Methanol / Water Injection

[M3Turboca]

Hello I'm new here and you guys seems to know the world on alcohol / water injection.

So I hope you can help me please don't kill me I dont have a buick but a 95M3 with a turbo kit and just recently a Aquamist Water injection kit.

Is Methanol the same thing as Methyl Hydrate. The reason is that they sell Methyl Hydrate here in the local hardware stores and you can buy them in 4L bottles. On the bottle it says you can use it for gas line anti freeze and in you washer fluid.

Also in the washer fulid that they sell here Methyl Alcohol is listed on the containers.

I have been reading your post for the last week and notice that you guys seemd to run a higher mix 70/30 and 80/20 of alcohol/water.

I sent a email to Aquamist and he is telling me to use all water and when the temp is cold I can use no more than 25% alcohol. He only recommends Methanol & Isopropyl alcohol.
Richard from aquamist is saying using alcohol when it is burnt compared to water will increase combustion chamber temp and reduce the effectiveness of water injection ? You guy dont see to have a problem with the high mixes ?

He said no not use any ethanol based alcohol do you know why ?

My car runs well on Sunoco 94 octane gas no detonation on the stock compression of 10.5:1 at 10PSI. I wanted to get the water injection to reduce intake temp in the summer and maybe run another 1 or 2 PSI more boost. I figure the car will not retard timing under boost.

Thanks Mark

 

[HossV6]

Welcome aboard!

I don't know where that guy gets his info, but I do NOT run any water at all and get great results. In fact, almost everyone on here says they get the best results running straight alky. BTW, I use 100% denatured (Ethanol) alcohol and have had no problems at all (maybe he said that for liability issues?). As far as chamber temps, he's fooling you again. Alcohol actually lowers the combustion temps by a couple of hundred degrees; one reason that turning the alky on too soon will give you boost creep.
Methanol is probably the most powerful stuff, but the pumps that can take its corrosive nature cost mucho dinero. I don't know about the methyl hydrate stuff, but the hydrate part insists that there is some H2O associated with it. I'm sure someone else will chime in. Later

 

[M3Turboca]

Thanks

I was wondering why Richard from Aquamist would say that about alcohol increasing the temp when burnt ? If that was the case you guys would be melting pistons and you are not ? Hmm..

I did some search on the web and found out if Methyl Hydrate is the same as Methanol. From this web site: http://www.homesteadfinishing.com/alcohol.htm
In Canada and Britain Methanol is called methyl hydrate. We can buy this in a washer fluid 4l bottle for about $2.50 and the mix is 50/50.

Is Methanol the prefered choice as some site say it is corrosive ?

Thanks again
Mark

 

[Bob Avellar]

