I have been researching using Nitromethane in a street turbocharged application for about a year now, I also spent a long time trying to actually obtain some nitromethane. I did finally get some and conduct some tests. I'll try to give a brief summary.
The stuff is awesome in theory; it is nearly 50% oxygen by content; this would be even more than nitrous oxide (per volume) but since the Nitro is so explosive and volatile and difficult to use/handle/obtain it would not be something you'd use to as large an extent as Nitrous. I know someone said "why not just turn up the boost or run a larger turbo or install heads/cam?" well all those things come with their own compromises in cost/time/streetability/etc. and the Nitro idea, if it works, would be easier than nitrous and like a temporary power boost with no compromises and no detectability (good for street racing).
Make no mistake - this is the ultimate fuel I have found in terms of power production. 500CI Top Fuel engine producing 8000HP is 16HP/ci - try to find anything else that comes even close. Of course that is consuming 90% Nitro but you get can idea of the potential. Imagine a 231ci V6 producing 3700HP (dreaming..).
It is extremely expensive, especially in small quantities. I paid $50 for 1 gallon from a VP Racing Fuels distributor - 99.0%+ pure Nitro. I think it would have been $125 for 5 gallons so a little cheaper there but certainly not something "cheap" to use and would get costly if used long term. Most places did not carry it or sell to the public, the only one I could find was World Wide Fuels at
www.worldwidefuels.com (I think) and a local VP Racing Fuels dealer , but when I ordered it from them they were a little confused because nobody had ever ordered it before and I had to "luck out" by "catching the distributor truck" in the right part of the state (I guess that only happens every 2-3 months.)
I ran it in 4oz quantities mixed with half-gallon Methanol in my 11 second Syclone around 20-22 PSI boost. Unfortunately I found it to be of absolutely no benefit and it actually caused my truck to ping for the very first time I've ever heard in 3 years of racing/beating this truck. I tried various timing settings, various fueling settings, I also tried 8oz of Nitro per half-gallon Methanol and that only worsened the results. I did not see any big change on the WB02 when the alky-nitro spray was activated compared to just pure alky. I am sure if I had been spraying 100% Nitro I would see a difference but didn't feel that was a safe/reasonable/sane test to perform
For the most part the Knock retard just increased the more nitro I added.
My testing was cut short due to tranny failure and lack of chip editing equipment; I have those solved now but it's winter time. My Conclusion for this product is that it may hold serious promise but would require very specific tuning to reap the gains. It certainly is not something like nitrous where it will make you significantly faster just by activating it in any tune (safe or not).
I hope some other folks can test it out and post their results; I am a very green tuner and I am sure there are chip-editing people out there who could take this test much further than I have.
One good reference on the web for Turbocharged - Nitro info is
www.turbofast.com.au if you look for their technical info they explain how turbos work and then progress into using them with nitromethane. (I think this information may be a bit dated though.)
Another thought I had was perhaps the reason you don't see anyone using significant nitromethane use on a turbocharged application is that the exhaust may get so hot to exceed the limits of a turbine wheel - could that be possible?
Anyway yeah I will try a base run with no nitro at 14 pounds of boost and then a nitro run at 14 pounds, then if it blows up Ill promptly shoot myself in the face.
