FAQ: Water / Alcohol / Methanol Injection?

i heard that methanol can make 60-80 hp is this good for the engine

There's a local guy researching this right now. He has a bunch of Grand National contacts and may be pushing forward. I'll keep you up to speed as more information is available.

anyone using alcohol injection on a S/C Buick?? My 96 Riv just got trashed and I now have 97 GTP along with my 95 Riv. I was going to buy a pulley kit and would like to run high boost but don't want to buy an intercooler kit and was thinking I might get away with just spraying some alky. This works for me when building up non intercooled GN's and T-Types. Anyone with me on this?

i havent seen it done (at least not on a riv), but i cant see why it wouldnt work well. i assume you're planing this in the GTP b/c the 95 isnt tunable for the alcohol.

It's been done. If you inject before the TB (the most common approach), there is the possibility that water droplets will remove the coating from the rotor blades inside the blower, making it less efficient. There is very little documentation on this, but I've seen pictures of rotors exposed to water/alchy, and it leaves little doubt, imo.

I agree with Aaron. Rotors on a 30K mile car were missing a lot of coating.

I want to run a lot of boost in the GTP, like 12-14 I wonder if a small shot of NOS would do the trick? Or I might just go to something I know.......Turbocharge it!! I know a GN running less than 10 psi makes very little HP so I sure a SC car would like the extra boost as long as it can be tuned for it and keep the KR down.

You need an intercooler if you want to run lots of boost. Mine hits 12-13 PSI with just a little of KR. I once peaked at 16 PSI on the dyno. Makes lots of torque doing it, too.

But you really don't need lots of boost to make horsepower. Add a cam, headers, intake/exhaust, maybe better heads. You'll move more air with less boost = more HP.

I had plans to inject after the SC. I tapped and capped holes for two jets in the LIM. That was awhile back, when there was only one IC on the market and it was $$$. I was reading about all the turbo regals running alky.

Injecting after the SC is ideal because you wont be running alky through your SC. The biggest issue would be ensuring a good dispersion to all the runners.

At this point I think I would run a 75 shot of Nitrous before I would bother with alky.

I saw this kit in a summit a month or so ago.. any thoughts?

http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?autofilter=1&part=SNO%2D20001&N=700+115&autoview=sku

Bump?

Sure, as long as it's injected after the blower.

AA wrote:

Sure, as long as it's injected after the blower.

If you inject AFTER the blower? what would happen if you didn't tune for it?

Same thing if you don't tune for other mods. Car may not run at it's potential or at the worst the dreaded kaboom.

I don't know about ka-boom. If you have a way to meter the water flow, start small. It would then be matter of measuring KR, using wideband to see air/fuel mix, and using the dyno to show power gains. Should be pretty safe if you don't move too fast.

AA wrote:

I don't know about ka-boom. If you have a way to meter the water flow, start small. It would then be matter of measuring KR, using wideband to see air/fuel mix, and using the dyno to show power gains. Should be pretty safe if you don't move too fast.

Yah.....

Water injection, or water/meth injection is more about KR control then anything else. It shouldnt baboom, just spraying too much water will bog your car down. The turbo guys who are seeing gains are running a TON of boost. It just seems like the whole idea lends itself more to high boost turbo applications.

You can get a base Nitrous kit for 399. Guys on clubgp.com seem to be running 75hp shots very safely.

so has any one installed an intercooler or methanol injection yet?

The only application that I'm familiar with is in aircraft turbine engines not internal combustion engines.
It was used during take-off under certain conditions. Depended on weight of aircraft, humidity, barometric pressure, field altitude, etc.
On a hot day with a fully loaded aircraft water-meth was injected to provide extra thrust during take-off only. Once you were at a safe altitude and cruising then the meth was shut off. The tanks could only hold enough fluid for a few take offs then would have to be filled again. The aircraft I was working on at the time had what are now older Rolls Royce engines. Not used on any newer commercial aircraft that I'm aware of.
I worked with a bunch of guys that were always tinkering and trying to make more horsepower in their cars and motorcycles, but we would just blend Avgas with pump gas to eliminate knock. The water methanol was too difficult to get at the time and was known to melt things if not mixed and sprayed at the correct proportions.
It's not very volatile at all (at least the blend that was used , I don't remember what percentage of water and methanol was used) until heated to very high temps inside the combustion chambers but when meth was added, even as a passenger you could here and feel the meth kick in, engines would roar and shake some and you could definitely feel the extra thrust.. Some pilots would use it just for giggles. It was as close as they could come to jet assisted take-off (JATO, used in military applications).
I'd be interested to hear what the automotive world is experimenting with on injecting methanol into internal combustion engines though. I know in the turbines it increased EGT's substantially and use of it had to be monitored very carefully so as not to melt combustion cans and turbine blades. I've seen the damage that can be caused by it and it's not pretty. But that was relying on the operator to monitor use not computers as everything else is today.

ericde wrote:

so has any one installed an intercooler or methanol injection yet?

Yes, someone has. Try doing a search for "intercooler".

I will be installing a meth kit on my 96 Riv very soon. its sitting on my kitchen floor. as far as nitrous cooling the blower, sure it cools it I have a 75 shot but I was looking for cooler temps without using the nitrous all the time lets say by a hobbs switch that sprays meth when it sees anything over 5LBS of boost. 80 HP? no way may gain around 15 to 30 but that's good with me. we use meth on many of our turbo and Supercharged installs works great!! you can mix half methanol half windshield washer fluid. will post my results soon

mrod7510,
Who's kit did you purchase.???

I'm thinking about doing the same when I install my GenV and other mods.

I've been looking at Snow Performance Kit's, www.snowperformance.net

I got my kit from, leperformance.com that is were I work as well. don't let the corvette stuff run you off, type in methanol in the search box. thanks [url]leperformance.com

Can you get a kit at a discount for one of your fellow Riv owners.???

sure, call my boss he is a good guy, Garth Weaver 702-375-4999 he'll give ya 10%. check out his ride on youtube. type Garth Weaver. not a Riv but sweet....