alcohol injection

[Walang Silbi]

I came accross this in another site:



"By injecting a fine spray of alcohol/water into the inlet air stream of the engine, the charge air is dramatically cooled and the effective octane of the fuel is raised. Both help to eliminate detonation — the enemy of any engine, especially those using today's lower octane fuel under boost. For turbo diesel engine you will get a 100% fuel burn and on average pick up 20% to 30% more horse power over your RPM band. Turbocharged Gas engines will on average pick up 20% more horse power. You will notice immediate gains in performance"



Can anybody share their wisdom on this?

 

[Doctor CAD]

Sounds too good to be true, so it probably is.

 

[Darrel Chaney01]

Is that using "Jim Beam" or the brown bag version? :lol:



Somebody had to ask.

 

[Jeremiah Morgan]

It is true on Forced inducted engines..Alot of Grand national guys using this method..Also have seen alot of guys using turbos on Rangers using this method..Most use it to get rid of turbo lag..Using a hob switch...



They could use nitrous but this is a cheaper way of doing it!! and works damn good too...

 

[scott degroot]

Inquiring minds wanna know...how does this help eliminate turbo lag?? I had a high comp SBC that ran water injection in the summer months to help keep detonation at bay so that I didn't have to run race fuel, worked pretty well

 

[Richard L]

It is absolutely true and has been used in drag racing for many years. It has also been used on Turbocharged engines even my OEM manufacturers like Oldsmobile back in 1963. Olds made a turbocharged V8 (very low boost) and called the JetFire Olds engine and alcohol/water mixture Jetfire fuel. You could only buy from the dealer and they would not tell anyone what was in the JetFire Fuel. It only injected the alcohol/Water mixture into the intake when the boost reached something like 2 PSI



At that time, turbo technology on cars was pretty new and most mechanics did nto know what the contraption was or how it worked, much less the owners of the cars. In the end, most people felt the units were more trouble than they were worth and most had the turbo removed.



Alcohol/Water injection does work, but because of space for an additional fluid tank, It's use is limited to short bursts of acceleration. The added expense of adding the alcohol offsets any benefit to using a lower octane. It's better to bite the bullet and just buy higher octane gasoline.



The only time you would need to use it is for racing applications when you are using the highest octane gas avaliable and still encountering dentonation.



...Rich

 

[Walang Silbi]

Would this work for normally aspirated engine such as what's on the trac?

 

[Richard L]

Walang Silbi,

Yes it will work on any engine, but it is not a practiical alternative to just buying a higher octane gas.



You can buy the alcohol for about $1.50 a quart at any drug store, however that still works out to $6.00 agallon, so it is not cost effective. That's why it never made it big for highway use with the exception of some limited use in Turbocharged vehicles, and only then, when boost got to a certain level that it cause pre-ignition (pinging).



Now with stophisticated electronic ignitions it's just easier to have a computer control the ignition timing, and retart the spark at higher boost pressures.



At the drag strip I used to go to many years ago, they caught a guy cheating by using water/alcohol injection. He put the fluid in his windshield washer tank with a hidden hose and washer nozzle going from the washer pump to under the air cleaner spraying into the carb. He got caught because back then, washer pumps were part of the windshield wiper motors and officials go suspicous when every time he went down the track his wipers would start wiping.:lol::lol:



...Rich

 

[Scott Tanner]

It's called water injection.... been around for 50+ years.... B-52's use it, too... I used to have it on my '79 Turbo Capri RS... used the boost pressure to push the water into the engine. I used water, Washer fluid (which has alcohol in it), Hydrogen peroxide, as well as conbinations... I ran 20# of boost in that thing, couldn't keep a clutch in it, ran like a scalded dog on pump premium...