I just spent a bunch of time replying to this post and then my ISP went dead so I copied what I typed. I hope pasting it here will work OK. If it comes out messed up I apologize- but at my typing speed there aint noway I'm redoing it! Here goes:
OK, I'll take a stab at this. I've been in lurk mode for quite a while. According to some tests done years ago it was found that mixtures containing more than 50% alcohol failed to produce a situation where tuning the motor could produce any more increases in horsepower. It was believed that a 50/50 mix was probably the optimum ratio. It was also found that heavier concentrations of alcohol would begin to increase the tendency for preignition and knock that the researchers were trying to eliminate. I don't doubt this data and to a certain extent I agree with the statement from Mr. Aquamist that the combustion chamber temperature might be higher with alky than water. Obviously if the alky is supplying the fuel and it can be burned in the cylinder then it is going to release heat energy - energy that would not be supplied by just plain H20-since it doesn't actually "burn". I feel the problem with plain H20 is that although it will cool the combustion chamber as it flashes into steam it also dilutes or" contaminates" the air /fuel charge somewhat. There may be some similarities to the dilution affect produced by EGR as the spent gases take up a certain amount of space in the combustion chamber. I am not aware of any vehicles that use EGR gases at wide open throttle (WOT).Peak cylinder pressures are reduced by the injeciion of H20 and retuning the motor by adding more spark advance, air, and fuel allow the tuner to raise the peak HP just a bit more. Its almost like the way a supercharger works, i.e. it allows more air into the cylinders and then we add more fuel to mix with it- and it increases power but... it also takes a certain amount of energy to turn the supercharger so you end up using some horsepower to make more horsepower. Nothing's 100% efficient but the net results are worthwile. Now when we start mixing alcohol with the H20 in %s that are higher than what is needed just to stop the H20 from freezing we begin to use the alcohol as a "power adder". We can now do 2 things. We can retune by adding more boost (air),we can add more fuel to mix with the additional air, and we can maybe throw in a bit more advance to the spark curve. Those items will obviously increase HP. Secondly, by the introduction of that alcohol we have already increased the fuel portion of the mix albeit a different fuel. An advantage is that the alcohol has a higher octane rating than many of the gasolines- 112 or there abouts (somewhere around that range but I don't recall exactly). So when we inject alky we are temporarily using a much higher octane fuel (at least in part) than typical pump gas. Now at the opposite end of the spectrum many people inject nothing but alcohol and use NO H20 at all. Under these circumstances the alky is much more a power adder as opposed to a combustion chamber coolant. However alky will cool the combustion chamber much more than gasoline fuels. In my opinion, straight alky will work great and like anything else you will have to do some retuning to the other variables to get the maximum benefit from it. I tend to think that the maximum HP of the motor will most likely be attained by using some amount of H20 with the alcohol, however. I think the cooling properties and reduction of peak cylinder pressures that H20 produces helps the tuner to get just a bit more HP in the end. Remember all of the above opinions are based upon the idea that as these fluids are introduced to the combustion process that timing, boost and fueling can be tweaked to reach the next HP plateau. I think that straight alky with no H20 requires the least amount of retuning to see some HP gains since it both cools and supports combution. That is probably why most people use just alky- it works right out of the box! I DON'T mean to imply that straight alky users don't retune their cars- I know many that do. I just think it's a bit quirkier tuning the car as the percentage of H20 increases. At the moment I am using 70-80% alky and 30-20% H20. I used to use 50/50 but it was trickier to tune for wide temperature rages and various load conditions. From my testing I have found Methanol to add the most HP- way more than denatured (ethanol). Some cars may respond differently due to differences in advance curves, air fuel ratios, and any other factor that can affect the state of tune. Check out the links to my site for the testing I have done. It will also have several links to some other good info. BTW as HossV6 stated, many pumps, solenoids don't handle the corrosive affects of methanol very well and they have concerns over parts reliability. Adding some H20 reduces the corrosiveness of methanol substantially, however. Have fun. Those M3's are real nice driver's cars. I think you are going down the right path by getting into some form of alky/water injection. You should be able to see increases in HP AND help the longevity of that great little motor. Good luck.

 

[M3Turboca]

Thank You Bob Avellar

Reading your reply gave me all the answer I need and apprecaite the advice you have given me.

Unfortunately I can not adjust the fuel curve as easy as you guys the turbo kit from Active does everything in the chip and Karl would remap me new chip if I tell him where and at what rpm I need it and he would e mail it to me and then I burn it myself. I would have to add a separate fuel controller from Apexi or HKS to me to tune it by myself.

A few weeks ago I go my car on the dyno I dont make the kind of power you guys make but last year Dec I went to the 1/4 track and got lots of wheel spin all the way through 2nd shifting at 7000rpm. 60' times were 2.2 average and this was launching at 2500-2700rpm and short shifting 1st that way it would drop below the power band of hopefully the tires would hookup but it did not make any difference.
The temp was 46'F with my regular tires Brigestone RE730 245/40/17 that are worn and got best et of 12.95 and trap of 113mph. This is with the stock exhaust cats and resonators. Now I have a 3.0" exhaust with no cats and external wastegate with a 6lbs lighter flywheel. My friend will rent out the track again it's a private day and I will go back with drag radials. I should get a better time as it would be warmer and my trap should be higher I was at 8PSI in Dec when we did the 1/4 runs normally I run 10psi. My friend was saying I dont need any more boost the car is getting a good trap speed I need more traction for a better time. This was on the pump gas sunoco 94 octane.

