yea.. i did it for smog..
ran 50% methanol/denatured alcohol.. approx %.

i still failed.. .barely on hydrocarbons, but i think thats for other reasons.. (small cats)

well.. my car sounded sweet as hell. i had to richen the idle settings and got it to settle at about 800 smoothly.
my car sounded sooo good.. the exhaust had utter clarity.

my question.. theoretically this is the same as running lean, is that what an rx7 sounds like with safc? just really deep and kinda croaky like an indycar?

and do you think that i might have torched my oem o2 sensor as well from doing this?

the car seemed to run beautifully at all rpms, very smooth and the sound.. ohh the sound.

 

Well you aren't really running lean at all...you still have plenty fuel to burn, just a different kind of fuel. I've never done it so I don't know what other implications there are.

-Joe

 

didnt know these cars would live through something like that....

 

and yet we feed our cars with various amounts of auto tranny fluid, MMO, and straight shots of water... not to mention water ingestion in some cases (CAI, nice guys)...

 

no one knows? damn.. i mean i wont exactly tell you all to run out and try this.. but... run out and try this! lol

i ran a 50% mix and i took it really carefully at first.. revved it progressivly higher.. then i got scared when i hit redline.. but it carried through very nicely.
still waiting for responses.

 

Take her to the dyno and gives us the numbers!!

 

hey what color is ur car?
saw a fc today that sounded niiiiice!!

 

Go retake the test on just pump gas and see if you will pass smog (and give us the numbers!). This is something that would be really useful for all you poor suckers that have to go through vehicle checks.

 

Be carefull running methanol, it will lean it out because it is an oxygenated feul. We ran it in mine and didnt richen it up enuff, raced it, and shattered a couple apex seals in the front rotor. It ran sweet tho before it went.

 

mines red.. im usually in the costa mesa area, but can be seen often in newport and huntington beach. and sometimes in long beach.

and thats what i thought about the methanol..
im going to try to get another smog test soon. i may/may not change out my second cat before that, but ill be sure to keep everyone posted.
if 30 people paypal me a dollar, ill go get one today on pump gas!

 

saw a red one too but was an old man driving it

 

You didn't run enough. To make it pass, you'll be running so much that the car runs like ****, (this is why they tell you to fill it up IMMEDIATLY afterwards)

 

lol. ive been imortalized in kenteth's sig.

yeah, it CAN happen.

 

Umm yeah.
You didn't run enough.

Jrat has a thread on how to pass.

You pretty much run your tank almost empty then pour in like 3 bottle of denatured.

You have to be VERY careful since you will now be running hotter and leaner so you can blow the engine.

If you do this DO NOT rev it and go hauling *** around.

You didn't mention if you have a TII or NA.

NA's tend to go through emissions without a problem even though they are rich up top.

Both my NA's passed with out worry on the Dyno sniffers here in AZ.

My GTU had Bonez Superflo DP and cat with Corksport catback and a ebay filter on.

My 88 SE had stock everything and passed as well.

If you have an SAFC your supposed to lean out the idle and other places where you weren't legal.

That's the other reason why you have to be careful.

 

would you care to share the stoich of methanol? different fuels need different amounts of air. gas has the highest heat content, but requires more air. nitro i believe requires about a 1/4 the amount of air. alcohol i believe is around half. leaning out is DEFINATELY a problem when running other fuels. the last thing you want to do is beat on an untuned engine running one of these fuels. also, sorts of alcohols (i dont know the exact chemicals) are bad for certain parts in your fuel system. if i remember right, they attract water which quickly wears out rubber. i read a bit on running alcohol and the cons outweighed the pros.

 

Which is why you only do it to pass emissions!

 

that and it burns cleaner i believe. i need to study alternative fuels. any good book recommendations? i want to learn about alcohol (and similar; like methanol) and hydrogen for sure, and then i'm curious about nitro.

 

My friend took his 91 camaro through emissions with Alcohol after failing miserably the first time.

The second time he went through so clean he could have qualified as a zero emissions vehicle! lol

 

actually if you just change things from 100% gas to 50/50 gas/alchy without changing anything you are going to run lean
alchy needs to run at a differnet a/f ratio then gas does and generally requires more fuel or else you are lean