I want to use methanol/water injection rather than run an intercooler, but I got to thinking about the long term costs and convenience for a daily driven car. Thereʻs a gas station with E85 fairly close to me and itʻs $2.00 a gallon. I donʻt want to deal with the cost/work of converting the main fuel system to E85, but I think it might work well for a secondary injection system.

Rather than purchase a bunch of water injection parts, I could use a couple of junkyard fuel injectors spraying into the intake, a cheap inline fuel pump, a regulator robbed from a fuel rail, and a 5 to 10 gallon E85 tank in the trunk.

Has anyone tried something like this and was it effective at preventing knock? Does the 15% of gasoline cause any issues such as seriously throwing off the AFR at WOT?

 

A system compatible with any fluid with be nice, but it seems to present additional challenges and costs. Most of the issue seems to be the pump, you either have a pump that handles alcohol/water, or a pump that handles gasoline/E85, but not both at the same time.

Iʻm finding some old threads here, and on other forums where people have used E85 for cooling the air with some success. But I also find arguments that if the purpose simply to cool the air down and do it cheaply, straight water is more effective than ethanol.

Running straight water would be cheaper than anything else, upfront and in the long run. Even running distilled water to keep mineral buildup out of the nozzle, thats 50 cents a gallon.

Does E85 cool the air well enough to be worth $2.00 a gallon, or would 100% distilled water be better at 50 cents a gallon?

 

You want the alcohol content, either ethanol, or methanol. The water cools the chamber, but the added anti-knock from the fuel is just as important imo. Search for Forcefed86's posts, he builds his own water/meth kits on a budget, and lists the parts he uses. I would personally go water/meth over e85 for the simplicity of the system, and the availability of the good windshield washer fluid locally (at least here in the midwest, or mix your own).

 

I'm in Texas, and all the washer fluid here says +32F. We might have one day or two below freezing a year. I doubt there's very little if any methanol in it. I checked with AutoZone and O'Reilly's and they list different washer fluids on their site, -20F, 0F, and +32F. Conveniently, they will not ship the -20F formula to Texas.

It seems like either system would take about $150-$300 to build or buy a kit, but the difference is the fluid cost and availability in the long term. Up to $3.00 a gallon would be a reasonable operating cost (same price as 93 octane). I know E85 is $2.00 and can be pumped in conveniently at a nearby gas station.

It looks like I need to figure out where I can buy methanol around here and what the price per gallon is. Assuming I mix it 50/50 with distilled water, I could pay up to $6.00 a gallon for the methanol, and the final cost would still be around $3.00 a gallon.

 

Well that explains it.

I need to figure out where race gas is sold around here and gets some pricing on methanol. As I think it over more, even if I had to pay $8 to $10 a gallon for methanol it would still be worthwhile. It seems to be the ideal fluid and how to do it is well documented, I just need to figure out where to buy it.

 

Go to your local Lowes or Home Depot. Look for denatured alcohol. Lots of Buick guys using it in their water meth kits with good results.

That only applies to tuning E85 on the E85 scale. Most people just use the gas scale because it has more resolution and most widebands come set to the gas scale. Target AFR is pretty much the same as gasoline when using E85 the gas scale.

 

I never have tried to learn it. People that use and understand it typically do prefer that scale. If I ever went to methanol I would change to lambda.

 

Looking at the MSDS of various denatured alcohols, they seems to vary a little in content but in most cases it's a blend of ethanol, methanol, isopropanol, and a few others. Crown brand for example is 65-75% methanol. Klean Strip brand is 40-60% methanol. Crown brand costs $17 per gallon at Lowe's, so it's not really a great deal, but I could see where it would work well in an emergency if you had no other option. If a 5 gallon can could be bought from a paint shop or chemical supplier at a lower price per gallon than pure methanol from a race fuel supplier, it may be something to consider.

 

Can you get HEET down there? Its almost pure methanol.

 

Just use water and forget the E85.

 

Gas line antifreeze, https://www.wsc.edu/download/downloads/id/132/heet_gas_line_antifreeze.pdf