All,

I've been searching for good sources of methanol for my Water Injection here in Atlanta. I haven't been successful yet. I have found 5 and 15 gallon drums for sale, however, I have no place to store them and they are more than I will EVER use. I've also been made aware methanol is commonly known as:

Methyl Alcohol
Carbinol
Colonial Spirit
Columbian Spirit
Methylol
Methyl Hydrate
Wood Alcohol
Wood Naphtha
Wood Spirit
Methyl Hydroxide
Pyroxylic Spirit

The closest I can find to any of these is VM & P Naphtha. I'm still researching to find the methanol content in this, and how harmful it might be to inject.

Now, 3rd gen related:

I have been able to locate some hobby stores that carry fuels for R/C cars and Airplanes. Most of these fules include:

20% nitro, 99.95% pure nitromethane, 99.9% pure methanol, and 10% synthetic oil (racing castor blend).

Would this be safe to mix with 60-70% water in my water inection resevoir? What are the effects of some of these things on a rotory engine.

Use of ethanol or Isopropyl alcohol is ok, However, neither of them absorb as much heat as Methanol. Because of how they effect seals in the 2d aquamist system they are recommended to not be used in higher than 5% or 25% alcohol/water mixtures. This combined with their other traits defeats the purpose.

Any thoughts?

 

Um, can't you just use Isopropyl Alcohol, aka rubbing alcohol? Commonly available at supermarkets and drug stores. I am looking at mine, it says 70% alcohol. I know it is also available in higher concentrations.

 

Isopropyl Alcohol isn't very compatible with the seals in the aquamist water injection systems. Aquamist does not recommend mixing more than 25%rubbing alcohol (isopropyl)/75% distilled water .

Additionally, in it's purest form, isopropyl alcohol has about 1/3 the latent heat vaporization of methanol.

Methanol -- Oxygen content 49.9% by wt, latent heat of vaporization 2118.5 KJ/Kg = 506 BTU/lb
Ethanol ----- Oxygen content 34.7% by wt, latent heat of vaporization 1658 KJ/kg = 396 BTU/lb
Isopropyl --C3H8O--- Oxygen content 26.66% by wt, latent heat of vaporization 665 KJ/kg = 158.8 BTU/lb

 

I was using 50% denatured alcohol 50% distilled water.

you can get 1 gallon of the alcohol at a hardware store for about 11bucks. That will last you ~2 months.

 

Surge thanks.

However, I will run methanol/water or pure water. So I'm curious if the Naphtha or R/C fuel mentioned above will work without harming our engines. I'm fairly certain they are both compatible with the Aquamist 2d.

 

I have a 5 gallon drum of 99.9 pure methanol. I would be willing to sell you a gallon.

PM me if you interested.

 

I'm heading to a hobby store now. Let me know how much for a gallon or 2, my gut tells me shipping might be expensive.

Have you experimented with it at all?

If we are running rich, and we use more than 50% methanol, does this increase the burn rate and the likely hood of detonation?

 

can you even ship methanol??

 

Yes. You just have to label it appropriately.

 

I have my air intake sensor where the aws hose would go on the greddy elbow. How far ahead of that do I have to have the water injection? I realize I dont want it to spray right on the sensor but will it matter how far away I put it? it wont have time to mistify for a while right?

 

I believe it depends on how and why you are using water injection. Aquamist recommends tapping at a 90 degree angle to the direction of airflow. I believe they also recommend tapping after the IC as close to the IC as possible. My cool charge II was actually tapped in the end tank.

I know many inject directly into the elbow, directly into the manifold.

 

FWIW, I have MUCH better results running 70/30 - 80/20 (less water) mixtures on my Supra whether it be denatured or methanol. With straight water my timing gets pulled much more than with those mixtures -even 50/50. Aquamist touts the amount of latent heat absorbtion with water but never mentions the rates of absorption. In the chamber it probably doesn't matter but the intake air is much cooler with the alky/meth (30F on 70 F days).

 

so Marshall where should I mount this thing? Air sensor is at the back of the greddy elbow

should I go for the front of the elbow or far down on the ic pipe or after a bend or what?

 

Honestly the sensor is probably too slow for it to matter. If I remember correctly the PFC uses the IAT for very small adjustments to the fuel map over pretty big temp ranges -between 10 and 50C fueling will only change 7% at most. In practice the difference in the overall tune is pretty negligible regarless of what the IAT is doing -according to Titan anyways.

Basically mount the nozzle wherever is easiest for you. You may want to move up to an M10 nozzle as well since you want more power (its like $5)

 

just get 5 gallons of it matt, it'll motivate me to install my water injection kit and then i'll buy some from you

you can store it next to my can of 103octane i got this weekend

 

Back on Topic...

Any thoughts on the 50% distilled water, 50% r/c fuel (made of 60-70% pure methanol, 20% nitro methane, 0-18% castor oil).

Nitro sounds scary to be putting in our engines

 

whatever you do matt, you're not going to be able to do it with those plastic lines you have, methanol will eat it

nitro methane will react with it

 

The lines I have are supplied by aquamist. They recommend 50% water, and up to 50% methanol.

Any more than that and we start to create heat

I'm still uncertain about the nitro methane.

 

What do they say on the other forum about the use of nitro methane?

 

lol

 

I haven't seen any mention of it. Although they do mention a good source of methanol is r/c fuels.

I believe I read nitro methane produces o2 during the combustion process. Which again sounds scary.

"hotrod" says to avoid mixtures with nitro.