E-85 / Methanol

[TrinaBabe]

Well I was going to switch the car to have a liquid -> air intercooler to get temps under ambient but then I just thought about it and figured since I have an EMS and a decent fuel system anyways perhaps I should try out E-85 or Methanol.

The EMS uses Lamda, not AFR, so switching the map to run on Ethanol or Methanol would be a click away and a 20 minute session of tuning so that doesnt worry me at all. The fueling I have right now is a single Aeromotive A-100, single fuel rail, 780cc injectors, -10 feed lines and an Aluminum fuel cell. I figured since buying the PWR intercooler would set me back ~$650 + fabbing up some new intake plumbing I should see if I could run the car on Ethanol (And hopefully Methanol) for the same price. This is what I figure I will need to do:

Weld on some bungs on my current intake manifold for a secondary rail - $50
Use a stock DSM fuel rail as the secondary rail - Free
Buy 4 - 1600cc injectors - $280
Use some extra SS lines I already have to plumb the extra rail - Free
Get two more fuel Y-Blocks (To feed the other rail) - $40
Get another fuel pump (Possibly toss the A-1000 for a bigger pump or get another A-100) - ~$300 (Even if I get a bigger pump I could sell this one to keep the costs down)
Lastly, get a buddy of mine to Anodize the fuel cell and rails to make the Methanol safe... probably free.

This is ~$670.. close enough to try it out

Not exactly sure how the EMS drives injectors but it shouldnt be tough to make it fire an extra set of 4 I dont think. At that point I should have enough fuel to make it run with some decent power even on straight methanol.


Now on to the question part:

Do people running straight Methanol use a lubricant (Like Klotz) in thier fuel to help keep fuel pumps and injectors alive?

Are most injectors safe to use with Methanol?

Would running on just E-85 make it so I could still run it with no Intercooler or would I need to use Methanol to do this?

Do you have to flush your fuel system with E-85 after running the car on straight Meth?

Lastly, how do you tune the car for this stuff.... the fuel part is fine and simple. Apparently Methanol is much more linient towards AFR numbers as opposed to gas but what about the timing? I know Methanol is obviously much cooler (Enough to make ice on the head while the exhaust is glowing red) and you could get away with much more compression (10+:1 is perfectly normal for high boost applications) but what do I do about the timing? Run it the same timing as gas? More timing, Less timing... what is the rule of thumb on that one?

[MitsuJoe]

I cannot answer many of your questions although you still need to wire for the xtra injectors. I did not see that mentioned in your list.

[mitsuatb]

Methanol is very hard on many metals and plastics.

Ethanol is still hard on them but not nearly as bad as methanol, also Ethanol is closer to the A/F ratio of gasoline.

I would not mess with Methanol, E85 is interesting, but still could damage the cars fuel system.

Mitsuatb

[LITE SPD]

That sounds like a plan TrinaBabe. But do you really need 2 fuel rails to run this stuff? And the 1600cc injectors sound like they belong in a 1000hp Supra. And do you think this can be run with the stock ECU?

[SaabTuner]

Just putting a link to the infamous NASIOC E85 thread in this thread in case anyone searches: http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=803341

-Adrian

[Mivecless]

What is your Lambda target on meth injection Triny?

[KevinD]

Originally Posted by TrinaBabe

Weld on some bungs on my current intake manifold for a secondary rail - $50
Use a stock DSM fuel rail as the secondary rail - Free
Buy 4 - 1600cc injectors - $280
Use some extra SS lines I already have to plumb the extra rail - Free
Get two more fuel Y-Blocks (To feed the other rail) - $40
Get another fuel pump (Possibly toss the A-1000 for a bigger pump or get another A-100) - ~$300 (Even if I get a bigger pump I could sell this one to keep the costs down)
Lastly, get a buddy of mine to Anodize the fuel cell and rails to make the Methanol safe... probably free.

This is ~$670.. close enough to try it out

first off, going to a twin fuel rail is most likely not nessisary, it will help for idling with huge injectors if you indeed are going with 1600cc injectors. so really i have no comment there other then be prepared for tons of tuning and maintance.

make sure the pump is alcohol compatible. often times the people you are buying them from have no idea, and will just tell you yes to sell the pump (with no refund after you eat through the seals with the alcohol because it wasn't compatable).

the fuel cell isn't going to be happy even HARD-anodized. if it is scratched it will corrode. i was amazed myself how fast aluminum corrodes with even just E-85.

