[Wiley Marmot]

Caught the last 5-10 mins of an "Engine Masters" episode on Motor Trend this AM. It was a comparo on tuning an engine for different fuels (116 octane, E 85, Methanol and a couple others). What stood out was the brief discussion on how effective methanol was as a power producing intake charge "coolant" (see Snox's comments above) especially for boosted motors; compared to the other fuels tested.
Hhhhhhmmmmmm???????

 

[Pezzar]

My CAT temps get as low as -3 deg C depending on ambient temp

 

[320icar]

Alrighty. So last winter I made the move to WMI. Where I live we don’t get e85, and all the gas stations only sell 91, except for chevron which some sell 94. As per stratified who’s local to me, our 94 is like American 91 at best. I was getting a lot of ‘bad tanks’ of fuel being tuned on 94 and far too often I was having to swap down to the 91 tune I also had for safety.

mods: intake/filter, FMIC/piping, catless DP, exhaust, plugs/coils, BOV etc.

I went with the AEM v3 kit and a boomba throttle body spacer, and I also added the aem solenoid to control the spray.

i have yet to have it on the dyno. Even if I didn’t gain any power from it, the datalogs with wmi are extremely consistent regardless of the base fuel. I usually do either 50:50 or something 40:60 water methanol.

you can spend your money on boost juice but that’s expensive af. You can get 3.78L of winter washer fluid (if You get the -35°c version it’s usually 60:40 water methanol) but the dyes and soaps can clog the nozzles filter. The real tip is to go to your local hardware store in the paint section and buy methyl hydrate, which is 99% pure methanol. Mix at home with water and you have cheap clean reliable mixtures without paying the premium for ‘boost juice’.

last summer I had back to back track days during the crazy “heat dome”. Both days were 42°c ambient air temps, tarmac was 60°c so track temps were very hot. The coolant and oil temps never went past half on the gauges. Charge air temps were slightly above ambient. I never got any warnings at all, and the car was being pushed to the limit.

You can see the ignition correction low is -.79, but +4.00 which is great. Doesn’t show here but by redline absolute timing is about +15°. You’ll see the high charge air temp is just from sitting in the pit lane, but check out the 55°c and that’s at maxing out the stock turbo.

only issue for track days is the 1 gallon tank is not big enough. I got my warning light for low fluid about 15 minutes in to each 20 minute session, that’s with the 500cc nozzle. I think I need to raise the threshold of when it was spraying so the mid-boost part throttle, I don’t need it really whereas heavy load WOT iswhere it really helps.

do it. Do it.

 

[Pezzar]

Fyi the solenoid is there to prevent fluid entry into the intake when the system is shut down, I went for a snow performance check valve instead.
Spray control is handled by the aem controller depending how you set the min and max dials.
Mine is set to 10psi start and full spray by 25psi

 

[320icar]

Correct. The solenoid prevents bleed out while the intake is under vacuum. But [from what I remember] the AEM system the pump is always running at a low pressure, then when you hit boost and the controller triggers the pump to turn up more.

a check valve can open whether the pressure is coming from the pump, or vacuum from the intake as the flow is the same direction regardless. Honestly the solenoid should be included in the kit and not just an option.

i don’t remember exactly what my settings are, but as per the email from stratified it was to start spraying at 12psi (the max starting for the aem controller) and full spray by 18psi

 

[Pezzar]

The snow check valve is a lot more advanced than just a basic check valve, I’m also changing my fluid sensor to a float type since the aem electronic are rubbish.
Ive also dropped the aem nozzle jet and fitted a snow performance low profile 500cc nozzle which is mounted 6 inches pre throttle in a cp-e methcharge cold pipe. Works great with good clearance from the radiator shroud.
I would also recommend hooking up the failsafe, I did a how to on here on how to hook up to the stock BCS, again works flawlessly

I mix meth to 70/30 by volume which is about 60/40 by weight. You need a higher proportion of meth to water since meth is nearly 30% lighter

 

[Pezzar]

Worth re iterating to anyone here too, mixing meth is dangerous, do not breathe the fumes or mix near or around ignition sources, wear decent gloves too as meth burns ferociously with no visible flame!!

 

[axelr]

Caught the last 5-10 mins of an "Engine Masters" episode on Motor Trend this AM. It was a comparo on tuning an engine for different fuels (116 octane, E 85, Methanol and a couple others). What stood out was the brief discussion on how effective methanol was as a power producing intake charge "coolant" (see Snox's comments above) especially for boosted motors; compared to the other fuels tested.
Hhhhhhmmmmmm???????

Hmm what? The latent heat of evaporation of methanol is 1100 kJ/kg while water’s is 2256 kJ/kg. What this means is methanol is piss poor at removing heat compared to water 🙂

 

[Pezzar]

the water and the meth should both have temp lowering properties, meth static temp is quite low like petrol. Put your hand on a container of pure meth you can feel the lower temp
Odd thing is when you mix it with distilled water the container will get quite warm. After mixing (chemical reaction) has occurred the temp becomes a lot cooler eventually

 

[Snox801]

Hmm what? The latent heat of evaporation of methanol is 1100 kJ/kg while water’s is 2256 kJ/kg. What this means is methanol is piss poor at removing heat compared to water 🙂

No that is not true, although water removes more heat it takes a much longer time to do it.
At one point someone posted the nasa report that states this. So it hard to say if it’s better in the short time we have with it in the intake.

 

[Snox801]

I assume this is also why I’ve never had heat issues with my car like others. Always sprayed meth.