, it shouldn't ever need the low octane map, unless someone dumps 86 octane into their car. Some other well known tuners tune for 24-25 psi on straight pump gas. Mine being one of them. 23-24 psi. But I also have a very conservative low octane map. Won't the car attempt to revert to this map if I get that "suspect tank of gas?" And couldn't the guy running high boost on methanol create a super-fuel dumping, timing retarding, engine saving low octane map to avoid a problem like the OP?

I'd like to hear from the tuners on this issue. What's the better way to go? High and low maps mirrored with conservative tuning, or agressive high map with a very super conservative low octane safety-net map???

 

My car is tuned to 24.xx spike on pump gas, NO KNOCK tuned by Scott@ TTP-E

 

look guys racing for money and who use methonal injection as a living will drain their whole fuel system and purge it to get rid of the methonal so it will not eat away at their aluminum heads and other parts of the system.
just because you have ran your system for 3 years dont mean methonal doesn't react with aluminum. look at all these people having problems with their cars. Ya sometimes the nozzle gets pluged, or they run out without fail safe,
but I bet tons of people dont drain or purge their fuel system everytime, and therefore over time it is causing engine degredation leading to engine failure.
you guys installing these kits without giving the customer advice on precautions is bad business practice. you should be ashamed of yourselfes.

I want to see picts of the insides of you engine of 3 years running meth without flushing/purging. lets see the proof man.

 

sure its small but overtime like a yr it wil be big enough. Anyways, it dont take much just 1 tiny hot spot to cause pre-ignition, detonation..well engine damage.
just like you cant say "oh that just a .2 psi leak, no biggie it wont do anything"
thats no way to run a car correct? small problems lead to bigger ones. its best not to just look the other way.

 

I find your commment very speculative. You have no data to show what caused the OP's engine failure. You do not know what is the reason why his engine blew up.

Without specific data your comment is pure speculation and I find your sales pitch offensive.

The ONLY FACTS we have to work with are as follows

1 - The car was running HI pump has and alcohol at 29 psi of boost

2 - The car was carefully tuned by a competant and professional tuner two days before the failure

NO ONE KNOWS what caused the engine failure

FOR ALL WE KNOW the rod bolt was defective - what ever

For you to say "it is likely" that your product would have prevented this occurance is really streching it when we do not even yet know the cause

All it really takes is one solid shot of pre-ignition or knock to blast a stock rod out the side of the motor with that level of boost and IMHO there is nothing your product would have done or could have done to prevent that occurence if that is what caused the problem

Similarly, if a mechanical failure such as a rod bolt streching was the cause then your product could not have prevented that either

MY point I am trying to make is simply that running 29 psi on HI pump gas with a smc alchy kit is IMHO a risky undertaking. Nevertheless, there are loads of people doing that every day without incident.

 

#1. The Evo is a 4 cylinder and it only has one "head". Not "heads"
#2. I have inspected my intake tract and enigne many times. There is nothing happening to any aluminum visable by the naked eye.
#3 Let's see proof? Find me one person that has had a clogged methanol nozzle. Go ahead, do it! You cannot find any? It's because you are looking for them in books and not in the real world. Meth clogged nozzles has never happened to me or anyone I have ever heard of. Its but another figment of something else you read from a book.
#4. Methanol is not put in the gas tank, nor is it pumped by a denso or walbro and it is not run through fuel injectors. Why would someone drain their fuel system and gas tank because they run meth injection.

When you get a clue what meth injection is, how it is run, stored, pumped by, pumped through, sprayed through and have some ACTUAL experience using it yourself, please do come back to the thread and post about the subject you actually have ANY experience with.

Edit: Unnecessary comment removed.

 

Sorry, I'm not going to ruin this thread!

 

I want to respond specifically to your post

Its amazing to me how rumors are spread and take on their own lives

I have already discussed this on numerous occassions but it bears repeating

Back in the day I was flashing with a raw hexidecimal code editor made by techtom and the application was very crude and simplistic - I started reflashing almost 5 (FIVE) years ago. When you use a very primative editing tool such as "Mighty Map" or other hex editor using a "block approach" to setting the timing simplifies the processs and was found to be very effective.

Later, I became a Ecutek dealer and then along with everyone else went to open ecu products for mapping.

With the enchanced map editing features now available and superior data logging more refined ecu mapping methods were used.

For the past two years virtually all my tuning maps no longer use a "block approach" and nearly every map has a seperate high and low ignition timing and fuel mapping. I say nearly all becuase in some situations (a very rare occurence) there is a specific reason to fix the maps identical.

I say all of this to point out that in my current tuning the high and low octane maps are set differently. Also - the block timing method has not been used for over two years.


As for your specific question - I have almost never seen any evo running on a low octane map so the question is really a moot issue.

If you are suggesting that a overly rich low octane map could resultg in a hydra lock from just loading the clyinder with fuel - I seriously doubt that would happen.

The bottom line is that the ecu properly retards timing and add fuel when a knock event is detected NO MATTER WHAT the high and low octane maps are set to. Having a lower low octane map is kind of a extreme case - worst case senario limp kind of protection in the event of a complete disaster.

With a good tuner like AMS doing the tune I am confident that the car would never go to the low octane map.

The way the OP describes the situation it seems like it occured very quickly.

I am curious to know if the OP would post some data if the dyno tune and the failure were on the same tank of gas and if not how soon before it exploded did he fill up the tank. Did he use full or self service and what kind of fuel was used for the tuning and the failure ?

AL

 

There is like 70,000 members on evom. Not every one is going to get along