Originally Posted by TrinaBabe

Not exactly sure how the EMS drives injectors but it shouldnt be tough to make it fire an extra set of 4 I dont think. At that point I should have enough fuel to make it run with some decent power even on straight methanol.

it is not as simple as just wiring the two sets in parallel or series. you need a seperate driver and contoller for the second set of injectors in order to do a full sequential dual fuel rail system. if you plan on running both of them at the same time, just get bigger injectors and use only one rail. much easier. i'm sure most decent EMS system should support some type of dual fueling system though.

Originally Posted by TrinaBabe

Now on to the question part:

Do people running straight Methanol use a lubricant (Like Klotz) in thier fuel to help keep fuel pumps and injectors alive?

Are most injectors safe to use with Methanol?

no. most injectors are not alcohol compatable. we used siemens injectors on our race car, they were E-85 compatible.

Originally Posted by TrinaBabe

Would running on just E-85 make it so I could still run it with no Intercooler or would I need to use Methanol to do this?

again, our race car didn't have an intercooler running E-85. we only ran 10 psi boost though... so weather or not you want to use an intercooler is going to depend on how much boost, how efficient your turbo is, how much fuel you want to use (i.e. lambda), and what the ambient temps are. you can run some calculations on what your intake temps will be with either E-85 or methanol based of the latent heat of vaporization of the fuel. there are some other things to consider like humidity, but for the most part it will be a good ball park estimate.

Originally Posted by TrinaBabe

Do you have to flush your fuel system with E-85 after running the car on straight Meth?

not sure why you would want to do that... if you have methanol in the fuel tank, run it till it is out, then switch to the E-85. simple. if you have some residual meth in the lines it will mix rather quickly with the E-85 to a insiginificant concentration. if your mixing half a tank together you will need to tune for it.

Originally Posted by TrinaBabe

Lastly, how do you tune the car for this stuff.... the fuel part is fine and simple. Apparently Methanol is much more linient towards AFR numbers as opposed to gas but what about the timing? I know Methanol is obviously much cooler (Enough to make ice on the head while the exhaust is glowing red) and you could get away with much more compression (10+:1 is perfectly normal for high boost applications) but what do I do about the timing? Run it the same timing as gas? More timing, Less timing... what is the rule of thumb on that one?

tuning is interesting. methanol and E-85 are very knock resistant. meaning you can be past peak performance with timing long before you hear pinging. the only way to do the timing is going to be on a dyno playing with it until you see your max power and then turn it down a knotch for safety. a knock sensor is not going to be nearly as reliable as if it were with gasoline.

your a/f ratio with the methanol will be around 6:1, while the E-85 is 9.8:1 and the gasoline is 14.7:1 if you are running extra rich to keep intake temps down with gas, you wont need such a large margin with the meth as it cools much better then gasoline.


for starters, i would read everything you can about both fuels before you begin throwing that stuff in your car. flying blind is worse then not flying in this case. your questions seem really basic, so do some research before you start buying stuff. alcohol is the **** for making power, much more so then gasoline, but there are certain things to know about it, thats all.

[TrinaBabe]

Thanks for the responses.... I can not seem to find any of the answers I was looking for tuning wise... the AFR stuff is relatively common but I was interested in the timing. So it seems I can run alot more timing with the stuff so thats good to know.

The dual rails and 1600cc injectors will be required. Simple math could figure that one out for me.... currently I am maxxing out the 780s on racegas. Methanol will use a little over double that which would be to replace all my injectors with the 1600cc but than I would be again maxxing them out. Therefore, I will need more fuel if I plan to give myself growing room.

The E-85 doesnt seem to corrode any aluminum very quickly. We put a bunch of seals, o-rings, chunks of cast aluminum, machined aluminum, etc and left it for 2 months... stuff looked fine coming out and the seals we threw in didnt even start to swell. Methanol seems to hurt stuff pretty quickly giving it a film of white stuff corrosion and minor pitting within a few weeks.

According to what I read, the Aeromotive A-1000 pumps can be ran with Methanol. I would like to switch to a mechanical pump but for the $300 difference and strange fabrication to get the fuel to it Ill just run twin A-1000s I think.

You dont happen to have the calculations on the latent heat of vaporization do you? Like some formula to tell me how cool the intake temps would roughly be? I would like to know if I will be able to run 20psi or so on just the E-85 for daily driving. The Methanol I am confident in running whatever boost I think my motor will take

About running this on a stock ECU car... if you buy a wideband than you could easily run E-85 in the car... I would use a wideband to crap out a narrowband signal to the stock ECU. You may need to give the ECU a reflash for a global gain in fuel so it doesnt get upset though. I would not recommend trying to run straight methanol in a stock ECU car

[KevinD]

E-85 does corrode aluminum quickly. believe me, i have seen an "ethanol compatible" pump with an anodized aluminum housing get eaten up in a matter of weeks (it didn't disinigrate, but the shell had white corrosion spots like a person with smallpoxs). i doubt the case was anodized though. one thing to note, E-85 is hygroscopic meaning it absorbs water, and the alcohol can vaporize away after sitting. simply putting some aluminum and seals in a can with E-85 wont tell you much. put it in the bottom of a gas tank with E-85 and keep cycling fuel every week through it. its amazing. oh, and FYI, JB Weld is NOT, i repeat NOT alcohol compatible.

