Labop

OK, I did do a search and it only came up as one post in the peltiar intercooler thread.

A buddy of mine is using this methanol injection system on his 3000GT. Of course, he's pushing 650 HP (while on race gas and methanol) and has an amazing turbo setup. Without the methanol and race gas he's running about 490-520 HP.

I checked with the website and there is a setup for NA cars. They claim 10-20% gain. You can really feel it with his car. I took a ride in his car while on pump gas. We then did the same run (still on pump gas) but with the methanol system turned on. My butt dyno felt a difference.

I know that his is heavily modded and has an advanced turbo setup, so the gain would be bigger than with a lightly modded 8. It apparently has a side benefit of keeping the engine clear of buildup/deposits (which would give us at least a minimul bebefit). As it turns out, he uses winter windshield washer fluid because it has 60% methanol in it. Any greater % of methanol and he risks the engine being to cold.

I know this isn't THE answer for HP, simply another possible method of increasing the hp a small ammount, but every little helps. Anyone have any experience with methanol injection? Is it really that good? Would this give NA 8's any good gains?

Thanks.

army_rx8

hmm methanol .... hs a much higher octane rating that gasoline.......but it isn't liek adding nitrous oxide to the mix. i'm not an expert but i dont' see how we coudl get anywhere near 20% out of this.....on a FI set up i could see the benifits b/c it addes water cooling and methanol (high octane so you can run more cboost with out knocking or pinging)...but for N/a.....i just don't see it.

hopfully someone else will chime in with a more expert opinion.

personaly i'd rather set my car to run off of E85 and FI......that woud lbe sweet D

Richard Paul

iTrader: (5)

I was hoping not to have to be the one to reply here but..so no one else eh??

Zeuschel used water/meth on the Merlin race engines at Reno. This was 50/50 mix. BUT these were very highly supercharged race engines and also had 120+ fuel. I can't recall exactly how much boost they ran and if I did I'd have to kill you if I told. 40-50 psi might be in the ballpark.

The tune on these engines was so far beyond what Rolls Royce designed that they sent a telex saying GOOD LUCK. According to Rolls calculations Dave was running 3500 + HP.

The H2O/Meth injection was used to control detonation and a complex anolog system of metering it was built custom. Realize that we are talking a lot of liquid to carry around on a plane for the entire race. Therefore it was regulated to use during critical times. as pointed out by the turbo user above it was only effective when used in a system that would otherwise not be viable. Ricardo has a section on water injection and I havn't read it in 20 years I think he basicly calls out that it makes more power then if it were detonating but iif you could not detonate you'd make more power without it.

Don't forget while methonol has a much higher resistance to detonation it has half the BTU's. When in the presence of water it will obsorb same and really being used as a coolant. Put the fire out and it is cooler. But why did you start the fire in the first place? To get the heat and thus expansion to move the rotor. Ha, you thought I was about to say piston.

It is not an explosion it is a controlled burn you want.

So not to ramble on here the answer to your question is no it is not going to help the NA engine except in some odd cases. I don't see those cases being with the rotary. Don't put out the fire, use it.

On another note Z tried nitros for a couple of years but in the end said "I can blow up engines without it, why add to the scrap." When he did run it they had a bottle of nitrogyn that pressurized the nitros bottle so the flow stayed the same for the whole race. In the street systems that are used today the only pressure is from the agent itself. since the added fuel is constant you will get richer as the bottle emptys. Carrying bottles in the wing of a plane the size of your Oxy/Act welding set has it's own drawbacks.

Fact: this is the first application of nitros, WWll. Both the Germans and the British did their own studies and came upp with about the same answer. ~5 lbs per min burned will ~= 100 Hp. Doesn't matter if it's in a fighter plane or a lawnmower. Want to know how much of a "shot" you really have??? Put it on a scale and run it for 60 sec. If it looses 2.5lbs then you have a 50hp shot. Remember the flow will not be constant over the whole 60 sec. So use the "math" Luke and only run it for a few seconds. Or enough so you get a good time.

