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ethanol or methanol

SgtMarshal

SgtMarshal

Active member
I bought a methanol injection kit and have been wondering if I could get pure ethanol, would it work better than the 50/50 methanol/water blend? One thing I have found is that ethanol has more energy, so I could run a higher water to ethanol ratio, but I'm not sure if that is a good thing. another thing I have noticed is that the ethanol would have to be somewhat pure with no denaturants, unless it is methanol because any petroleum distillates would ruin the methanol kit.

I know a guy who distills his own ethanol and can blend it down to E85 all the way up to almost pure ethanol, with just a small amount of water left in in, which would be just fine for the injection kit because it's going to get diluted with water anyway.
 


I believe methanol has better cooling properties as well as a higher octane. But I'm not sure on that. Interesting thought. I'll have to look into it more.
 
Upon further research, you would need to find pure ethanol or ethanol with water. E85 From the pump wouldn't work well. From what I can tell, meth will make more power. It has a better cooling effect, and a much higher octane rating than e85. You're right about e85 having more energy, but it looks like with more boost you can make up for that.
 
like I said initially, ethanol with water, ethanol or ethanol with methanol will work. I bet E85 would work if the pump and all the other components could handle the petroleum and additives, but that would be even more rich than straight ethanol, and probably wouldn't work as well as ethanol or methanol.

at this point, I just want to understand why methanol works better.

on a different topic, I did see one article in which Ford was running a dual injection of pump gas and E85. it was on an ecoboost vehicle, and the regular gas was used for the fuel economy, and while in boost, the E85 was injected to suppress any predetonation.
 


Scottydoggs said:
you get that kit installed yet? cause once you do you'll stop wondering, even if you just run washer fluid.
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Scotty, I have been tempted to run a methanol kit for a while. You glad you did it? I checked your write up for your build thread but unfortunately can't see any photobucket pics because of their policy change... any tips on what mix you run and how you tuned for it?
 
i pulled 5% out the maf from 7000 to 11500. then set my timing to 17º. 3 more degree's then i had running a 3.2. now running a 2.8 pulley. wb says 11's wot. no kr at all but blips when driving rather normal around town. like a random 0.4 here and there.

used the middle injector jet, tried the small one, its not good at all.

if you cant buy and run e85 this stuff is your alternative adder. im still running -20 washer fluid, need to hit the race track to get real straight meth here. im sure thats got more kick to it.
 
another idea I have is that since ethanol has more energy, I could run the small size injector and then just experiment with different mixtures. it really would be very beneficial to have a temp sensor in the lower intake manifold.
 
OK methanol has better characteristics for water/alcohol injection. Several reason why is methanol isnt as hygroscopic as ethanol. Motor fuel ethanol is not E100 as it takes a great deal of energy to make ethanol anhydrous, or 97+%.
Now methanols vapor point makes it a better option when injecting. Ethanol doesnt work as well, neither does rubbing alcohol.
Nelson racing engines has video up on youtube with a blown engine, the blower sweats running methanol.
Ethanol wont work as well.
Dont get me wrong, Ethanol is a safer, more efficient fuel for several reason. One its NOT corrosive but methanol is. Now Ethanol does strip any protective oils or oxides (stainless, cheap kind , limits rust by invisible oxidation sealing the surface) methanol can and will corrode stuff. ALSO methanol produces formaldehyde/ other aldehydes which are even more corrosive and poisonous.
The best feature about ethanol is its ability to be put out with water as that dilutes it. Methanol will just sit on water and burn. And requires foam to extinguish or co2.
Lots of research has went into vapor injection, Water moistens the air and promotes a better, more complete burn. Dry air pre ignites or detonates. On the average 30%to50% builds best average power production, more than 50% generally will indicate inclement weather coming unless its dropping.
Water/meth works because the water does what its supposed to, methanol adds octane AND cools the charge. The combo is pretty much works and other mixes have been tested, worked on and the other mixes have been moved to the side as they are less effective.
Dont get me wrong, you can try to use different things but dont forget, lots of people have worked with this stuff and the science is sound and it works.
Ethanol has it limits and poses a few more issues over water/meth. For street use use washerfluid, for performance BoostJuice from Snow or I believe Devilsown has their own mix.
Hand mixes are dime a dozen I know two guys who try to use nitromethane in it but again the corrosion issues arise with those.
If you start custom mixing have fun. and Good Luck
 
that video is awesome, I've seen it before. I can easily get 100% methanol, so mixing to 50/50 will be simple. I know everyone says methanol/water is the best way to go, I just want to understand why. you do have a good point that water in the combustion chamber promotes a better burn.

one advantage I can see of ethanol over methanol is that you can spray pure ethanol and not have to worry about a fire that you can't see or the corrosiveness, I don't know for sure, but I would imagine that pure ethanol, or a mixture with a higher ethanol content, would have a higher octane rating, and the intercooling effect would come primarily from the ethanol, which may or may not be as effective.


edit for additional question: I'm trying to decide what psi I should set the water/methanol to come on and then to go to full spray. I was thinking 1 and 3 because I'm only making like 6 lbs of boost.
 
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One thing is methanol doesnt damage methanol safe pumps/seals/etc. Denatured alcohol is laced with unleaded gasoline and may damage parts, test specific non metallic parts first.
Besides washer fluid in a pinch is so much cheaper!
 
So if I am understanding this, some of you just run straight washer fluid and see benefits??

I am currently debating between a FSIC kit or using a methanol injection kit. I am on E85 full time now on a 3.1 pulley and want to drop to a 2.8 with either meth or FSIC.
 


Scottydoggs said:
thats all i run so far, -20 washer fluid. its amazing. mods in my sig. nothing huge done to it.
Click to expand...

I think you have just convinced me... I can even tap my TB spacer that is sitting on my shelf with an injection nozzle.. time to sell this FSIC core and buy the AEM injection kit from ZZP
 
im running both the fsic, and the meth. i tapped a zzp tb spacer, but in the back of the blower case should be a lot easier to deal with.

you can see i had to notch the spacer as to get the tip of the injector flush with the inside wall of the spacer, so it actually sprays and makes a mist. you need to drill and tap this hole dead center or you cant turn the injectors nut at all to get it on or out.
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its cooling the blower, i got eds ic sold here, in the summer time you still cant touch the blower, with meth i can touch it now and not get a burnt hand.

it also raises your octane rating to like 106 iirc , you need to pull fuel from the top of the maf, i took out 5% 7000 up. and your now tuning by the wideband only really, so your gonna want one if you dont have one yet. your playing in a area that can bite you hard if your not at the right afr.
 
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