Q= MCdT where Q is the amount of energy due to latent heat of vaporization, and M is the mass of air needed to be cooled. C is the specific heat of air, dT is the change in temp you will see.

latent heat of vaporization of gas is 150 Btu/lb at 60degF
ethanol (*note 100% ethanol) = 396 Btu/lb at 60 degF
methanol = 506 Btu/lb at 60degF

take the LHV * mass of fuel = Btu of energy consumed in vaporizing. * 1055 to convert to joules ( i don't like Btu).

now we have Q, we have C = 1.005 J/(g*degK) for dry air (no humidity).

and we assume you know M of air because it is simply the Air fuel ratio you are running. thus:

Tend = Tstart - Q/(m*C)

give me a number of the mass flow rate of air your running and i'll plug it into my matlab sim i made for this a while ago. note that it is not perfect... i leave out a lot of things like altitude, ambient temp, humidity, but you get the idea...

[KevinD]

oh, and E-85 will take way way more boost then pump gas will. its like running your car on a alky injection as the primary fuel.

[TrinaBabe]

I know the fuel will take more than gas would but without an intercooler will it still?

For the mass flow just assume 1.1 lb/sec Ill see if I can read through the equation and write something up for it also but if you could it would be awesome!

Not exactly sure the AFR / Lamdo I will be running but if your sim you made could do a few different analysis' it would be great... something like:

Inlet Temp 140 with Gas 12:1
Inlet temp 230 and 260 with E-85 8:1
Inlet temp 230 and 260 with Methanol 5.9:1

Im not sure what the intake temps will be without an intercooler so the 220-250 range is my best guess assuming 140 was with the IC on a 80 degree day. Obviously these temps are in F not K. Thanks again for all the help by the way! Hopefully this gives me numbers I like

[TrinaBabe]

Assuming the alchohol will be obviously always on the inside of the cell it shouldnt ever get any scratches on the inside of the cell so honestly would giving it a hard anodize be sufficient? I assumed it would be from what I read as long as it never gets scratched. Otherwise I suppose I could put a bladder in the cell or swap to a plastic one.

As for the injectors, Im not sure if mine are compatible with Meth but Ill check but as for the injector seals do you know of a place that sells seals that would fit the injector and the little rubber seal on the intake -> injector?

[TrinaBabe]

I think I got your calculation figured out finally

This is what I came up with... let me know if this sounds right to you:

With Gas AFR 12:1, Intake Temp = 140 degF, Airflow 1 lb/sec comes to 39.46 (Not sure the unit... I assume in Joules of heat absorbtion)

Methanol AFR 6:1, Intake Temp = 250 degF, Airflow 1 lb/sec comes to 224.97

Are these numbers actually right? And if so what is the ending number of 39.46 vs. 224.97?

After re-reading your equation perhaps the numbers I came up with are supposed to be the K drop.... sorry Im just crappy at math

[KevinD]

oh, i should have mentioned you have to use absolute temperatures. use kelvin. I.E. you will have to convert your 140degF to degK. i don't have my simulation with me here, so i'll help you out tomorrow. also, the C value has a grams unit in it, and everything else uses lb, so that needs to be converted as well.

i have turbo outlet temperature calculations as well depending on turbo compressor efficiency, so if you have a map of the turbo you are using, you know the boost pressure you want to run at a given RPM, i can calculate what temps will be coming out of the turbo as well.

last, if you have an intercooler and have an idea of how efficient it is, that can be accounted for as well.


(my simulation does all this, including calculating injector pulse width depending on injector size and turn-on latency) its pretty cool. i even dialed it in with real world test results.

[TrinaBabe]

Well I just ran the car with E-85 to start with after talking to Precision about thier injectors... Brian said people run them with Methanol all the time and they probably have slightly shorter lifespan there havent been any failures yet from the Methanol....

Didnt make many adjustments to the tune.. lowered the boost to ~17 psi, same timing, and around %15 more fuel across the board. Its pretty rich I think under load (6.9:1) so Ill try to lean it out some but for now it was a good test. There is no intercooler on the car and there was no sign of any knock what-so-ever. Intake temps were normally around 95 degF with the intercooler... without it a few minutes ago they were around 220 degF. The stuff didnt knock Ill do more tinkering tomorrow... Im tired tonight but at least so far the test is going good.