You don’t want to spray any mixes with methanol on bare alum intercooler fins is all. It will corrode the thin alum.

I sprayed distilled water on a lot of top mount IC setups. A windshield washer pump and zip-tied vacuum line with spray paint can nozzles works surprisingly well and costs almost nothing. Can fog a small amount pre-turbo that way as well. Then have a separate line with 100% meth sprayed with a “Real kit” at the throttle body.

 

Calculator is only as good as the data you put in it. If you have all the data correct, its pretty spot on in my experience. Which calc are you using and what parameters did you input? What are you trying to see?

The inlet air temp is pretty important as it compounds when compressed. IE a 20* difference in inlet air temps will make more than a 20* difference in outlet temps.

My turbos are hung out up high in free air. So about as ideal as you can get for inlet temps. Even then, It pulls hotter than ambient air off the track/road surface. Under hood temps can get nutty.

If you want to see how efficient your IC is, you can use this calc.

https://calculator.academy/intercooler-efficiency-calculator/

 

Brian, what kind of sensor, where is it located, and how long a time is your pull?

 

GM sensor in a Wilson 4 barrel TB. Turbos are fed at the grill,no IC. W/M 50/50 sprayed at 10% of fuel. Only tuning on the street ATM,so no long pulls,just up 100 mph, so far on 10psi. I'm seeing IATs of 110-118*

I used the air charge temp calc out of curiosity,was just surprised it reported so high. I used 90* for inlet temp.

 

Your turbo could be a little more efficient than 70%. Or the elevation could be off a tad? But there’s no escaping it takes X amount of heat to compress Y amount of air to a specific pressure.

Sounds like the sensor is just wetted and reporting false cool temps. Pretty much the point I was trying to make regarding all the AUX injection stuff. You simply can’t trust the IAT when its wet. If the sensor is down stream of the TBI or the water/meth… its gonna be wet and gives totally bunk data. You will have increased knock protection for sure, but don’t tune the car based off false IAT data.

 

Brian, all sensors have a "time constant". It takes time for them to come up to temp to report an actual value. Some of the GM sensors are a bit slow so look up your part number to see its time constant. For example my Delphi sensors take 18-24 seconds to reach actual temps! That is why I asked how long was your pull. On the street I doubt a short pull is enough time to record actual temps.

 

Mr. Forcefed, I didn't think the corrosiveness of methanol had to be mentioned on this site. I only suggested water on the fins.

 

The IAT readings don't change when the W/M turns on,at least not by more than a few degrees. I can be cruising with IATs of 115* and on a short pull they might drop to 110-112*. The sensor just might not be getting hit with the W/M. I know 2 other cars I've had both saw big temp drops as soon as the W/M started,they both had the sensor in an intake runner so I know they were getting wet.

Turbos are 2x BW 366s so at 10psi I they aren't working too hard. 427 SBF

 

What was different on those cars compared to the one now. Where they different sensors?

 

You've got me thinking,now that I pulled up a pic, it does look like the sensor is shielded on the Wilson TB. The other 2 cars, the sensor was mounted in a lower intake runner,definitely more in the path.

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I run the larger G3 78/75s on a 5.3. And my other setup is twin 64mm gt35s. At 15lbs they both basically make the same charge temps (no water meth). I thought the larger turbo may make less heat. Which is one of the reasons I went with them. They both have pretty identical charge temps as at like pressures as long as the compressor eff isn't WAAY off the map. At 20+lbs I'm sure the 78's will make less heat. But at moderate boost they still both maxed a 255 gm IAT well before the 1/8th. There's just no way you can make much under 200*, even at 10lbs. So something's off IMO.

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I only see a couple degrees of drop on my Mustang on a longer run (whipple supercharged). But I saw temp rise without the WM kit, it is also running through a water/air intercooler and I am using a pretty small WM injector size. I am betting the temperature the sensor is seeing is heavily regulated by the intercooler since that is directly before the IAT sensor.

Brian have you run yours without the WM to see how the temp changes without it? Matchbot will calculate theoretical compressor discharge temp on those turbos:
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My input numbers aren't perfect, I just setup the displacement and boost number with an ambient temp of 75. You could make it a little more precise.

You would get similar numbers with an ideal gas law calc, turbo size doesn't effect it much unless you get way out there on efficiency, even if the turbo is making heat contact time is low. So most of what you are seeing is heat from compression.

 

Thanks,Ben. I ran it at first without the W/M, but no real pulls long enough to get the temps up. Thinking I'll try another IAT,or a different mounting location.

At 10psi this thing is getting my attention... 3rd gear pull at about 60% TPS spun the tires at 70 mph. LOL!

 

The nitto drag radials are life savers IMO.

3x the life of a MT drag radial and they don’t feather/ball up on asphalt and try to kill ya like the softer radials do.

 

I installed a Rife IAT sensor. I get a little more activity out of it,but still reading within the same range as the one that came with the TB. The Rife is a bit longer, and that gets it out in the air stream more. Might run a tap in the NPT bung to get the sensor deeper,in the air more.

