E85 or meth?

[MattO]

I'm gathering as much information as I can right now and wanted to reach out to the Lat-G community and get their input;

I'm looking at increasing the output of my engine by cranking the boost on my turbo to around 18psi. The issue I have with this is not tuning so much as heat. The cylinder liners in my engine are REALLY thin and I'm worried that putting too much heat into them might cause a failure of epic proportions.

I know E85 would solve every issue here, but it's not exactly widely available, so I was wondering what you guys thought about injecting a healthy portion of methanol and water into the intake to keep cylinder temperatures down. I want to know which is the better route to go to keep the temps in check.

[Flash68]

I am going to run E85 and I have 3 stations that are all within 10-20 minutes of me triangulating my home base. That was enough for me to go for it.

Looks like you many more stations up in your hood. I'd go for it.

http://www.e85prices.com/california.html

[MattO]

Oh, I have a plethora of stations around me, but I'm more concerned with when I travel.

[NOPANTS68]

Are you injected or carb'd?

[MattO]

Injected

[novahollic]

I'm assuming LS engine? What ECU are you running? If you can make it a true flex fuel car, like you can with the newer factory ECU's, then you don't have to worry about having e85 available all the time.

[Flash68]

Yep, Stielow posted about making XV (and maybe the update to Jackass?) E85 compatible.

[MattO]

Nope, no LS for me. I'm not that smart. No, instead I built an Atlas 3.5L inline 5cyl engine that came in my GMC Canyon. It rocks a P12 ECM which is only just a hair better than a Texas Instruments calculator. So yea, I'm kind of an idiot...

[novahollic]

Not an idiot. Just working with what you've got. Does the P12 ECU not have Flex Fuel capability? I think most 05-newer car do. If you post up an HP Tuners file for the truck I can check.

The problem with running a strictly e85 tune is that you don't always get 85% ethanol in your fuel. If you end up with 70% ethanol, you be running too rich all the time. If you install an ethanol gauge you can monitor it, just so you know where you're at.

Or you can run e85 "race gas", but that defeats the "poor man's race gas" idea behind it.

[Flash68]

It rocks a P12 ECM which is only just a hair better than a Texas Instruments calculator. So yea, I'm kind of an idiot...

:lol: Nice.



The problem with running a strictly e85 tune is that you don't always get 85% ethanol in your fuel. If you end up with 70% ethanol, you be running too rich all the time. If you install an ethanol gauge you can monitor it, just so you know where you're at.

Or you can run e85 "race gas", but that defeats the "poor man's race gas" idea behind it.

Since you, MattO and I are in Norcal, we should not have a problem with the summer/winter blend deal E85 users face in other parts of the country. My research before choosing to go E85 on mine showed Norcal pump E85 has been very stable in the 85-90% range year round, at least that was the case when I dug into in this a year or so ago. I have the Quickfuel test tube and will be checking each batch of fuel.

FWIW, some pump E85 I bought in Concord in late 2013 registered 88%... I had some leftover after the dyno and I decided to test it a month or so ago and it registered 84%.

[Neil B]

For blower cars, the trick is to keep IAT's down using water/meth. Octane enhancement was secondary. Adding a secondary fuel source added tuning challenges and the need for fail safes in the tune. Nitrous is also a good way to cool the intake charge.

[MattO]

Hmmm... hadn't considered nitrous. If I did it though, it'd be a super small shot.

I'm leaning towards methanol at the moment because it meets all the criteria I need, and I can make my own mix.

The P12 ECM does not have flex fuel compatibility. Sad, I know. Later model trucks came with the E67 ECM which runs alot of LS motors. I could try to switch to that computer, but there may be alot of issues with VVT and so on, so it isn't worth it to me to be the first guy to do it.

I'm wondering how much methanol I should be spraying. Should I try to match it to my specific rate of fuel consumption, or just open the taps and hold on for dear life?