Alcohol vs. Nitrous vs. Propane vs. Water

[Jim Floyd]

You are right on topic.
This is the type of infomation this thread is about.

[3.5stealth]

100% denatured and my friend confirmed that alcohol will not mix with nitro meth on a chemical level. and his suggestion of using a water mix instead of alcohol makes a lot of sense.

[Rustang Cobra]

i was told this too

but then decided to look at msds (material safety data sheets) and most are only 30% at most

it seems that theres a correlation between washer fluids with a lower freezing point and their methanol content...which makes sense to me

i keep a bottle of vodka in the freezer.....it just gets nice, cold and extra smooth ....it'll never freeze

so if you want the washer fluids with higher methanol content...look for the ones which work up to -32 (35-40% meth) instead of the regular -20 ones (20-30% meth)

also in reference to your denatured alcohol + nitro meth statement....we're talking about two different chemicals

denatured alcohol = 97% ethanol...2%methanol and 1% other junk + water
washer fluid = 40% methanol and 60% distilled water

ethanol isnt a knock retardent like methanol.....ethanol does not contain as much energy as gasoline or methanol. Ethanol is added to make "Winter Blend" at many gas stations. Your engine will run leaner on it producing less emissions, per EPA requiremnets.

nitromethane will also lean out the a/f ratio

keep in mind you may have tuned for a for 12.x:1 but for ethanol or nitromethane stoich varies and is NOT the 12.x we try to aim for

so you basically mixed two chemicals that will lean out your A/F ratio and had no supply of knock retardent....im not surprised you had hot spots...nitromethane is used in pro stock drag cars....without something to cool the intake charge your sure to melt/break something

also adding too much nitro meth to your mix could have caused your problem...the kit i have recommends .8 oz of nitro meth MAX for every 2 quarts of w/m


btw....i finished my install tonight, but it snowed so i cant go out and tune until it clears up out there

[*GT]

Ethanol can also be used as a knock suppressant like methanol, the major difference between the 2 is that ethanol has a stoichiometric ratio of 9:1 where methanol has a stoich ratio of 6.4:1, so ethanol will affect the A/F more than methanol. As for nitromethane, the additive snow performance sells contains an emulsifier to allow it to mix with the water/methanol... very simple, but if it weren't mixed that could easily cause disastrous results if pure nitromethane were injected momentarily. Nitromethane will also RICHEN the AF mixture when injected, however it probably does not richen it as much as pure alcohol, if it were not fuel rich it could not be used as a primary fuel. The benefit of nitromethane is that it contains active oxygen. It's obviously possible to mix nitro with alcohol. Most glow engine fuel is a mixture of methanol and a varying percentage of nitro, you just need to figure out what nitro is soluble in.

[twiceblown]

Model airplane fuel uses a combination of Methanol, Nitro, and a small % of 2-stroke oil. Some fuel is also offered without oil to be premixed prior to use. You can possibly use airplane fuel as an additive, but the effects are entirely up to you, as i have no idea what adding Nitro to the intake charge will do to EGTs and Knock suppresion.

The point of adding an additional liquid into the intake charge is to reduce temps prior to combustion, not to add fuel (that's what larger injectors or supplemental injection is for). As previously mentioned, the latent heat of vaporization is the important factor here. Water is ideal (very high heat of vaporization), but may actually be too hard to completely vaporize prior to combustion hence the reason it is usually mixed with methanol. Heat of vaporization is decreased when mixed with methanol or ethanol allowing it to phase transform with less energy, possibly removing greater amounts of heat prior to combustion.

Personally, I saw great results using 50/50. Pure water was significantly harder to tune and i felt more of a stumbling and power loss even under boost. Granted, I did not tune it sufficiently to provide complete results.

Just my $0.02.
Damon

[Rustang Cobra]

The point of adding an additional liquid into the intake charge is to reduce temps prior to combustion, not to add fuel (that's what larger injectors or supplemental injection is for).

tell that to the thousands of people that inject nitrous.......from what ive read nitromethane seems to work in a similar way to nitrous (higher oxygen content than just regular air)

[twiceblown]

Nitrous plus gas are analagous to Nitromethane. Nitrous alone will cause a lean condition if not tuned to add more fuel via a fuel jet or increasing the IDC of the primary fuel injectors. Alcohol/water injection's primary purpose is not to add additional fuel. It's primary purpose is to quench knock/predetonation.

[Rustang Cobra]

agreed

[3r tech]

the water/alcohol doesnt vaporize prior to combustion, it vaporizes during combustion. The alcohol is there to provide a little extra fuel as well as a to help with knock. Water can be used all by itself as well, but few people do

[Rustang Cobra]

lol i thought that was a given....what else would vaporize it? the blow off valve