Alky Vs Racegas!!!

[Razor]

The power plate is not an issue of plus or minus.

Take your plenum off.. that power plate will have a film of oil on it from the PCV. If it was getting wet from the methanol.. there would be no oil on it. meaning that by the time the methanol is inside the motor.. it has already flashed with the incoming air.. so wherever the air goes.. so does the alky. Ther is no puddling.

Think of this.. methanol flashes at 70 degree's.. every PSI boost heats air 11 degree's.. so 20 PSI is 220 degree's above ambient coming out of the turbo.

You want my take.. here.. run both alky and race gas. whats the big deal.

 

[murphster]

Besides the cost savings and the convenience of being able to run on high boost all the time on a street car, I noticed a nice improvement switching to alky. I was able to reduce the heat soak in my dutt neck stock location intercooler between runs and after driving to the track. I always had a dropoff in ET and mph after the first run if I didn't get a long cool down time afterwards, the hotter the weather the worse off. Long waiting times after they pulled my lane seemed to heat up the IC too. Once I was on alky there was no issue.

Neutralizing the heat soak with alky is probably maximized with a smaller stock location intercooler. Alky probably helps overcome the cooling deficiencies of these small intercoolers also. With a big front mount IC (or even huge stock location) I would assume this is not a big issue. For reference, a friend with a mid 10sec buick (with a large front mount) switched over from racegas to alky and runs the same times, but he is on a somewhat mild tune. For high timing/high boost all out runs on a fast car with all the goodies, I guess the question would be race gas only vs race gas+alky.

I think the question of alky vs racegas depends on how you drive the car and convenience/cost of using racegas on the street, along with how much your combo can benefit from it.

 

[corsair231]

Maybe the race gas crowd is not getting the answer they want because they are insisting that the question is "Which is better?" That happens to be a subjective question and as such there is no one correct answer. If a specific answer is wanted then a specific question needs to be asked such as, "Can you make more power on race fuel than on alky injection?" or "Which has a higher chance of a failure, one fuel system or two fuel systems?" If the only requirement was what is simpler (or safer) then we would all be running n/a cars with non-computer controled carbs and standard ignition systems.
Look at the reputation of the first turbo cars of being failure prone and tempermental. Now we think nothing of them and accept them as normal.

People that raced n/a cars cried foul when Buddy Ingersol (sp?) was wiping the tracks with his turbo v-6. Maybe the race gas supporters are afraid that alky injection allows true street cars to come very close to their track only tunes. If one only wanted to run stock performance/boost levels then neither race gas nor alky is needed and plain 93 would be the best. One that was only driven hard at the track then race gas is king. As for me, which is better? It's simple. I occasionally race my street car, I don't street drive my race car. For the occasional wot blast or 0-60 sprint with the ability to drive to the track, pull up, and truthfully, with out touching your tune, run what you brung and drive it home, it is alky. As far as the cost with the little that it cost now I can afford to save to pay alot later, if later ever comes . Of course later may come even if you are paying a lot now. Just ask the members of the DOTC club that were running race gas.

 

[VadersV6]

Ok for all the guys saying "Race gas is better cause its one less thing can fail", or "what happens when the alky system fails?"...Alky guys- How many times has your alky system failed?
I think theres probably not too many. A problem with the alky system is usually found before any passes are made...but thats for the rare people who actually had problems.
The common sense thing is...whats going to fail? The fuel pump for the alky? Why would it fail any more than the pump in your gas tank would fail? If the pump in your gas tank failed and fuel pressure dropped under boost, it would be pretty catastrophic, right? Better get rid of that fuel pump and go gravity feed, then.
Some people will never approach something they dont understand...they'll even badmouth it to justify their stubborn view. I dont know of anyone who actually tried alky and hated it.

 

[87NAT]

You cant argue religion or politics..thats the old saying because once your mind is made up..thats it, end of story.

Well in the case of all of us Type A personalitys on Turbobuick.com who own TR's...same thing...there will be no winner here and the thread will go on and on and on...

So lets bury this childish thread and move on.


By the way...Alky rules!!! Sorry..that was childish.

 

[ChavoLC2]

Well said

Some people will never approach something they dont understand...they'll even badmouth it to justify their stubborn view. I dont know of anyone who actually tried alky and hated it.[/QUOTE]

 

[Mr.Spool]

very interesting thread.it seems our turbo buick community is very opinionated.i personally have run 100,112,115,116,104 unleaded,and alky injection.on identical combo's the alky ran the same et and within 1mph of race gas yet it was 25 degrees warmer.on a stock turbo the 93 and alky is faster than race gas, research ed brewer.i personally prefer the alky system it's there all the time and i run alkycontrol dual nozzle ive seen 31degrees and 25 psi and no knock on a ta49.each fuel works and most should know that who have been in the game.

