Alcohol Injection

[WDRacing]

This is a topic I think scares alot of people, yet it's one of the best mods I ever did to my Skyline. The following info is from a Buick GN page, but alcohol injection will work basically the same on any forced induction motor. Remeber this, for every psi of boost you add, it's worth about 8-10 hp. I was able to up my boost 8psi after installing the SMC Alcohol Kt on my car. That netted me over 80hp for 300 bucks. Still scared...

General Information:

Alcohol sprayed directly into the charged air stream has a substantial cooling effect and acts kind of like an inter-cooler. Alcohol’s cooling and fueling ability reduces detonation that allows higher boost and timing levels to be run with low octane fuel. Cylinder temperatures can drop as much as 300 degrees. Alcohol injection may be added to your recipe at any point as it works well from a light mod stocker to a full out racer.

The concept of injecting alcohol and water into an engine to increase power output is not new. The research and testing has been done years ago and still continues today. During WWII the military used alcohol and water injection on aircraft to enhance combustion by cooling the charged air coming in from forced induction. Ever wonder why Turbo Regals have the "Power Injection" light on the dash and "Power Injection" location in the fuse box? GM had plans to put water injection on Turbo Regals for power enhancement by reducing detonation and increasing boost levels. Unfortunately it did not go into production in time. The light would illuminate when the water injection was pumping. Jay Carter, Steve Chlupsa, Steve Yanklin, and Frederic Breitwieser are just a few great examples of people that have done extensive design and testing of alcohol injection systems for Turbo Buick applications. They have been very successful with their efforts and have brought forward great technology. Propane injection is starting to come forward from Jay Carter.

Many people have successfully used alcohol injection on Turbo Buick engines hundreds of passes with no damage to parts, seals, or cylinder walls. GM did implement alcohol injection on a few durability test engines run on a dyno. During the durability tests the engines were cycled between the peak torque RPM and the peak horsepower RPM for the equivalent of 100,000 miles. Afterwards they were tore down and examined. They noted significantly more cylinder bore wear in the alcohol/water injected engines. It was believed to be from unburned alcohol and water washing the oil off the cylinder walls but they could have also been running higher boost levels. This wear problem was only found on engines run through the durability dyno test and not on any other tests. The alcohol kits for Turbo Buicks only turn on during boost situations. So, I guess if you plan on having your foot to the floor for 100,000 miles with the alcohol injecting this could pose a potential problem for you otherwise there is no worry. This is a tried and true safe method of increasing the power of your Turbo Buick engine. I've been running alchy injection on my '87 Grand National for many years with countless WOT passes and 50,000 miles with no problems. The only real danger to alcohol injection is letting it run out of alcohol during a high boost blast. If the alcohol runs out severe knock is most likely going to occur because you probably are running higher boost and timing levels than the gas in your tank at the time can handle. Bad enough knock could occur causing a blown head gasket or maybe even worse engine destruction. So, make sure there is always plenty of alcohol in the container and be careful when turning up the wick.

There will be more info to follow.

WD

[Red Lightning]

I saw the smc kit on your other post. my questions are how long (in miles) will the smc botton of alcohol run? How hard (or easy) is to find places to refill that much alcohol? Will this work on a CA18ET engine? I'm not worry about engine wear, I'm only going to keep the current engine for 40,000 miles. Thanks in advance.

[Red Lightning]

I just noticed I asked a CA question in the KA forum, sorry.

[WDRacing]

Your forgiven, but it still pertains to the original thread topic.

Any engine will react in much the same way to alcohol. Especially a forced induction motor. So it will work great on your CA.

As far as how long the Alky will last, thats another story. It has alot of variables, it depends on how long your on boost and how much volume you have the pump set at. You can get denatured Alky from any hardware store, IE Lowes or Home Depot.

The SMC kit has a low level light so you'll know when your about to run out of alky. I use a dual stage boost controller so I can just switch down to low boost if the light comes on.

