It is fission, "molecular fission" the splitting of a molecule into its separate elements hydrogen and oxygen in the case of water. At least that's what I think Shive is saying in his statement. ” in the conditions that we are talking about (high temp and high pressure), H2O can dissassociate itself to Hs and 0s. The 0s can find other 0s and make 02.”

The only way to do this is with electrolysis. If you can show me that water can be used as a fuel in an internal combustion engine with out first using electrolysis show me the research I’m open to learning something new.

Sorry it took so long to post but I was searching for “The Glassman rexcource” you mentioned without any luck. Maybe you can enlighten me on this “rexcource” please.

 

What is your opinion of the accuracy of an AEM MAP sensor?

 

The map sesnor itself is deadly accurate

If you will note when you use it with a AEM - the boost appears to be a bit lower

I have data logged the actual voltage of the map sesnor and the psi figure the aem logs show and there appears to be a variation

Those of us who tune with AEM know that we have a so called "AEM" boost level and a so called "GAUGE" boost level which are different

 

The AEM is making its calculations off of "load" not just boost pressure. This is why you need an AIT sensor as well as a MAP sensor when running a speed density setup. Remember this from high school? PV=nRT

 

The car runs great on the pure meth super smooth and very streetable. It only sprays when you go over 16 p.s.i. on the boost. The first day including the tune by Al I went through a gallon of the stuff, since then I have gotten about 2 tanks full of gas to ¾ gallon of meth. I’m running a KnockLink just incase of failure of the system, the link only shows background noise at full throttle under load 1 or 2 lights.

One concern I did have was that the meth would become dilute by absorbing water out of the air but I don’t think that will be a problem as pure meth begins building vapor pressure at about -80 Celsius keeping any air out of the tank.

Is pure meth the way to go? You be the judge take a look at the Dyno sheet I just got done today. Keep in mind this is with the stock turbo.

 

Looks good. I am planning on running 100% meth in my car and was also concerned about it taking water from the air.

 

Very nice dyno sheet - man - that is some good tq! To bad that the stock turbo just can't hold the boost up top.

I am not too concerend with the methanol becoming diluted with water out of the air - as long as its mostly methanol it will still work fine - your tune has plenty of margin of saftey.

 

Whats up with that? It sure held boost when we were tuning it, but then it was 20 degrees out and the pulls were shorter.

 

Well it holds some boost - its just a small turbo and cant maintain the massive 380 tq down low for long

Overall - I though your car was one of the best running ones I have driven - a real blast and I am glad to see a nice dyno sheet there to support what was obvious when I was driving it.

I am anxious to get some testing time on the new Buschur Evo IX/20G turbo - it may be the ultimate street turbo and it may offer the same fast spool up and more boost holding on the top end

 

BTW which cams do you have - I cant remember ?

 

Send me a copy of the turbo and we can go from there.

 

264 in. 272 ex.

 

I like to contribute to this post and will do my utmost to be subjective and be as accurate as possible based on some experience gained over the tuning years.

You can basically divide the "water", "alcohol" and "50/50" discussion into two separate sections: induction, combustion. Each section will affect your final power output.

1. Induction cooling:
An engine can only breath in a given amount of air based on manifold pressure, RPM and valve timing characteristics. Lets fixed variables such as the ambient temperature, turbo characteristics and intercooler efficiency as static values.

An engine only uses 20% of air for power (oxygen) and exhales the rest out of the exhaust pipe. If the air can be made denser by cooling from vaporisation of a liquid such as alcohol or water, it will increase the overall throughput of oxygen and hence power.
The process is good but have some drawback. The ratios of latent heat of vaporisation and boiling point of the injected liquid has to be balanced to achieve best cooling effect across the whole operation range. In other words, methanol will cool better in low intake temperatures but at high inlet temperatures, it will require lots of it but at the same time occupies more space in the inlet tract. If methanol is to be used solely for a wide range of temperatures, it may not work very well. Your a/f ratio will become rich very quickly.

