Pekka_Perkeles

Folks following this just search HPTuners forum with his nickname.

Thanks and have fun.

DomLS3

What? Hotter air = more power? Damn I should toss my cold air intake out and put in a cardboard box and paper filter. Maybe throw my heat exchanger out too so I can reduce weight to make me go faster. Need more hot air!

Seriously though... this is getting out of hand. A mod needs to step in and just ban this guy.

Higgs Boson

to be fair there is an efficiency argument to be made with a hot air and hot fuel application but keep in mind we are talking about superheated air, not underhood temps. It's fun to pretend like the setup wasn't used because of conspiracy but in reality it would run bad until it heated up enough to work as intended and would be more expensive and not last as long so it just isn't practical. IMO, the heat vapor engine was academic only. we are talking about 450 degree inlet temps and similar fuel temps with 20:1 AFR, you would have to spark the plug after top dead center, etc etc. so let's not crucify the guy, he isn't wrong he's making a point, but again....not practical to what we are working with. but it does make you think, which isn't bad.....if you do..... ;-)

0Livernois Motorsports

We have done alot of installs on these vehicles rather it be minor bolt ons all the way to a built engine with the car making 1100rwhp! I would highly advise against a 50/50 water meth system on this vehicle for a few reasons. Reason #1 would be that most of the time (but not in all cases) companies who use water methanol injection systems use cheap lines, fittings, and pumps that do not last very long because they are not specially designed to be long lasting with methanol running through them. Reason #2 would be that on these new style direct injection motors they have a very precise combustion control so by doing a water methanol injection kit and running a 50/50 this can actually bog down combustion quite a bit causing the vehicle to not perform the correct way which can be very frustrating for the consumer as well as the tuning company so we highly recommend that you use a 100% methanol injection system with the vehicle. As for the gains i would say on one of these vehicles you would probably see somewhere between a 7-9 % increase in hp by adding 100% methanol to the vehicle with your current mods, hope this helped you and anyone else considering this out! If you need anything shoot me a PM and i will do my best to help in any way!

dar02081961

Higgs,/all;
This isn't directed at anyone in particular.
I am not saying the references and theory King provided are incorrect.

But there are 2 things folks have to keep in mind when discussing any technology especially W/M injection.

1. The technology evolves and as it does over the years many challenges are addressed with newer technology.
And during this process much of what was true at the time it was written doesn't get updated to reflect the current state of the art.

For example much of what was written about W/M injections before the 90's was based on fairly low injection pressures and very simple nozzle designs. Many of the systems prior to then used windshield washer pumps or pressure from the supercharger or turbo to power the injection. I used the W/W pump for injection on several 300ZX Turbos in the 80's. I used turbo boost pressure on a friends T-type Regal in the 80's as well. I had great results running extra boost on those. However today's designs are leaps and bounds ahead of those systems.

2. W/M injection can be used with differing degrees of success to achieve several different goals or resolve different issues for different applications. So for example when one reads with W/M injection “the cool water component of methanol injection will reduce power given the same boost level. Methanol itself is a high octane fuel that will also reduce power, the same way any racing fuel will.” On the face these statements may be true. However they are not always absolutely true. And when applied to certain situations they are actually false.

The Op is asking about adding W/M injection to his specific LT4 set up and having it tuned.
"How much extra power if I had Meth?"

King answered "less..always less".......and his answer "always less" (although based on solid theory) is simply not true for the OP's set up. Kings answer may have been true if the OP wasn’t running additional boost and the OP wasn’t willing to tune after adding W/M injection.

So again in an effort to get the discussion back on track allow me to rephrase the question(s).

1. Is there anyone here that doesn't believe an otherwise stock LT4 running the factory tune and EXTRA boost, will run into knock or knock retard when running at WOT for prolonged periods, or when running in high ambient temps at high power settings? I think we can agree it will.

2. And when it does what will happen? The PCM will pull timing in anticipation of knock, or if the PCM doesn't intervene the engine will actually knock due to uncontrolled pre-ignition. I think we can agree here as well.

So our options (tools) to address this knock based on the info the OP gave about his set up are:
A. Dial back the timing in the tune.