WD

[Daunttless]

It's generally a wise idea to keep extra alcohol in your car just in case the light comes on or even if you don't have a light so you can check it when you fill up on gas, especially if its a daily driven vehicle. You can and will run out of alcohol, thats a strong point to stress as like the article mentioned you can do serious damage to your engine. Because of this its always a good idea to keep some extra with you, because daily driving even if you aren't racing sometimes you don't keep track of all the times you go WOT, so when you DO actually race you think you've still got a good amount and boom. : )

[Exar-Kun]

I'll stick to a good turbo and nitrous if I have to.

otherwise, unless im in a pro-sotck class, alchohol/ethanol is a no-no for me.-chet

[matt0941]

Sounds interesting, I have looked at the SMC kit but I guess I would have to have some consumer testomonials and get more comftorable with people safely using it on their KAs before I install one. Also I am a bit afraid as to how compliant it will be if I go with an SAFR system.

[S13Ka24e]

I'm a bit confused, lets say you have a car running 15psi of boost. You add Alcohol Injection and you are now allow to boost to 20psi before detonation. Do you have to add enough extra fuel for the 5psi more do you you only have to add alittle more b/c the Alcohol burns as well? I guess what I'm asking is does the Alcohol take up the fuel requirement or do you need to have a fuel system that will handle the full fuel requirement.

[WDRacing]

I have talked to a ton of people who have used the SMC kit Matt. Some drive Skylines, but most drive GNX's in the states. They all said it's the best kit around. There are more expensive kits with more options, but those are for pro draggers. Alcohol in any kit will work with the KA24DET.

S13Ka24e, Denatured alcohol makes 15% more power when ignited then 92 octane pump gas. So it lowers your combustion temps by roughly 300 degree's depending on the amount ingested, aswell as adding the proper amount of fuel for the added psi.

You do have to tune it yourself though. You can't just up the amount of boost and dump in alcohol. Nothing is that simple. But its almost that easy. Let me give you a brief run down on how I tuned my Skyline.

My low boost was set to 12 psi. My high boost was set to 20 psi. So I installed the kit, took me 2 hours but I also wired in a fuse. After the install I turned the pump volume on almost the lowest setting. Then I drove the car at full boost. I use an MSD knock sensor as well. But it isn't absolutely nessasary. The car ran rich but didn't bog down. So I added 2 psi of boost and ran the car again. I noticed a slight improvement. So I simply went on adding alcohol the adjusting the boost till I hit my record of 28 psi with no knock indicated. At that point I was starting to worry about how long my engines stock rods were going to hold up. So I didn't push it any further.I've always wanted to keep adding boost till a motor popped, but changing an engine over here is a pain in the ***.

My wife could tune the car to run on alcohol...

WD

[S13Ka24e]

Thanks for clearing that up, My plan is to run 370cc (decided not to go with the used RX7 injectors) and those should only be good up to 10-11psi. So I was wondering if you put the Alcohol and be able to raise the boost more. Since I will be keeping my stock internals it seems like a good idea to run this to cool my pistons even if I am only going to run 10 psi. Thanks.

[WDRacing]

I wouldn't bother, but you could use it. You would have to have the pump volume turned all the way down. Just have it come on at say 8 psi so the motor will be recieving full spray by the time you hit 10-11 psi. With the alcohol I don't see why you couldn't run 15 psi. Turn the pump volume up till the motor starts to hesitate then back it off slightly. That way you know your staying in a safe A/F ratio.

As a suggestion, I wouldn't run 15 psi all the time. I would use a dual stg B/C. That way when you run out of alky, you don't have to park your car or risk driving and having a meltdown.

In case you were wondering, I love boost, its like heroin to me. I'll add as much boost as the engine will take everytime. My daily driver in the states will also have the KADET. But I'm going to keep the bottom end stock. My plan is to boost the motor till it explodes. That way we'll all know what the limits are. Since I know I'll be tuning it the right way. The just swap out the motor and lower the boost a tad.

My wife hates it when she hears me talking like that...lol.

WD

[matt0941]

WD when you talk about a dual stage what do you mean? I heard you talk about it earlier but is it just a set low and high boost level... what system is capable of that and do you suggest it? Oh yea and one more question (if you can take that many), wanna bring me back like 500 JDM parts when you come back, like maybe just wear carbon fiber hoods back instead of clothes?

[WDRacing]

I'm probably going to sneak a few engine back in my household goods shipment...hehe.