 

[Not Avg 6]

My car actually runs better and faster on 93/alky than it did at least on 110 leaded.On straight race gas the car used to stall out on me for no apparant reason. Since switching to alky just this season, it hardly ever stalls anymore. My car is mostly a street car and my Tasso meter tells me the car never ran this fast. I was just telling the TR friends last weekend at a cruise. " I don't think I'm going to buy another gallon of race gas ever for my GN." This alky system is awesome. Maybe for a strictly race car, I'll go with race gas. For a mostly street car, for me so far, it's a no brianer. :biggrin:

 

[Turbo1dr]

Stubborn? Stubborn is that the alky guys can't give ANY answer to the original question with an "open mind" because all they know how to say is that it's "cheaper" or it's "easier to use". Even the "King Bee" didn't answer with proof that alky IS better than race gas.

BTW, this is a GREAT thread guys. No flames intended on my part to anyone. I love it when you can't get a straight answer to something that everyone believes so much in. My poking and prodding was to try to get a straight answer. It's like a person saying there's no God in a group of people. The people believe in Him but yet they can't answer "with an open mind" what makes them believe...such as proof. The reason they "believe it" is because it's PREACHED to them all the time so they believe its true. (Oh, boy........ )

So lets bury this childish thread and move on.

It can't be buried right away because even after you poke a bees hive and run away they still swarm for a long time afterwards....

 

[bsdlinux]

Stubborn? Stubborn is that the alky guys can't give ANY answer to the original question with an "open mind" because all they know how to say is that it's "cheaper" or it's "easier to use". Even the "King Bee" didn't answer with proof that alky IS better than race gas.

Decisions..decisions mmmm no reason I'm trying out E-85

 

[Turbo1dr]

OK, I see that there are guys that are starting to post opinions about why they chose alky in the two thread above whlie I was typing the one above..... carry on............

 

[SloGN]

Ok for all the guys saying "Race gas is better cause its one less thing can fail", or "what happens when the alky system fails?"...Alky guys- How many times has your alky system failed?
I think theres probably not too many. A problem with the alky system is usually found before any passes are made...but thats for the rare people who actually had problems.
The common sense thing is...whats going to fail? The fuel pump for the alky? Why would it fail any more than the pump in your gas tank would fail? If the pump in your gas tank failed and fuel pressure dropped under boost, it would be pretty catastrophic, right? Better get rid of that fuel pump and go gravity feed, then.
Some people will never approach something they dont understand...they'll even badmouth it to justify their stubborn view. I dont know of anyone who actually tried alky and hated it.

i'm not stubborn about it. I have used the alky system on my car for a few yrs and disliked it for the fact the car would spark knock as the boost would rise faster than the alky could kick on. I had my turn on point set @ 5 psi . the scanmaster/direct scan would not show this knock due to the false knock ignore that was set in the extender extreeme chip i was using that was burnt for the alky. My timing was set @ 23/20. I know the knock that i heard was not something hitting etc.... this was spark knock period. boost was set @ around 20-21 psi.

Also another reason that i know it was infact spark rattling was because when i pulled the engine to put on the ported heads i went ahead and refreshed the bearing because their was some abnormal wear marks on the top half of the bearing shells on the rods. this motor had about 8-10k on it before i put the ported heads on the engine. I talked to several peeps about it and they told me that they have had some spark knock wear on them to cause what i seen on the bearing shells.

so this is why i don't use the alky/pump gas @ higher levels of boost.

i run 15-16 psi of boost in the street now and the car spins the crap out of the tires so i don't need to make anymore power in the street.


since i have installed the RJC front mount i don't have the alky feedline hooked up to the uppipe. (didn't want to drill into those pretty new pipes for something i don't use anymore) the only reason i have kept it on the car for the last little while is because of the hole in my stock up pipe. so since it was there i used it to clean the TB and intake every now and then.


Flame suit on this is my reason and i'm sure all of you alky-guys will pick me apart saying i don't know how to tune or it was this or that.

 

[VadersV6]

i'm not stubborn about it. I have used the alky system on my car for a few yrs and disliked it for the fact the car would spark knock as the boost would rise faster than the alky could kick on. I had my turn on point set @ 5 psi .

Like I said, my pump was seized and trashed, and I broke it loose and got it working again. A crap setup. I have mine set to turn on at 12psi, and it pressurizes the system at about 14. And this is a 10 year old pump, thats TINY. The razor's ones are big enough to power a cruise ship. If your system was set to 5 and wasnt pressurizing the system fast enough, then the problem lied elsewhere...probably a clogged system or bad pump.