Water boils at about 30 Deg.C higher than methanol and is much better used for higher ambient and in-cylinder cooling - will come to that a bit later. We live in an environment with moderate temperature spans between 0-30 Deg.C. This span will be reflected and superimposed across the inlet temperature range of an engine. With the introduction of a factory turbocharger, average factory intercooler, we can safely assume the final inlet temperature can easily span between 30-60C between on-boost and off-boost. Assuming the intercooler is 50% efficient on average, the inlet charge temperature span will now be wider- 15C to 75C between and ambient of 0-30 DegC.

In order to balance the vapour occupation of methanol in the inlet tract, it is only sensible to add 50% water to lower the vapour occupation level. Since water has a higher latent heat value than methanol, it will absorb twice the amount of heat as the same amount of methanol by mass, and takes up less vapour space. So 50/50 mix is a good ratio for day to day use and also have some good anti-freeze properties.

2. Combustion:
This is the area where the methanol and water work more differently compared to inlet tract. Assuming that you are more or less have the W/M ratio tailored to your application. If the baseline ratio is M50/W50, let see the effect to an engine running on a relatively rich mixture of 11:2 afr with a relatively low octane fuel grade of 89. I use these figures because it seemed quite normal - for a tuned and un-tuned turbo engine from factory at near WOT.
Injecting M50/W50 in at a relatively high ratios of 20% to fuel will almost result in instant overall power-loss even you have made some useful air density gain at the inlet tract. One of the main power-loss is caused by over cooling - engine is a heat exchange and if more liquid is being pour in, combustion temperature and cylinder pressure will drop. If the engine is producing some 300bhp and requires 2 litre of fuel per minute, injecting 20% 50M/50W will instantly take away 18BHP heat energy, some of the losses is realised at the wheels. It may seem small by comparison but more losses is on the way caused by excessive retarding the flame propagation speed.

The mechanics of how the two liquids contributing the slow down is very different. Methanol is a hydrocarbon with an extra oxygen molecule in the chain. Flame propagation speed is affected by the way how carbon chain breaks down to react with the inhaled oxygen molecules. It does it in two stages, forms carbon monoxide (partial combustion) and finally carbon dioxide. The progress is relatively rapid in the condition of excessive oxygen but in a rich a/f environment - the flame speed slows down drastically and allows quite a large portion of carbon monoxide is leaving the combustion chamber and exiting of the exhaust pipe. Before the availability of a Lambda probe, you tune your engine by reading Carbon Monoxide concentration form the tailpipe. 0% is over lean, 5% makes good solid power and 10% is over rich but safe. 10%+ is acceptable if EGT is still too high and knock still rare its ugly head. At present, almost all tuners and manufacturers use fuel as a coolant when W/A injection is not employed. Although some power loss due to some oxygen depletion by the Carbon Monoxide only yielding 30% of energy released that of Carbon Dioxide, but the practice is considered acceptable by all.

Water works slightly differently to the alcohol - a small amount of water molecule lodge itself amongst the induced charge. When injecting 10% water/fuel ratio, the water molecules distributed in the combustion chamber is approximately 100:1, when air is included. This condition has the effect of slowing down the flame propagation speed, very similar to smoking a cigarette on a high humidity day. Carbon Monoxide emission level is not increased significantly.

Which is more effective? Both, all depend on your approach - my personal view. Water although do not have any octane rating but it has a positive effective octane influence on any fuel, not so easy to quantify. Methanol does have a direct influence on octane rating and can be calculated. To further compare the two beyond mentioned is almost impossible. As regarding tuning potential, they are quite similar, the result will be resting on the person's preference and ability, it is a very personal affair. In the days where competing businesses meet in a public forum, exhibiting a good impression to potential custom is important. Because if this pre-condition, sometimes leads to unnecessary heated discussion that leads to nowhere and the meaning of a discussion is lost - giving example and dyno chart is meaningless - once you grasp the basics of the two concepts, you cannot go wrong. History has always shown the injected ratio as 50/50 - no winner or losers there...

Richard

 

Mr. Buschur has it all under wraps - I think they are waiting for some parts on order and then the new beast will be ready

I will call Buschur Racing for details tomorrow

 

Amazing way with words and thought. Thank you for sharing this very refreshing vantage point.