[173speed]

Methanol Injection

These days, in the world of tuning, boosted applications are much more often the norm than the exception. When tuning boosted engines, be they supercharged, nitrous injected or turbocharged, a good tuner knows what the safe limits are for timing and Air/Fuel ratio. Furthermore, a good tuner knows that a particular combination is tuned to run on a specific set of conditions, but one of these conditions is impossible to completely control – Octane.

Octane in a heavily boosted and nitroused application is a very big and obvious factor in controlling how much Compression, Boost/NOS and Timing can be mixed together at once. This is one of the reasons my shop is known for being very conservative with most of our customers’ tuning efforts when it comes to dealing with normally available pump unleaded fuels and boosted true street cars.

With the cost of today’s fuels it’s not uncommon to grab the nozzle at the local pump and select 93 octane and not really get 93 octane because of several different reasons, including winter blends, regional differences, fraud and many other reasons. This is why I’m very quick to recommend to the guys with the cars that have higher levels of boost to seriously consider race fuels or a mixture of race fuels as opposed to just unleaded pump premium fuels only. There is also a time and place where race fuels are needed exclusively on some applications.

We’ve actually achieved more reliability and less piston failure out of non-forged piston equipped, supercharged Mustang applications that make 15-18psi of boost running pure race fuels, like the locally available and popular “Turbo-Blue” 110 leaded race fuel. And had more failures with lower boosted applications like 8-10psi of boost using 93 pump unleaded fuels. It is actually quite common for a ton of our customers to get long healthy lives out of their stock, non-forged short blocks running well over 15psi of boost, non-intercooled with race fuels. This is because when you’re wiling to run race fuel full time, it’s always good stuff with usually no chance of getting “Bad Fuel” as can often happen with regular unleaded pump fuels. And when running race type fuels with your boosted application, depending on the car and combo you can get more aggressive with the tune and still not hurt it as easy as you would with a slightly aggressive 93 Octane tune.

This leads me to finally discuss the main reason for this page’s addition to my web site - Methanol injection.

As many of you forced induction guys have probably read in the mags or experienced already, Methanol is starting to catch on in the late model EFI performance scene.

I kinda-sorta cautiously watched as the magazines ran article after article about Methanol injection and untill this past summer of 2005 I really didn’t take a big interest in it, until a customer of mine showed up for some tuning with a methanol kit already installed in his car and asked if I was willing to work with it and see what I thought of it. I was impressed with it overall and decided that this was probably going to be a popular add-on for a lot of our past, present and future customers with blowers.



Methanol bottle and pump installed on a 94-04 Mustang

The key that has to be understood about Methanol injection is that it burns in the combustion chamber just like fuel. And this actually requires the rest of the tune to be adjusted accordingly. From what I’ve already experienced, you can’t just add a Methanol mix into the intake charge and expect a substantial gain in HP. In order to really gain from the Methanol injection, you need to add a pretty good amount of methanol, depending on the existing level of power/boost. When this correct amount of methanol is added, it will make your existing Air/Fuel ratio go very, very rich. So then you need to pull fuel from the engine management’s fuel map or normal tune to get it back to the desired A/F while the Methanol is spraying into the engine. Typically what we found is that when the Methanol is flowing you can run slightly leaner than you would have without methanol flowing. So if your booted combo is safe and runs good with a A/F of 11.5, with the Methanol flowing we would run a little leaner in the same application, like 11.8 to 12.00:1 - also adding more timing while the methanol is flowing.

Methanol is also a huge octane booster. We’re not sure exactly how much it raises a typical 93 octane application, but some say as high as 115-120 octane. Not sure about this yet, but it definitely raises the octane substantially from 93 judging from the amount of additional spark we can add to a non-methanol tune. Methanol also lowers the inlet temps quite a bit - as much as 60 - 100+ degrees.


Proprtinal Methanol controller. Modified 94-04 Mustang windshield bottle with low level float.