 

[SloGN]

Like I said, my pump was seized and trashed, and I broke it loose and got it working again. A crap setup. I have mine set to turn on at 12psi, and it pressurizes the system at about 14. And this is a 10 year old pump, thats TINY. The razor's ones are big enough to power a cruise ship. If your system was set to 5 and wasnt pressurizing the system fast enough, then the problem lied elsewhere...probably a clogged system or bad pump.

No the pump in my alky tank works just fine i have check it and rechecked it. dead heading the alky line it will make 65-70 psi.


like i stated before i'm sure somebodu will pick my post apart.

 

[incubus2432]

Who ever said alky was better than race gas anyway? I've never seen anyone make that claim. Several of you have chosen to use race gas because of bad prior experiences or because you don't trust alky systems or because you just want to use race gas. Fine....all valid and wonderful reasons. I chose, as have many others, to use alky....not because it provides better performance but because it provides great performance, is convenient, cheaper and as reliable as a high performance mod can be. So why are my reasons not good enough? I've seen no downsides to the system I have and, like any other performance modification, I understand the risk.

If anyone is pushing their tune and luck and thinks that running race gas will save their ass more than alky then they are a fool and will learn an expensive lesson eventually as well. With a good tune and common sense they both will get you great performance and both have advantages and negatives like just about everything else.

Why the argument anyway? I can't even believe I wasted my time posting in this thread.

 

[white88montess]

This thread i started is ...... doing just what i wanted ....which is enabling me to gather everyone's opinion....and try to come up with some "useful" information....keep contributing as long as you would like... this is good info for a guy who is only used to sbc's......keep the posts coming

 

[SloGN]

This thread i started is ...... doing just what i wanted ....which is enabling me to gather everyone's opinion....and try to come up with some "useful" information....keep contributing as long as you would like... this is good info for a guy who is only used to sbc's......keep the posts coming

i say stick with a second gen SBC with a turbo or turbo's for that matter and make so much power you can't use it all and not have to worry about having a girdle here and a band-aid for that.
these motors are tough but that can only make so much per hole :biggrin:

 

[Pronto]

Who ever said alky was better than race gas anyway? I've never seen anyone make that claim. Several of you have chosen to use race gas because of bad prior experiences or because you don't trust alky systems or because you just want to use race gas. Fine....all valid and wonderful reasons. I chose, as have many others, to use alky....not because it provides better performance but because it provides great performance, is convenient, cheaper and as reliable as a high performance mod can be. So why are my reasons not good enough? I've seen no downsides to the system I have and, like any other performance modification, I understand the risk.

If anyone is pushing their tune and luck and thinks that running race gas will save their ass more than alky then they are a fool and will learn an expensive lesson eventually as well. With a good tune and common sense they both will get you great performance and both have advantages and negatives like just about everything else.

Why the argument anyway? I can't even believe I wasted my time posting in this thread.

Well said.

 

[Razor]

Stubborn? Stubborn is that the alky guys can't give ANY answer to the original question with an "open mind" because all they know how to say is that it's "cheaper" or it's "easier to use". Even the "King Bee" didn't answer with proof that alky IS better than race gas.

BTW, this is a GREAT thread guys. No flames intended on my part to anyone. I love it when you can't get a straight answer to something that everyone believes so much in. My poking and prodding was to try to get a straight answer. It's like a person saying there's no God in a group of people. The people believe in Him but yet they can't answer "with an open mind" what makes them believe...such as proof. The reason they "believe it" is because it's PREACHED to them all the time so they believe its true. (Oh, boy........ )

It can't be buried right away because even after you poke a bees hive and run away they still swarm for a long time afterwards....

Wait a second. The reason anyone puts an alky kit on a car is to supplement octane... this allows for higher boost. Alky kit=octane kit. There are many ways to add octane to an engine.. propane, xylene added to the gasoline, Switch pitch fuel systems, race gas mixed with pump gas.. etc. Bottom line, you want to play with boost.. you need octane.

There are situations a motor will make more power with alky and race gas than with race gas alone. As there are situations that alky and pump gas can make more power than race gas alone.

And yes.. you need to tune your setups in.. if the car spark knocks at 6 PSI boost.. HELLO... but that is another story.

Can an alky kit fail. Absolutely. As can any other man made system on the car. If it moves.. it can break.

 

[Blazer406]

Sorry if I missed it... but one of the benifits that alky has that race gas won't ever have.... is a tremendous cooling effect.

Why do you put an intercooler on your car..... to cool the incoming air... right.... you can run a higher boost on pump gas... with an intercooler than without an intercooler..... larger intercoolers are even more efficient... and lower inlet air temps even more... allowing you to run even more boost... on pump gas.....

Alky lowers inlet air temps much the same as a big intercooler... only better. + you do get some octane benifit as well.

Race gas will never come close to matching the cooling effect that alky has on the inlet temps.

You want the best.... run both..... you can never go wrong with that....


back under my rock.....