This tread is more to uderstand the effects of running nitromethane than actually doing it. I really like to understand. We use nitromethane in fuel for small aircraft engines to increase power. I like to tell how I understand that Nitro Methane works, please correct me if wrong, I am an electronics engineer, no chemist.
I understand that Nitromethane has approx. the same energy contents as gasoline, but brings a lot of oxigen with it. So in order to get the correct mixture, one can double the amount of fuel without changing the air intake and in effect double the power. Small aircraft engines take upto 20 % of Nitromethane without any problems and do not run hot. The limitations are more in the limited timing adjustments using glow plugs than in the mechanics and thermodynamics.
Is this the case as well for our engines?. E.g. a crossfire engine has quite some restrictions in the intake, so taking more air requires a considerable amounts of mods. Is it possible to run Nitro Methane temporarely to increase power? Is it possibe to get the correct amount of fuel out of the injectors by incresing pressure or need the pulse to be legthened? Or has it disadvantages, valve temperature, exhaust system, closed loop mixture probems etc.? In effect destroying the engine? Perhaps someone ever tried?

 

 

Looks nice, but please comment.
Nico

 

I know that nitro has a pretty slow burn rate due to the amount of fuel present in the charge (denser) and is still burning on it's way out the pipe hense the louder bang! But I don't believe it burns much hotter, but on the other hand it's 53% oxygen by weight
we used 85% in our O.P.S .67 redhead in a dumas 3 ft skater and that little missle was timed at 88 mph, the oval being only 300ft. It was rated for 6 hp! at 38,000 rpm and would run without problems until the 16 oz tank was dry.
If you have datamaster I would try it out starting with small percentages and monitor knock very closely. It DOES dissolve in gasoline and I have on more than one occasion gotten rid of many gallons of model fuel (older stuff from the basement) thru the beater and she still lives smells good too!
As a side note, if you look on the bottle of some octane boosters, Nitro is listed as an ingredient.
http://www.turbofast.com.au/racefuel15.html
Yea it's only like 700 bucks per 55 gal drum but at a 20-1 ratio wih gasoline I guess it doesn't break down real bad.

 

Thanks for the info.
If it is an octane booster it means that it will probably not give knock problems, also because it is a slow burner. But at 5% there will be not a whole lot of gain. It is more thougt to be used as a short time increase e.g. for 1/4 mile or to kick some ashes of people that think they can smoke a Vette. Set-up like a pressurized 1 gallon container and a switch-over valve directly before the injectors. Than it is also very easy to set the pressure. You think that will be feasable?

 

Took a look in the website you mentioned. Very interesting. Saw that Nitromethane indeed can knock. So a 50% mixture with Methanol seems a perfect fuel.

 

Take a look at nitropropane. It doesn't have the same O2 content as nitromethane but it mixes with gasoline. Klotz sells a fuel additive that is about 50% nitropropane and 50% methanol. Nitropropane can increase the chance of detonation. Richer mixtures are safer. A number of years ago Hotrod magazine had a good article about nitropropane. They managed to break a piston on the dyno but they were pushing it to see what was safe.
Here is what I found on the web January 1996.
We believe in telling the whole story, which means admitting to failure as well as success. While nitropropane is not new to hot rodding, its effects are not well documented. Dr. Hill was our main source of information. In our enthusiasm to try the stuff, we added 10 percent nitropropane to pump gas, bumped the jetting six numbers and promptly blew up the test engine. Steam poured out of the valve covers on the first nitropropane pull. We traced the steam genie to a waterfall out of the No. 5 spark plug hole. The engine had detonated so badly that it broke the ring land on the hypereutectic piston and cracked the cylinder wall in two places.

This fiasco occurred because the air-fuel ratio was too lean. As Dr. Hill puts it, “This stuff explodes when it runs too lean.” We believe it. As we gained more experience by starting overly rich and carefully leaning the engine, we formulated a general rule of one jet-size increase for each percent of nitropropane. However, we actually achieved our best power numbers with a nine jet-size increase and 10 percent nitropropane. Increasing the nitro percentage to 15 percent, we found jet-size increases are not necessarily linear, since we ran only 13 jet sizes larger. However, this didn’t increase power over the 10-percent mixture. It’s possible that a slightly leaner mixture or more ignition timing would have helped, but we ran out of time and the guts to go leaner!

The key point here is that nitropropane will detonate violently and break parts if not used correctly. The key is to avoid overly-lean mixtures. It’s our opinion that a forged-piston engine would have also failed, although perhaps not as violently.

Have fun

 

Here, here is the link.
Liquid horsepower

 

That is a real interesting article, That is what I am looking for to understand what happens. Thanks a lot for the link. But it takes away the urge to try it also. The detonation change is really quite high with nito propane and to my opinion the moderate power increase is not woth the risk. Do you know if the detonation possibility using a 50% mix of nitro methane with methanol is the same? I am looking at internet to find. If I find something I let you know and put it in the thread.

 

Nitromethane and methanol are corrosive to most fuel system components so it is important to flush the fuel system with gasoline. The other problem with the methanol nitro mixture is that you would need to at least double the amount of fuel injected because methanol's neutral mixture is double that of gasoline about 7:1. I find that talking a friend into trying it keeps you from breaking your car. Nitrous oxide injection might be a better way to go.

 

Thanks for the info, I found a website that really explains it all. As I said, I am more curious to learn all about it than to try, I only should if it was´t dangerous to damage the engine. I love my vette. And just as Baldturbofreak, I use it in my RC Airplane engines and like to know how it should work in a normal gasoline engine
See the website http://www.turbofast.com.au/racefuel.html
An excelent article.

 

NITRO does NOT mix naturally with gasoline, so the nitro molecules would glob together and you would get air/fuel changes randomly - rich, rich, lean, rich, lean, lean, lean........

Now some guys have found ways around this. Acetone mixed with the nitro which will suspend the nitro, and then mix some methanol in to dilute the entire mixture...the power will almost be linear to the % of nitro added.

Here is a mixture used for 20gallons of race fuel:

1 GAL. NITRO,4OZ ACETONE 8OZ METHANOL TO 20 GAL. RACE GAS RICHEN JETS BY 5% TAKE OUT 2 DEG. TIMMING FROM OPTIMUM GET 23-30 HP

However, one needs to understand that you are playing with near sure disaster trying to do this and you best have REAL deep pockets.

Bottom line is there are easy/cheap ways to make some extra power and not so easy/costly ways. Either way, your going to pay-the-piper sooner or later which ever way you decide to go.

 

I like to play with it, but NOT with my Vette, like her too much. No, as I said in the tread, I like to understand, like to learn what is needed and all the effects much more than I like to try. Perhaps one day I try at an old car or so to verify the theory. Than I ike to test with 50 - 50 Nitromethane and Methanol, not with gas. Methanol should be able to prevent the distastous nocking until 50 - 50. If I can control the mixture correctly, it should be possible without changing the compression ratio from standard 9 - 9.5 to 1. Interesting to test on an old car, not my Vette.

 

Is the FAA aware of this fuel experimentation? My guess is no.

Good luck. I hope you stay out of the trees.

 

FAA is not that much of an issue here in Spain. And it will be no street experiment, just on a little track here. Just interesting. People play with rockets as well don´t they?

 

Hmmmmmmm

 

Awsome foto in your logo. Thats really torque isn´t it? Guess a whole kot more than yust playing with fuel.