What I will do when I get my car back on the dyno is to read the a/f with my friend Motec before the water injection then run it with straight water and then add a mix of methanol 50/50 and see if the a/f changes. With this info I can have the guys at Active cut me a new chip to run with the 50/50 mix.

Thanks again for all the info it was helpful
Mark

 

[Falco]

Mark,



I'm using an Aquamist 1s with 50/50% of water/methanol. I'm in still in the tunning phase, but the kit has awsome quality I could raise the boost from 15 to 18 psi with no detonation increase.



You might want to check this site:



http://www.aquamist.co.uk/rescr/rescr.html



Some good info there. Under the FAQ they say no more the 50% methanol. Ethanol will eat the pump internals, and said to be less effective than methanol.



HTH,

Falco

Sy #2613

 

[M3Turboca]

Thanks Falco

I sent another e mail to Richard Lamb and this was part of his response.
Falco did your a/f change with the methanol/water injection ?


Aquamist:
It seemed confusing for at first but it is really quite simple There are two types of aftermarket injection systems out there - 100% water and 100% alcohol. We belong to the first type. What has confused you was that some users of our system has used it to inject over 50% of alcohol.

Our system was never intended to use for alcohol injection, we only recommend adding alcohol for preventing the water from freezing. Water has better latent heat property than any known alcohol, it has infinite octane rating it doesn't burn at all !

Our pump can tolerate up to 50% of Methanol before the valve is affected by absorption and swell up to an extent the pump begins to loose efficiency. Other alcohol such as isopropanol (25% max.) and Ethanol (5% max.) can be used.

Mark

 

[Steve Wood]

It's a complex argument because of the apples and oranges we are trying to compare.

Ethanol and Methanol are both alcohols but they have different thermal properties, different latent heats of evaporation, and different behaviors with regard to corrosion, effects on rubber, etc.

Without doubt, water removes the most heat. Carl Ijames has provided a lot of chemical information on the mailing list which helps understand some of the workings

I believe that methanol/water is the best overall combination, chemically. Altho' the methanol's tendency to corrode pumps is greatly reduced by the introduction of even small amounts of water, it is still hard on pumps. When we add water, then we really need a water soluble oil to add to the mix....some use RMI-25 and I suspect water pump lubricants that you can buy at parts' stores might work...it may be that WD-40 which is not water soluble might still work due to the vibration of the bottle when the car is running which would serve to mix it up...I am guess on that one, tho.

Steve Yaklin as said that GM, when testing the hot air cars with injection has determined that a 60-40 mix of methanol and water gave the best results.

Steve Hill runs more water, I believe, because he does not want to risk fire if it leaks...he cranks out some pretty high boosts.

He is a proponent of very fine mists and uses four Aquamist nozzles at the moment. Others use NOS nozzles which are not fine at all but it seems to work...perhaps the high velocity of air serves to "mist-i-fy" the droplets?

I am not sure which works best and it may be purely combo dependent. Methanol is much cheaper. I thought the octane of alcohol was closer to a 101 but I have seen varying reports showing different numbers so I don't know what is correct.

 

[Steve Wood]

I found this stored on another computer....it was written by Carl Ijames in answer to a post by Jay Carter....Maybe it will interest some of you.

<Alcohol is an oxygenated fuel, not an oxygenator like nitrous. Nitrous
absorbs heat as it vaporizes, cooling the intake charge, and also
decomposes to release nitrogen (basically inert) and oxygen gases. This
oxygen can then react with extra fuel and thus release more energy than was
consumed in the decomposition step. Also, the bulk of the nitrous enters
the combustion chamber as a liquid before it vaporizes and decomposes,
which acts like a supercharger - it increases the total oxygen in the
cylinder above what would normally be drawn in.

