What would be a basic methanol fueled set up for an SBC?
For the main componets I was thinking of useing: production 1989 5.7L block, forged 3.75'' stroke crank with forged 6" rods, 750 Barry Grant race demon carb (Alcohol), Prp top line heads with 64cc chambers, big hydraluic roller cam, forged pistions all most flat top and run it with a 180'F to 200'F thermostat.
For the compression I was thinking of 12:1, do I need more? What is normal compression for a methanol motor?
The cam is 234*/244* @.050 with .500''/.525'' lift.
I was going for a 1500-6600 power range.
The trans is going to be a built TH-700 with a 2,500 stall converter.
What gears would an alcohol engine like to push with those gears?
Also how much does race methanol cost, can't find any?
I have herd that methanol is a lot cheaper than race gas but you have to burn 2x as much as gas. 6:1 A/F.
I know it's corrosive and can work around that.
How much spark advance do you have to run? And how hot should the plugs be?
Also I have herd that methanol gives 30% more power compaired to gas when burned right, is that true at all?

 

There is a difference between having an alcohol powered race car with license plates and having an alcohol powered street car.

I'll let the actual alcohol guys tell you all about it, but I will say that your idea of having an alcohol powered street car is one of those ideas that is usually better left in your daydreams. There are simply a lot of practical inconveniences that would make it enough of a PITA that you'd probably be sorry you did it.

 

Typical alcohol motors won't build heat to worry about a thermostat. If it's jetted properly, it won't build heat above 160. Many drag cars running alcohol have little or no cooling system. I use a rad from a turbo firefly in my car with the bottom half of the block filled.

Alcohol will run on 8:1 compression but 13.5 is the magic number to shoot for.

Other than that, heads, cam, gears etc will be the same as a gas engine. You can expect to do oil changes frequently because the high amount of alcohol that needs to be fed into the system washes down the cylinder walls and contaminates the oil. Also since the engines runs so cold, condensation builds up in the crankcase and contaminates the oil.

Methanol costs a little more than premium pump gas. A race gas equivelent for an alcohol engine would be about 4 times the cost, ie. C12 or C14. You're going to burn about twice as much alcohol as gasoline so compared to race gas, you're still ahead.

You can buy bulk methanol at most industrial supply houses. It's just Methyal Hydrate. I buy mine in 45 gallon drums and dump in some top lube into the drum before using it.

Some of the downsides:

High mainanence fuel.
Needs frequent oil changes
If the car sits for longer than a couple of weeks, the fuel system should be drained and flushed with gasoline. Spray the carb down with WD40 at the end of the day.
Exhaust fumes are formaldahyde (extremely poisonous). I can't fire my car up in the garage without having all the doors open.
Usually hard to start a cold engine. Solution is to install a gasoline primer system to get engine started.
Engine doesn't build heat. Not a good thing for cold climates.

 

You can buy a 53 gallon drum already lubed for 135 or 125 with no lube. Alcohol fumes are hard to handle so you will want to buy a scent additive. Most people come up with their own mixture of starting fuel that they just spray into the carb when it comes time.

 

i have a question or two...

i have a 14.6:1 355 i am wanting to run on alky but am a little scared.

is tuning going to be a pain in the butt?
i heard you can't tell by looking at plugs, ritch/lean??
is it worth running alky over 116 octane?

can you give me some ups and downs about driveability and consistency?
thanks

 

Sprint cars run 15:1 on alcohol and make 800 hp from a small block.

There's always the risk of running lean and burning valves. Always run alcohol fat. If it runs too fat it slows down. If it runs too lean, it slows down. It's almost impossible to detonate alcohol (ping). Best tuning aid is Exhaust Gas Temp (EGT) or beter known as a pyrometer. Running around 1150 - 1200* at WOT is what to shoot for. Any hotter and it's lean. Colder and it's rich.

I have nothing to comment on as for drivabilty (street driven) but consistency is fantasitc. Because of the 6:1 A/F ratio, it takes a huge weather condition change to make the engine change. Most alcohol racers run the same all day long without changing any jetting. My carb is jetted with 185's front and rear and I never touch them. I might pick up a little more ET if I dropped down to 160's but then I'm getting close to the lean mark.

Running 116 race gas is just as simple as an engine running pump gas. Fill it up and forget about it. Although alcohol is higher maintanence, the benifits are worth it especially in a race only vehicle.

I'll never switch back to gasoline in my race car. The next step up is to get rid of the carbs and to to alcohol injection.

 

Alcohol sounds more good than bad so far.
Three things get to me.

Toxic exhaust.
Is the formaldahyde a product of running rich, will running higher C/R with a good A:F mixture and correct timing cut down on that?

Running cold, crap in oil (water, alcohol).
It that a product of running short distances, like a drag car? Can I get it to run hotter?
Hot thermo, not running fat, driving for extended distances, little radaitor, block air to raidator, under driven pump, help me run hot? I don't want to weight my car with block filler.

Cool running.
I might be forced to move to a cold place, will I have to put the car away for winter?
I might have to go to ID or ND worse case.
No chance of winter running???
But I might have to go to NM or TX, good for alcohol.

No one seams to know, does alcohol make more power than gas?

 

Yes alcohol makes more power than gas. The BTU energy of alcohol is less than gasoline however you're dumping close to twice as much alcohol into the engine. More fuel = more power. Typical engines pick up .2 -.8 just by switching to alcohol.

Formaldahyde is one of the byproducts of burning methyl hydrate. You'll pass a sniffer test but you would empty the building of everyone complaining about burning eyes and hard breathing.

