Edumucate me about methanol injection

[RealityCheck]

I'm intrigued after reading the thread about darreli's car. Is this something I could use on a daily driver? How often would I have to refill the methanol tank? I am somewhat concerned about the danger factor - there was a comment about burning up in an invisible fire that was more than a little disconcerting. Is methanol safe in a street car?

 

[darreli]

I'm intrigued after reading the thread about darreli's car. Is this something I could use on a daily driver? How often would I have to refill the methanol tank? I am somewhat concerned about the danger factor - there was a comment about burning up in an invisible fire that was more than a little disconcernting. Is methanol safe in a street car?

Not sure exactly how much I can educate you....but I can answer most of your questions.

You can definately use it on a daily driver...my car is a daily driver.

I've had it up and running for a couple weeks now and have filled it once and my low level alarm hasn't come on at all so I cant answer that completely. Also depends on how often you are in boost and how big of a nozzle you use in your set up. It actually uses less than I thought and I have a pretty big (#10) nozzle.

It's not really any more dangerous than gasoline....you could always mix your methanol with water and its not really dangerous at all. Snow Performance makes "Boost Juice" or you can even use like -30 or -40 windshield washer fluid. I personally am running straight meth (VP M1) but EBB is using the "Boost Juice" in his Flex.

Havent really heard anything but good things about a water/meth setup on a street car.

You can read stuff on the AlkyControl website or Snow Performance or Devils Own if you really want more reading than you want to read on methanol injection

 

[yamahaSHO]

You can absolutely run meth/water injection in a daily driver. Given that you're talking about it being for a daily driver, you could go anywhere from a day on a gallon of meth/water, to a month. It's dependent on how much water/meth you're spraying and how much you want to get on it.

Back on my old motor, I ran an entire track day without going through a full bottle, but with the new motor, I upgraded to larger injectors (I run a 2-stage kit). Just the other day, I ran through and entire gallon mix in less than an hour. I did some thinking and I oversized my injectors and just recently ordered a couple smaller ones. I have two separate tunes; one for water injection, and the other without. Without tuning for water/meth, you could actually end up losing peroformance. With water/meth, I push timing up a bit and lean out the mixture a tad. I actually had to turn my meth/water injection off yesterday when it was 40's and 50's out.

Unless you're pouring meth onto an open flame, I wouldn't be too worried about any flames. I would check your lines and connections every now and again.

I have been a pretty big fan of www.coolingmist.com for my water/meth kits and parts. Since 2005, I've been running a two-stage setup from them that is boost activated. The first stage comes on at 3 PSI and the second at 10 PSI. I do not have any other sort of charge cooling aside from the water/meth injection. For the most part, I generally run 100% distilled water, but at times, I will run a 50/50 mix of water/meth and am currently using washer fluid as that's what I had in my garage yesterday. If you're looking at running 100%, take a look at this from Snow Performance:
http://www.snowperformance.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=767

 

[EcoBrick Bob]

I would suggest surfing the internet for W/M (Water-Methanol) systems & how they work.

Darreli is spraying 100% Methanol... I assume only at the track.

I have a similar system from Torrie, that sprays windshield washer fluid (up to 50% Methanol), or in my case Snow "Boost Juice" which is 50/50. I do not run it on the street, other than when I am testing with WOT runs. My pump that sprays W/M is turned on by a boost sensor, that can be set to different pressures. It pulls the Boost Juice from the windshield washer reservoir, and sprays it thru a nozzle into the intake pipe going from the inter-cooler to the aluminum intake manifold. The nozzle is located just in front of the throttle body, and is positioned to spray at a slight angle towards the TB. How much volume you use, depends on the pump pressure and nozzle size. Usually less than 3 oz of fluid are used in a 1/4 mi run. So... a gallon of W/M solution goes a long way. Since windshield washer fluid usually contains methanol, I don't change back to blue washer fluid. I just use the Boost Juice to wash my windshield. Costs about $10. a gallon.

Methanol is a cooling agent, and also burns. Anything over 50% requires a hazmat permit for shipping as it becomes extremely flammable in stronger concentrations. Pure methanol boils at 95 deg F.

The purpose of spraying a methanol mix is to cool the air charge after the turbos, which lowers knock, and allows for more boost with the same levels of advance. Boost levels are all relative. One wants a consistently strong boost level, more than peaks of high boost. That is why we log our WOT runs. To maintain a safe tune, one also has to monitor FRP (Fuel Rail Pressure) in our engines to make sure the engine is getting enough fuel for the boost level. Lambda (bank 1 & 2) are also monitored to see how the Air/Fuel ratios perform throughout the run. The SCT Tuner and LiveLink 6.3 can monitor up to 18 parameters, from a list of over 100. Your tuner should be able to tell you what he and you should be looking at.

You are correct... you can't see a methanol fire.

Here is a great article on W/M Injection that contradicts some others opinions. Makes sense to me though....

www.rbracing-rsr.com/waterinjection.html