Alcohol, on the other hand, can be viewed as a partially burnt hydrocarbon.
It does not release free oxygen gas in the combustion chamber, and because
some carbon-oxygen and oxygen-hydrogen bonds have already been formed,
fewer will be formed during combustion and so less energy will be released
(skipping a few chemical details ). That lower energy (heat of
combustion is about half that of gasoline) is why oxygenated fuels give
lower gas mileage - 2 to 4 mpg less on my car. Alcohols do have much
higher heats of vaporization than hydrocarbons which means they will cool
the intake charge better. For comparison, hydrocarbons are about 70-80,
methanol is 262, ethanol is 204, isopropanol is 159, water is 560, and
nitrous oxide about 40, so methanol absorbs about 3.5 times more heat than
gasoline as it vaporizes. Also, the alcohols have high octane ratings,
about 98 (R+M)/2, and wider flammability limits than gasoline which
probably gives more complete combustion. My guess as to why you can go
faster without turning up the boost is that you were slightly too rich
before to suppress detonation (and were probably still getting a little
timing retard). The octane boost and charge cooling let you lean it out
some and keep the timing a little more advanced to make more power and
still be safe.

 

[M3Turboca]

OK

Steve reading what you have just posted it seems that water is the most effective in reducing the intake temp and then Methanol.

If the main purpose is to reduce the intake temp during the summer months or warmer temp and run another 1 or 2 psi would water be the prefered over alcohol ?

Reading about Methanol it has a octane rating of 113 and by adding 10% toward your gas will also increase octane by 5 full points. http://www.turbofast.com.au/racefuel13.html

I think for my application I'm going to use the 50/50% methanol/water mix. I don't think I can run that more more boost as my compression is 10.5:1 and even though I get no detonation Karl from Active Autowerke said the stock piston will not hold up under that extreme pressure and will end up blowing apart.

Do you know with the reduction in intake temp does that then reduce the pressure which will allow me to run more boost as long as I don't get any detonation ?

Thanks I;m learning more here everyday.
Mark

 

[Steve Wood]

From Part Four of the fuel faq

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/autos/gasoline-faq/part4/



<9.3 What are the advantages of alcohols and ethers?

This section discusses only the use of high ( >80% ) alcohol or ether fuels.

Alcohol fuels can be made from sources other than imported crude oil, and the
nations that have researched/used alcohol fuels have mainly based their
choice on import substitution. Alcohol fuels can burn more efficiently, and
can reduce photochemically-active emissions. Most vehicle manufacturers
favoured the use of liquid fuels over compressed or liquified gases. The
alcohol fuels have high research octane ratings, but also high sensitivity
and high latent heats [8,27,80,116].
Methanol Ethanol Unleaded Gasoline
RON 106 107 92 - 98
MON 92 89 80 - 90
Heat of Vaporisation (MJ/kg) 1.154 0.913 0.3044
Nett Heating Value (MJ/kg) 19.95 26.68 42 - 44
Vapour Pressure @ 38C (kPa) 31.9 16.0 48 - 108
Flame Temperature ( C ) 1870 1920 2030
Stoich. Flame Speed. ( m/s ) 0.43 - 0.34
Minimum Ignition Energy ( mJ ) 0.14 - 0.29
Lower Flammable Limit ( vol% ) 6.7 3.3 1.3
Upper Flammable Limit ( vol% ) 36.0 19.0 7.1
Autoignition Temperature ( C ) 460 360 260 - 460
Flash Point ( C ) 11 13 -43 - -39
>>>>>>

This shows Methanol to be 99 octane which is closer to most of the stuff I see which ranges from 98-101.


I am pretty sure it is not as high as 112-113 tho I have seen that number before. Maybe a chemist will enlighten us?

I believe that a mixture of 40-60 to 60-40 works best. When we use strictly water, we are displacing, imo, some of the active mixture of fuel/air similar to an egr. Many of us run straight denatured but I have backed off and addeed some water because I could not stand the various Steves telling me I was wrong..

If, indeed, the octane was as high as 112 or so, that would be a major reason to run it year round but I think the fuel benefit is good enuf reason and it does a pretty good job of cooling as it is.

I am not a chemist and am not qualified to pronounce the "best" mixture. As you can see from reading Bob Avellar's notes, he mixes three things...methanol, ethanol, and water...he did a lot of testing to get there. Is he most right? It works for him.

I cannot tell the difference between 100% denatured (ethanol) and 60-40 as far as knock resistance goes. The latter is cheaper...and using methanol would be a lot cheaper.