I will start off by saying that I have lots of other things to do before I do this, but I have recently been turned onto the idea of using Methanol in the future. I have always been the type to be anti anything you have to refill that isn't fuel, so no Nitrous or Meth. My philosophy has always been just get a bigger turbo and it will be much better. But with the amount of power I am looking to make eventually (450whp) I think the stock turbo with meth can probably hit that with all supporting mods, intake, 3 in turbo back, more fuel, cams and tune etc. Also my buddy who worked at sound performance told me that all the engines that they have broken down using meth look amazing since he referred to it as steam cleaning your engine, not why I would get it but a cool effect none the less.

So just wondering if it would be better to keep the stock spool up time and go with Meth or if upgrading turbo is the way to go (more benefits). Also would meth cost of refill eventually exceed that of the turbo anyway? Just looking for some education on benefits of meth over a bigger turbo, because it seems lots of Evo's run them (i came from a turbo RSX so i am still learning evo's).

Thanks for any help/advice and if there is a thread for this already feel free to reference and close this down or whatever.

 

if ur meth. pump fails under boost ur motor is toast
do urself a favor and if u want that kind of power upgrade ur turbo and run straight pump....even with a good failsafe, too many things can go wrong with Meth...just my opinion

 

Interesting, I didn't really think about this because there are so many failsafe's with the snowperfromance kit. So you are saying even with a pump flow meter and a solenoid for boost cut if the flow meter shows a decline or a pump fail that the boost just won't cut fast enough? Not sure on reaction time of the failsafe's, so just trying to figure things out. Thanks for the info.

 

No offense but your opinion blows. The alky kits that are out now have failsafes that work near perfect. Many things can go wrong without the alky kits. BTW I ran my meth for about 2 years without any failsafes. The car still runs like a beast but now only gets 110 leaded.

 

I guess this is what I thought, but this is why i started the thread to try and figure things out, keep em coming. Hopefully i can get more than two people to respond to try and figure out a general consensus.

 

im sure there are many guys running meth. that havent had any problems...but if this is his dd, imo there are just too many things that can go wrong with meth.

 

For consideration, yes this is my dd. I chose the evo for that reason, can be my fun car and dd, since i dont have room to store two cars. Decided to get this and winterize it, snow tires/rims, undercoating and what not.

 

Mine was dd when running meth, no longer though. Again as I mentioned, the failsafes that are out now 99.9% will save you. Of course there is always that 1% chance. Although a motor can pop even without meth. FWIW I picked up 80tq when I switched to meth. I also added an AMS fmic but that was it.

 

We do not like doing Meth kits because to us its just another thing that can go wrong and over the many years of doing this we have seen many go wrong no matter what safeguards they have . Even if when they go wrong they may not always hurt your motor but will cost you a race , time and money to replace that broken part , I see this all the time locally . I say go big turbo and call it ! With meth you will always have one extra part to mess up . Now , with a big turbo set-up you have better driveability and you'll NEVER need to fill anything up - you'll always be good to go !

 

+1
i've got my fp red ready to go....that should be all you'd need for a dd

 

Not that I am doubting you more of a question. Wouldn't the meth provide better driveability since you still have the stock turbo on there and not a laggier one that requires significantly more fuel, which untuned or not perfectly would sacrifice driveability. Since with meth you would need to worry about WOT tuning as far as changing settings (i believe). Either way i guess you could argue that both with proper tuning should be fine, but i guess meth would be an easier tune correct?

 

i dont know too much about the X turbo but with the FP turbos i.e. green and red the spool up difference was almost unchanged however a 35r has horrible spool compared to a stock housing turbo .
its all in whatever your final power expectation will be.
I considered meth as well and settled on a green as mine also was a DD i had nos on it before and the headaches were horrible it was a whole other thing to focus, on granted meth isnt that bad but you get the idea!

 

I'm sorta 50/50 on meth. I'm currently considering just getting a race gas tune and just using that when ever I want to crank up the boost. Even with failsafes the always the off chance that the failsafes could fail too. Again, I'm not putting methanol down at all, but I'd personally rather use race gas.

If you do decide to go meth than I'd consider a fairly conservative tune with meth. For example if the max you could do is advance timing up to 15 degrees and add another 10 pounds of boost just tune it with 10 degrees of timing and 5-7 pounds of boost. The main reason I'm considering meth is as a kind of octane booster for the crappy 91 octane and the high altitude here.

 

Do you have the option of using E85 in your area? If you are on the fence as much as it sounds, that would probably be best.

 

I have E85 and Methanol readily available in my area and guess what I did? Neither. Ordered an FP Red which should be here today and going to see what it'll do on plain ole 93 octane. I don't like how badly the boost fades on the stock turbo and it spools up a bit too quick for my tastes as I hit boost in regular granny driving too easily if I'm not careful.