Will Rx7's Run On Moonshine?
cause then i could make my own gas. and drink at the same time. Im sorta joking..But serious at the same time. anyone ever get a car to run on "moonshine" if thats how its spelled

 

Does moonshine burn quickly? I am not Duke of Hazzard and don't really know too much about the stuff. If it burns I'd assume that it would work, but don't hold me accountable for any misfortune that may come about do to use of a home-made gas. If it does work though, you could be a rich man!

 

yes, but not for long. alcohol is much more potent than gasoline, and runs hotter. you car would run on moonshine, assuming that it was 'true' moonshine and had a very high alcohol content, but it would probably kill your engine pretty quick. you might be able to find a formula that would give you decent power without excessive heat, but unless you are a corn farmer, its gonna end up costing you way more than 2 bucks a gallon to make.

pat

 

ever heard of methanol?

 

K so why not add water injection. cool her off

 

Ok rx7 owners Pitch in. we can start a corn feild Just for us..and hell maybe make some extra money by opening our Moonshine store front..

 

alcohol runs cooler...........................................

 

dude, no way does alky run cooler... I used to use alcohol in my jetta come emissions time, and my temp guage would always read higher than when using pump gas.

suds

 

I would think your thermostat would just stay open longer and you would not really see much of a diffrence on the gauge if thats the case.

 

go buy a cheap rx7 na and see if it will.

 

its not about engine temps, its about combustion temps. higher combustion temps can heat the engine faster than the cooling system cools it, then boom. like i said, im sure you could find a way to make it work, but it would cost way more than gas. heres an idea: make moonshine, sell it to college kids like me for 20 bucks a gallon, go buy gas.

pat

 

alcohol does burn cooler. It takes 300% more alcohol to produce the same power that one unit of gasoline would. This is why you see methanol guys at the dragstrip literally blowing raw fuel out of the exhaust. Think about it, if alky really ran hotter, wouldn't the gov't. have figured a way by now to make comparable power to gas and stop paying OPEC?

http://www.geocities.com/rad87gn/tech/SteveCkit.html- SMC alcohol injection

We put this on dad's '87 Buick GN; went from 16 psi and 100 octane req. to 22psi and runs well w/ low knock counts on 93.

 

when i was doing research before i bought my 7 i remember reading that a rotary can run on almost anything combustable, if the intake ports are sized and shaped right. or something like that. there are mudders that use 4 rotor alcohol powered engines.

why not look into propane? i've seen some really cool aussie 7s with 400+HP that run on propane.

 

the reason you ran hotter....
you need to dump in much more alcohol than you would needed for gasoline, you are running extremely lean
not only that, you better advance the timing because alcohol is very high octane, it burns in the exhaust port


if your car runs hotter after you put in alcohol... richen up the mixture, bump up the timing before giving mis-information that you will overheat... it is not combustion temperature, the gas is just burning in the exhaust port... with no vapor left to burn... you should STOP PUTTING THAT STUFF in your car, you don't know how to use it! :P

 

Um, I THINK moonshine is still illegal.

 

Thats where MY water Injection Idea came into Play. Just a thought. :P

 

alcohol dragsters run no water cooling system because the 2 or 3x alcohol volume you run over gasoline is able to keep it long enough to get down the strip. Running enough alcohol to run at the same power as you have with gas you would get some amazingly bad milage.

What proof is moonshine? Is moonshine just pure corn alcohol?

 

yeah moonshine is 190 proof or over. in other words at least 95%.

pat

 

hmmm, seems not too many folks know very much of the bootleg. Well, i feel it's my duty as a residence of the moonshine capitol of the world (franklin county, VA) to pass along the wisdom.

First off moonshine is not methel alcohol, it's ethyl alcohol. theres a big differance if your going to drink it. Ethyl alcohol is made from but not limited to corn, wheat, grapes, apricots,ect. + sugar + yeast by way of fermenting and distilling. First run or the first time the fermented mixture is boiled (distilled) it usually produces around 100 proof. 2nd run goes as high as 190-195 proof or 97% pure. It'll make everclear cower in fear. It's some mean ****.

Methel alcohol on the other hand is made from a compleatly differant process and is derived from wood. This is a lot more complicated and I dont really have time to explain it, but if anyone wants I will. Methel alcohol is also very, very toxic, do not drink it!

Alcohol, both ethyl or methel burns 100-150 degrees cooler than gasoline, +/- 10%, it will infact make your engine run cooler if run in the correct air/fuel ratio, as someone stated previously. The downfall to a colder flame is less energy, gasoline has a specific energy or calorific value double that of alcohol, or 100%. which means twice as much alcohol is needed to produce the same amount of power as gasoline per voulume.

Im a pretty big fan of aclohol over gasoline for a few reasons. One is that 100% pure alcohol has a natural innate octane rating of 114. The nifty thing about it is, the lower the proof, the higher the octaine rating is, as low as 150-160 proof. If you have 95% alcohol, water can be added to lower the percentage and increase the detonation resistance- water injection without the extra equipment. Secondly, alcohol, when burned does not give off hydrocarbons or carbon monoxide. The two main contents of exhaust are water vapor and CO2. Which is very frendly to emissions testing. There is also a severe reduction in carbon deposits within the engine, in most alky motors, you can run them for several thousand miles and pull them apart and their just as clean if not cleaner than when they were put together, provided theres no oil burning.

It wouldn't be right if I didn't tell you about the crappy part of alky. Alcohol breaks up rust and oxidation. So if you run alky, or gasohol for that matter, through a fuel system that has had nothing but gas in it all it's life, it will break loose the rust that is in ALL gas tanks, and 9 times out of 10 it will stop up more than several fuel filters. Another thing is rubber will dry out and crack, effectivly accelerating dryrot, when it is subjected to alcohol. Alky does not atomize as well as gasoline when it's really cold, so a starting agent is needed to get the engine started under cold condidions. When alcohol vaporizes it gets really cold, so intake iceing is also a problem when driving in cold climates. And lastly but certainly not compleatly, alcohol absorbs water and evaporates, very quickly in fact. 1 gallon of alcohol if left unsealed will absorb 30% water and evaporate 40% alcohol in 8 hours. So if you had 1 gallon of 100% alky, after 8 hours you would had 9/10ths of a gallon of 60% alky.

Ahh, but how do I know this, you ask, well me grandpapy used to make dandelion wine in his back yard, and I build alky gocart motors in my spare time. I'm by far an expert on it, just many hours of trial and error and lots of late nights searching google. Just spreading what I know.

Oh and moonshine is not illeagle to make/have, it's only illeagle if you sell it, it's considered tax evasion.

-E

 

thanks for the info anobii

that was pretty cool and informative. this issue has been around for decades, someone mentioned the Dukes of Hazzard before, and though it was done in jest, one episode actually did enlighten me because it forced me to learn about alcohol as an alternative. someone also mentioned OPEC and the government before, and if you read between the lines, it kinda puts things in a different light doesn't it?

 

alot of info there, thanks for all the time you put into that, Um ill get back to this later my eyes hurt