I don't believe in fancy bells and whistles so I have been using a dual stg(1 high setting and 1 low setting) from TurboXS for the last 3 years. It has worked flawlessly everytime. Easy to install and easy to adjust. Not to mention a few hundred bucks cheaper then most decent B/C/s from other company's.

http://WWW.TURBOXS.COM

WD

[syka24et]

Does the company (smc) have a web site.

[Red Lightning]

Thank you for answering my questions. It seems its not so hard to do alohol injection. Just one more question, WDracing, do you run full alcohol or alcohol and water mix (50%/50%)? Thanks in advance.

Syka24det, the smc site is: http://www.geocities.com/rad87....html

[WDRacing]

I run straight Denatured Alcohol, once a month I pust about a shot glass full of Mystery oil into my alcohol tank to keep the corrosion down on the pump.

WD

[syka24et]

WD can the haltech control the alky injection. I remember you said you liked the E11

[syka24et]

And has anyone ever used alky and nos. Can that be done. Well i guess anything can be done but do the benefits out weigh the risks??

[WDRacing]

N2O and Alky have been used together already with no problems.

I'm not sure if the Haltech can control the Alky or not. It might be able to turn it on, but I doubt it will be able to regulate it.

I'm working on a system that increases pump volume with the boost level. That should make things alot more tuneable.

WD

[matt0941]

So do you think that it is necessary to go with a two stage boost controller like the turboXS one (couldn't find it on their website though) when doing alky injection?

[WDRacing]

I would say so Yes. That way your not using your alcohol all the time. Unless you just on running 12 psi or so, in which case you won't even need it.

But it comes in handy on those days when you can only afford or find 87 octane. Cause your car will have a problem running peak boost for 93 octane if you fill he up with 87.

I'm lucky over here in Japan. I get 104 at the pump everywhere. Thats another reason the guys over here boost so much. You have to figure roughly 1-2 psi extra per octane point. So that gives us a safe bet of 5 psi. Which equates to around 50 hp, given the usual 10hp per psi of boost.

Go to http://www.turboxs.com and click on products at the bottom of the page. That brings you to the page with the dual stg B/C on it. It costs $239

WD

[Top Speed Coupe]

WD will an A/F Gauge or EGT gauge still work n help with tuning?

[WDRacing]

I would suggest a MSD knock sensor. Unless you want to spend 800-1000 on a wide band O2. I don't think the other are worth a crap personally. Don't get me wrong, I have one on my Skyline. But its only there for the idle adjsutments.

The knock sensor is sensative enough enough to pick up detonation before it becomes bad enough to mess up your pistons and rings, or rods for that matter. As soon as you get any knock indicated you need to get off the throttle. Then turn up the alcohol volume and try again. This process should take a full day or so. You want to go about adding boost very slowly, that way you can make sure your engine is still functioning properly.

At the first sign of anything abnormal, shut the car off and figure out whats wrong.

WD

[syka24et]

N2O and Alky have been used together already with no problems.

I'm not sure if the Haltech can control the Alky or not. It might be able to turn it on, but I doubt it will be able to regulate it.

I'm working on a system that increases pump volume with the boost level. That should make things alot more tuneable.

WD

There is a company called tsunami that makes boost dependent fuel pumps. Maybe that could work with your set up. Ill find the site and post it for you.

[Red Lightning]

I run straight Denatured Alcohol, once a month I pust about a shot glass full of Mystery oil into my alcohol tank to keep the corrosion down on the pump.

WD

What's this mystery oil? is it only available in japan? any substitutes in the states? thanks in advance.

[WDRacing]

Mystery oil is everywhere in the world, check DAPs or Autozone.

WD

[jmac]

mystery oil, if we are on the same page, is made by, or under the name of "marvel's mystery oil" and can be found in most auto parts stores, as WD said

unrelated sidenote: i have been reading this forum voraciously(my 25 cent college word for the day) and have learned alot. one thing i have learned is this: if it is 240 related, it is most likely in here somewhere, so keep looking. happy hunting!

john

[WDRacing]

Yeppers, Marvel Mystery oil, sorry I left out the Marvel portion. I guess I just took it for granted that any decent mechanic would have known what I was talking about Red Lightening...lol. Just kidding bro.

WD

[Red Lightning]

Thanks WDracing and jmac.

[I am Technoman]

Mystery oil works great for lots of thing like air guns,paint ball guns damn good lubbing oil...