So far from what we’ve experienced on a few cars equipped with “non-intercooled” blowers making no less then 12-14psi and Methanol injection, we’ve already achieved gains of no less then 40-60 RWHP! Not bad for a real-world bolt-on. Plus, I feel that this extra power comes in safer as well, because of the cooling effect and octane gain the Methanol provides.

At this time we’ve started using Methanol kits from a company in Florida called Alky Controls. His kits come with a stock Mustang windshield washer reservoir modified for using Methanol and a sensor installed in it to warn when the Methanol is getting low. The kit uses the MAF signal to determine when and how much Methanol to start to flow proportionally. This has already proven to make for a pretty seamless transition from no methanol to when the methanol starts to flow. As mentioned earlier we make about a 20-30% reduction in commanded WOT fuel tables in a typical Mustang tune when seeing about 12-14psi of non-intercooled boost when the Methanol is flowing. We are at this time using straight methanol in all of our installations. No mixing or any other chemicals, just straight methanol.





Alternative Auto Performance
145 Malow Unit D - Mt. Clemens, Michigan 48043

[drgnracin72]

i have seen some very impressive numbers with water and methanol injection. i am planning on running it on my new motor/ s/c engine. ive heard of over 100 rwhpo just fom the water/methanol. seems like a very good way to go about making some power.

[173speed]

it is suppose to be real good at deterring against detonation in busted applications

[drgnracin72]

yes

[JunkyardTurbos]

It works great. Mine holds off detonation allowing me to increase my boost. I went the DIY route and saved a lot. I set my to come on at 4psi.

[Zak]

It worked for some, but for some others here's the story:

"We tried water injection on it as well but it robbed about 30HP. We tried to adjust it to the minimum but still it was just robbing power. We ended up disconnecting it." http://home.mchsi.com/~jroal/cars/blowzilla.htm

Since I am using a Blowzilla on my 94 Mustang Cobra, it was my only option to cool the charge but then again, where am I gonna spray that methanol/water mixture? Before the twin-screw blower which may lead to corroding the rotor blades, or on each of the 8 individual ports after the blower whereas no injection kit comes with 8 nozzles?

Snow Performance makes good kits and can be purchased on Summit or even eBay motors for those who wanna give it a shot.

[drgnracin72]

most inject right into the blower. your not going to corrode the blades on your s/c. if that was a problem, i serioulsy doubt that people would do it. but i have heard the same about some people not getting good results but i think thats just becasue they didnt tune for it right. you have to pull timing and lean the gas out for it to actually make power. it hink thats how it works i might have mixed up my owrds a bit though!

[Grinster24]

Where can i find different kits for a 87 supercharged gt?

[Sa-WaitNoMustang900Turbo]

well im going to have to say that yall are a little late on the water/methanol injection scene, SAAB rally groups and pretty much most high preformance SAAB 900 tuners have been using methanol or water injection since the 70's. i believe that any car boosted above 15 - 17psi should have one of these injection systems installed.

(im sure sure many of you already know this)

it is widle debated which injection system is better, WI cools the charge more and water is really easy to get, but in MI the methanol itself burns as a fuel (more powerful than octane and a higher octane number) in adition to cooling. the goal of both of these systems is esentially the same as any other charge cooling system though, to slow the reaction rate durring combustion in order to prevent knocking and allow for higher levels of boost (making better charge cooling will cause your engine to act as if you put higher ocatne fuel in it)

Id just figure out which system works best for you, but in either of these systems try running higher boost to optimise your tune

also methanol and ethanol (one and two carbon alcohols) can corrode your fuel lines and seals, but not any metal parts, i also do not believe you should have an issue with the methanol in your MI as long as your methanol fuel lines are rated for methanol, also this corrosion issue is one reason not to run higher than 10% - possibly 15% ethanol pump fuels for extended periods in your car

[1gunner23]

maybe it is me but i thought that the octane rateing on the pump, is the minumum rateing for that fuel.

[97snakercin]

Originally Posted by 1gunner23 maybe it is me but i thought that the octane rateing on the pump, is the minumum rateing for that fuel.

It's SUPPOSED to be but it is pretty sad these days how quickly people will screw you just to make a buck. it makes me sick