Anyone know what the increased fire risk is with the alky system. I like the idea of using the washer fluid tank and keeping it simple, but am wondering about the risk of fire if you are in an accident and the tank ruptures. Is this a legitimate concern?

 

IMHO it is a legitimate concern - BUT from what I understand, if it really whigs you out - you can run the system with half water and half alky - That solves the problem. Guru's of alky - is that correct?

 

Just wear a fire suit.

No, but seriously, I thought I remember someone on here saying they were going to check to see just how flammable it is. I believe they were going to do a little test by dropping a little on the hot exhaust manifolds and see just what it takes to ignite it. Maybe they will chime in?

 

There is definitely the possibility of something going wrong and a disaster taking place, but I think the risk is very low. You can’t compare alky to a fuel like gasoline. Gasoline is some dangerous stuff and I would never run it in the washer tank.

In the end, you have to make your own decision.

Here are a few facts about Methanol that help explain why it is pretty safe: (I just copied and pasted this from a Methanol fuel web site that summarized fire safety research from the EPA

LOWER VOLATILITY. Methanol does not evaporate or form vapor as readily as gasoline does. Under the same conditions, exposed gasoline will emit two to four times more vapor than will exposed methanol.

HIGHER FLAMMABILITY REQUIREMENT. Methanol vapor must be four times more concentrated in air than gasoline vapor for ignition to occur.

LOWER VAPOR DENSITY. Gasoline vapor is two to five times denser than air, so it tends to travel along the ground to ignition sources. Methanol vapor is only slightly denser than air and disperses more rapidly to non-combustible concentrations.

LOWER HEAT RELEASE RATE. Methanol burns 25 percent as fast as gasoline and methanol fires release heat at only one-eighth the rate of gasoline fires.

The Vapor density is what really makes it pretty safe (IMHO). The stuff tends to disperse in the air so fast that it never gets concentrated enough to ignite. Sure you could have a situation where things went wrong and it ignited, but I think you would have to have a chain of events where some other fire was the ignition source.

One scary thing about it is that you cannot esily see the flames from it in the daylight. You will see flames from things that it burns, but meth burning on the ground just gives off a light blue flame... and cannot be easily seen in daylight.

 

I've posted about this in the past...

IMO it's a real concern. Splashing methanol on a manifold will not light unless the manifold was just run hot (like a 1/4 pass), which is a time when things could go wrong. The auto ignition temp is around 850 F for straight meth, obviously it raises as water is used to delute it. Methanol lights very easy with spark or open flame... again a real possibility during an accident.

I think the safest way to hold straight methanol would be in some type of fuel cell. I dont think GM designed the WW tank to hold alky in the event of an accident... maybe I'm wrong, but I'm only an engineer.

If you're concerned with safety and want to use the WW tank, I think mixing in 30% or more of water would greatly reduce the concern.

A 70/30 meth/water mix still works excellent for injection. There are a couple guys on here that have been using straight methanol for quite a while now w/o any problems and highly recomend it from a performance stand point, but I don't think there are enough AI users out there to give real world safety data.

IMHO, mixing in some water offers most of the performance, with a lot less risk.


Just my 2 cents.

 

WOW - We got some GREAT info here! The 70/30 mix sounds like a GREAT idea - I know we are sacraficing SOME performance - but I have to guess nota whole lot compared to the safety margin. Living in the DC metro area - I like this idea. THANKS everyone - GREAT posts

 

I think you guys are being silly. People have been running AI for *many* years without incident.

Mark

 

You have an accident an an oil cooler line ruptures, fuel line ruptures, tranny line(auto) ruptures.. the car that hits you ignites..

See no way to predict accidents. The other day I was pouring methanol in a tank and the alcohol was splashing on a hot down pipe... all it did was evaporate.

You have to be in the wrong place, wrong time, and have some bad karma.. but again, an elephant riding on a piano can land on your car when you least expect it.

Add water if your concerned, just dont get crazy with the volume sprayed.

Thousands of cars run around with these systems. I have never heard of anyone ever having "an uncontrollable fire". And I have been around lots of cars using these systems. On the Turbo Buicks the tank sits inches away from a 1500+ Degree exhuast.

 

Great info, Julio! Thanks for putting things in perspective for us.

 

Frankly I would much rather use the WW tank under the hood then a SS tank in the rear compartment!
And did we all forget we are sitting on top of 18 gal of 93 octane gas in a tank made from a similar material?

 

Why? Just curious. I am most likely dropping an SS tank in my car at the rear.

 

Fear of having the tank inside the passenger compartment.

 

I worked at GMPG when the first C4's were being tested and 1 got rear ended on the test track.
The fuel tank ruptured and spilled fuel into the passanger compartment and ignited.
I saw the driver after 2 years of recovery
Thats why the fuel tank is where it is today and thats why I would not put an Alky tank inside the passanger compartment!

 

Like the stock tanks, the rear mounted tanks are inside the frame rails. They are also drasticly stronger than a stock tank. The s.s. tanks are thick and have an aircraft style cap. If your vehicle was hit so hard that it crushed the frame, ruptured the tank, and the covered the driver with alky, then unfortunatly the chance of you being alive is slim to none way before the alky was ignited. Of coarse opiniuns always vary wich is why we offer tanks in different places.

 

Now that would be the definition of a bad day.

 

ECS put the tank where the battery was and moved the battery back to the rear passenger well. Nice and clean!!!! That was one of the first pictures shown by ECS. You keep you WW tank and keep the alchohol tank outside the interior compartment.

 

Now that I would go along with, just make sure you vent the new battery compartment to the outside!