You will have gotten the whole 50 hp but it will be uneven, more power at the start of the burn. Compounded by the fact that it will be richer as you go also.
If you always use a full bottle there will be little difference though. Bigger bottle=more consistant runs.

All you get today, I'm going back to bed.

army_rx8

ooo lots of good info. i like automotive history D:D

hehe see you wait long enough and teh big guns coem out and start shooting off answers.:p

Richard Paul

iTrader: (5)

We used to use Hilborn nozzles. I guess you use what your use to, or what you have in your toolbox. Hilborn made a fan spray nozzles in angle and straight. If my memory has not failed it took a 1/16 pipe thread into the manifold and a -3 hose connection. You only need one, as there is already pre mix. We used a number 16a. Wow.
It's only short term memory that fails. I havn't even seen one of those things for 20 years or more, yes more like 25.

You may not find Hilborn easily unless you know they are Fuel Injection Engineering.

Labop

Wow, several informationally packed posts. Thanks guys. :D

And look, RP started using smilies!

army_rx8

^yes i to niticed the smilies in his post...it is indeed a good day:D

Richard Paul

iTrader: (5)

I assume you mean the g tech. It turns out my new g tech does not work. I called them and they said go back to the dealer.

Soory got to go now I just got a call from the dealer who told me my car is fine, just needed the latest flash. Now you know how pissed I must be right now. He also said that is all they will do. If I want any more call Mazda NA.

I hate dealers. Hate, Hate Hate

Richard Paul

iTrader: (5)

Back to you CRH, again I get the one that doesn't work. I said it somewere else Christmass time the toys I get my kids have parts missing. I get an Rx8 and it has fatal flaws. I buy a G tech and it never works. So I spend my life on the phone with peoplw who doubt my powers of observations and mechanical abilitys.

So I will buy a new G tech because it is easier then tracking down the dealer since I bought it a year ago and never took it out of the box. So I have to convince them of that. It is cheaper to buy a new one then waste my time.
I cannot afford to do that with the car.

Still if todays excersise fails I will fix it myself as opposed to spending days on a trail up the Mazda managment chain. Then I will mail them whatever parts were bad.

I could be wrong and the only thing that was keeping my extra 25 or so HP from me was the new flash.
All owners should be ready to drive to the dealer for whatever flash that can do that.

rxeightr

RP,
Did Hymee ever use his SCanalyser on your car when he was in town, or were you too busy playing catch with Torque?

On a side note, I installed the fabled Water Injection on my small-block 400 Chevy way back in the early 1980's. The most electronics it had was an HEI Distributor with the Rochester Quadrajet 4-Barrel carb. Now that was engine management.

It was supposed to allow more advanced timing while controlling detonation, improving power & mileage. The only thing that increased was the bank balance of the marketer.

Richard Paul

iTrader: (5)

No the car was elsware when Hymee visited. Pity.
Yes those were easier days wheren't they.
Worse came to worse you just threw away the carb or distibutor.
Didn't know when we were well off.
Hmmm, did you ever say that about an ex girlfreind??
Or was it the other way around,,,,?? yes that is it. They said it about us.

Labop

After montsh of begging pleading and more begging, the wife finally gave in and is letting me get a Racing Beat exhaust system. During the discussion she mentioned that under no circumstances would we void the waranty... so it looks like a methanol injection system install will have to wait another two years. Unless someone else is adventurous enough. :D

BTW, there's a few good articles on the snowperformance website, you have to read through a little bit of marketing hype. But the articles are pretty informative as to how the system works.

Labop

I may have overstated how much "begging" there was. Yeah, being married sucks when you have to get permission... wouldn't trade her in tho. :D

The only reason I had to beg was her car accident at Christmas time. She's still shook up from it and is frequently in quite a lot of pain. There wasn't much begging, but there few times when I could bring it up. I didn't want to pester her about stuff when she's aching.

I think she's warming up to the idea of doing mods, but she wants to start small. She actually just asked if we should do the RP super high-flow cat at the same time. I said "hell yes". I was never looking to install meth right away, just wondering what you high-HP-freaks (yes that's a good thing) thought about it.