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When you say its a TBI system, are the injectors up stream of the sensor?

 

No,it's port injected with a 4bl TB. The W/M is injected at the turbo outlet.

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Gotcha. Yea, I dunno why yours seem so much cooler. (or mine so much hotter). I spray a little deeper in the volute, but super similar. IAT on the back of the 90* bend right after the TB.


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Wanted to ad some info to this thread and ask some questions.


1 milliliter of water = 1 CC (cubic centimeter) = 1 gram
Ethanol, Alcohol and Methanol weight slightly less per volume than water.

Heat vaporization:
Water - 2260 joules per gram, vaporization point 212*f
Ethanol - 854 joules per gram, vaporization point 172*f
Alcohol - 879 joules per gram, vaporization point 173*f
Methanol - 1100 joules per gram, vaporization point 148.5*f

Aside from the fact water/meth injection cools the IAT sensor getting an accurate reading of its cooling effect on charge air is impossible because water will only vaporize in the cylinder/combustion chamber. (Unless charge air temps are extremely high).

Knowing the joules per grams, number of cc's per minute injected and air consumption per minute of an engine the potential added cooling effects can be calculated .

IAT readings during water/meth injection are a good way of confirming the system is working.

I think the only way to accurately measure it's cooling potential is using an exhaust gas temperature sensor/ gauge.

Although running Alcohol, Methanol, Ethanol, water/meth injection have the same or similar effects to running racing fuel ("like" as ForceFed86 said), all are different in that the volume of fluid is greater than that of racing fuel/gasoline, the air to fuel levels are higher on the fuel side.

The richer air fuel ratio of fuels other than gasoline from 50/50 water/meth at 1 part less air to fuel to nitro methane at 2parts air to 1 part fuel (2:1) cool combustion chamber and air temperature allowing the environment they're injected into to remain cooler and prevent pre-ignition.
Racing fuel can be injected into hotter environments at the air fuel rate of pump gas and withstand flash ignition.

I did a lot of research when deciding what mix of water to meth to run / solutions to my fuel issue, I always ran 94 octane pump gas, it's only available in 3 provinces in Canaduh, apparently there are only 3 E85 stations in the whole country. 91 octane is available country wide.
There is a racing fuel available here that's 112 or 115 octane unleaded but it's very expensive and the ratio to tank of 91 is quite high to make 94 octane. Of course I installed water/meth continued to run 94 octane and maxed out my fuel delivery set up by turning up boost.

From all my research I only bothered to remember I want to run 51% water to 49% methalhydrate, 2% of the mix can be nitro methane by weight.

Somewhere I saved all the info, solvent ignition temps, octane rates, temp dicipation... damned if I can find it.
This thread made me remember some of it (not the numbers but some rates) and some of it is pertinent to this thread and got me thinking of water/meth ratios to cooling.
They say water has infinite octane because it will never ignite, because it cannot ignite it is not a fuel and therefore cannot have an octane rating, it effects the air part of the air fuel equation and helps cool the combustion chamber.

So ratio, when I decided on a 51/49 ratio it was based on simple things, volatility and freeze point,

My water/meth system is a combination of two set ups, one was a crazy guy I found online using a household air/water tank to deliver water injection (pressure constantly dropping) and rice racings boost pressured tank and pre turbo delivery.
Pump pressurized tank so I never wanted to run pure methanol.

What I am wondering because of this thread (as ForceFed86 mentioned about the amount of water rice racing systems run),

Because water cools at over twice the rate of Methanol and engines can perform better in air with higher moisture (within reason) water doesn't hinder airs ability to combust so why not run a higher percentage of water mix at an equal amount of Methanol injection.
What would be the downside to running 66% water 34% Methanol and jetting to achieve the same af ratio?
I am sure 66/34% isn't the right mix it's just a number but by increasing water % by x amount and I creasing injection by y amount would that simply increase cooling by x amount without affecting performance (- the space the added water takes up in the air fuel/gas mixture). ?

 

I'm not sure where you get water cooling 2x as fast, that's not true, water has a higher specific heat... these are not the same thing. Methanol evaporates much more quickly and has a boiling point of 68c at atmospheric pressure, which is significant when you are talking about forced induction temperatures and pressures. Phase change energy is much greater than the temp change from adding the mass of the liquid.

Dyno tests typically show higher methanol blends make more power.

When you are talking about your stoic you need to do the math on what percentage of the fuel mix is methanol. In most cases we are running rich to be "safe" and its rich enough to negate the methanol addition, methanol is also pretty forgiving as far as lean detonation.

You are looking at theoretical maximums; the assumption being you are achieving 100% evaporation before you hit combustion, which probably isn't true.

Water doesn't burn, and it occupies space that would otherwise be occupied by fuel or air.

Usually you run 51% water because that mixture doesn't readily ignite, where with higher concentrations of meth if you have a leak or vapor gets into the bay y0u have a fire risk.


You can run whatever blend you want, most of the WM kit manufacturers rate their systems to a percentage of methanol, alky injection rates theirs up to 100%, I think snow says 70% is safe for their pumps.