To build heat to help burn off the moisture inside the crankcase, racers install a leanout valve. Basically it's a manually controlled valve usually hooked up to the brake booster port on the carb. When opened, it creates a huge lean condition. Running excessively lean, the engine will build up heat. Once the engine is hot enough, they close the valve and shut the car down for the night. It's not foolproof but it cuts down on the oil changes. Installing a vaccum pump to the crankcase also helps. If the crankcase is kept in a vacuum, there's less chance of condensation forming. I just use header evacs. When my engine is idling, there's a lot of water coming out the exhaust. Of course I also run open headers so I don't have to worry about an exhaust system rusting out.

You could drive in the winter. The fuel would never freeze but the engine would run so cold, you would have to dump all the coolent. Without coolent, you wouldn't have a heater.

 

D'oh, I forgot about a vacuum pump. good idea.
I heard form a lot of peole that they will pass a somg.
I had thought about leaning out but though that would burn valves.
So leaning makes it hot but not that hot.
Just hapens I was looking at vacc pumps, eletrical ones on ebay for composite work.
I Should check out belt driven ones I know there on there.

 

Alcohol will typically make 6-12% more hp with an optimal setup. The actual ratio of alcohol/gas that you need to run is ~2.3:1. This creates a couple of big problems for a street car. The first is that your fuel system must be capable of flowing 2.3X as much fuel. The pump, the lines, and the regulator all must be larger. And they must be compatible with alcohol. Your fuel tank will effectively be ~40% the size it was using gas. If you get 14mpg on gas and have a 14gal fuel tank, your range is ~196m to a dry tank. With alcohol, the range would be ~85m. That's ~40m out and 40m back, since you can't pull into a gas station and fill up on methanol. At 14/2.3 = 6mpg you will go through a 53gal drum of methanol in ~318m. So, if you drive 5,000m/y you will need to deal with ~16 drums of methanol. On a cool day you will need to spray gas into the intake to start the car. Very frequent oil changes will be needed.

And so on.

Alcohol is a fun idea to play with but in balance it just isn't practical for a street car.

Rich

 

sweet. well so far i see no down sides to running it. but i think i would be lucky to get 1-2 mpg. so if i run a CSI water pump and don't fill my block i could probably not run a radiator or just a tiny one right? i have aluminum heads which make the engine run less hot anyway,i don't think i would have a problem running too hot do ya think? especially if i'm running down the track into the pits etc.. oh and what about nitrous? i don't really plan on running it because of 14:6 and a 107* lsa cam, but what if i just wanted to run like a 50-75 shot just for a little more et? i know the fuel jet would have to be 2x the size but whats the danger or is there any? and what about n/a spark plugs? what is the best to run with a sbc?

thanks.

 

The nitrous/alcohol cars I've seen use alcohol as the main fuel but have a 1 gallon fuel cell under the hood as a seperate fuel system for the nitrous. Although you could do a nitrous/alcohol system, you have to find out what jets to use for the alcohol fuel. Since you need to flow almost twice as much alcohol as gasoline, you can't use the recommended gas fuel jets if you want to use alcohol through the NOS system. You're also going to have to put minimum C12 race gas in the 1 gallon fuel cell. C14 or C16 would probably be better.

Added to that, as mentioned above, you need a much bigger fuel pump and fuel lines to handle the amount of fuel the engine needs. Since you're dumping a huge amount of fuel into the engine, a hotter spark with a good ignition and coil are required so that the increased amount of fuel in the cylinders, especially with NOS, won't blow the ignition flame out. Using the NOS will also require some sort of ignition retart system to activate when the NOS kicks in. This isn't a general purpose gas engine we're talking about but a special built alcohol engine. You can spend thousands of dollars on an engine but if it isn't built properly for the application, you'll be spending thousands of dollars more. I'm to the point now that every winter the engine gets yanked out and new rings and bearings get installed.

I use NGK race plugs with a heat range of 7 and gapped to .035". I run a front mounted fuel cell and up to the end of this year I was using a BG280 fuel pump. Next year I'll have a BG400 pump installed. I have -10 (5/8") fuel lines from the fuel cell to the fuel regulator and -8 (1/2") from the regulator to the carb. When I had my fuel cell in the rear, the BG280 pump couldn't push enough fuel to the front of the car during launches because of the increased gravity pushing the fuel back. Once I moved everything to the front, the problem went away. Using a BG400 pump in the rear would have also fixed that but I didn't have the pump at the time. The only reason I'm putting in the BG400 pump now is that it has to feed two 850 carbs next year.

 

It looks like the only other big thing I need for my alcohol powerd car is a trailer.
Unload the car at like a wal-mart or some thing and drive the last several miles to base with a 550hp+ alcohol car.

 

i have an aeromotive A2000 with -10 lines. the regulator is a 4 port aeromotive with with 4, -6 outlets. i am running 1 to either side of the carb and blocking the other two off. do you think that would work (both pump and reg are alky compatible) or do you think i would need to step up to -8 lines going to carb?

 

-6 to the carb bowls would be fine for gasoline but even Barry Grant recommends -8 to the carb bowls for alcohol.

http://www.bgfuel.com/bgfuel/default.aspx?page=86
Second diagram down. Ignore the fact that it shows a bypass regulator. A regular deadhead style regulator will still work and you won't need the fuel return line. The regular regulator needs to be installed like a normal installation before the carb. When I install my BG400 pump and tunnel ram, I'll be redoing the fuel system to use a bypass regulator at the same time.

It's going to depend on the HP level of the engine. A 300 hp alcohol V8 engine isn't going to need as much fuel as a 500 hp one.

Because you need to move a lot more fuel with alcohol, you need the larger lines to supply enough for the carb.