B. Increase octane with race gas or octane booster.

C. Increase the inter-cooling effectiveness or capacity.

D. Increase compressor efficiency for said boost level. (Change the blower)

E. Lower the operating temperature of the engine.

F. Use some combination of W/M injection to suppress pre-ignition.

G. Run a richer AFR.

H. Run E-85 or some other type of fuel.

I. Lower static compression ratio (not practical for most).

3. What is the Op's intended purpose for W/M injection? I think we would agree the Op’s challenge is knock suppression or better said to stave off pre-ignition since he is now running additional boost.

Is there anyone here that believes pre-ignition doesn’t drastically reduce power output and left unchecked will kill an engine? I am sure we agree here.

Is there anyone here that does not believe a properly functioning modern W/M injection system will suppress pre-ignition? I am sure there are a few doubters here and that’s fine. There are folks who believe the Earth is flat and they can show you references stating so as well.

But seriously…. If we feed the CORRECT amount of very fine W/M mist (vapor) into an engine that is pre-igniting (“**** on the fire” so to speak) the result is pre-ignition will be eliminated. And the engine will produce more power because the rising piston isn’t fighting against rising cylinder pressure from a premature explosion. (Not too much W/M injection but the precise amount required to eliminate knock).

Let’s take it a little further. We just eliminated pre-ignition and gained some power. We haven’t tuned/adjusted ignition timing at all, but we gained some power. What if we are not yet at MBT? Is it possible we could adjust timing back up towards ideal or MBT, add a tad bit more W/M injection for knock suppression if needed and pick up a tad bit more power? You bet you can. But you gotta be careful here because your margin for error if your W/M injection fails is much less so your system or tune must have failsafe’s.

Kingtal0n

I know you meant well but that is NOT what I said or implied.

The op asked about "how much if I have 50/50" not "METH" Please re-read the org post
Here is the org question:
And here was the basic response for both types of system
Both of which are true. Using a higher octane fuel will reduce power. Using water will reduce power. Less... always less. Reading above links and discussion you can see that these things are true for all combustion engines.

I made it very clear several times he would want more boost pressure. Yes even in the very first, unedited post I created.
As to tuning, lets talk about tuning briefly and where the 'extra power' comes from. And how it relates for the purposes of an engine in this category (NEW and EXPENSIVE)

First lets make something clear. Without adding methanol (or water) to an engine, nearly any engine on gasoline, you can 'add power' just by ramping up the timing.
Even an engine that is close to detonating or having induced high pressure spikes will make more torque and more power due to additional timing(on a dyno), without any change to the fuel quality. Even while it falls apart this is possible because those pressure spikes create more force for the surface of the piston and that lends additional torque. It also jags up (jagged) the torque curve on the dyno and forces the operator to use smoothing:5 just to get a graph... but we will get back to that in a minute

So to say "Oh I added race fuel/meth/whatever and also added 5 degrees of timing and made extra power.... so it must be the (fuel source) " is nonsense and irrelevantly non-provable.
Most of the time, an engine would have made MORE torque and power with the additional timing REGARDLESS, even when the addl timing was DANGEROUS.

Next, when adding additional boost pressure to an EXPENSIVE engine designated for STREET use the last thing you want to do (as a reputable tuner) is add 'auxilary-fuel source dependent ignition advance', ESPECIALLY when adding boost pressure on top of the mix (instead of just using the aux-fuel as a safety precaution against normal boost and timing).
-> When boost pressure is going up typically we want LESS timing, not MORE. As boost rises this trend is evident in all satisfactory ignition curves for all combustion gasoline engines.
So the very idea of "retune at higher boost pressure with meth injection" is a misnomer because it does NOT imply additional advance while everybody an their mother seems to think 'yeah add timing and add boost for extra power' which is again completely crap attitude for expensive street car engines. There is no 'additional advance' if you want the engine to live on the street.
Instead a 'retune' is typically primarily A/F ratio related, somebody will need to remove some fuel if the supplied aux fuel content is significant. The quantity supplied/removed is often overlooked as a determining factor in the safety of such systems, since a heavily aux-injected system will run dangerously lean when the aux-pump fails and blow the expensive motor. Which is COMPLETELY unnecessary if the tuning is done 'safely' enough. That is, if additional power is sought through REDUCED timing, MINIMAL aux-injected fuel source, and INCREASED boost pressure. And now lets explore why this ideal....


Example engine A and B are identical, expensive engines used in identical street cars, the owner told the tuner 'do whatever you want to make the engine safe to run'. The injection is 50/50 well distributed (check the manifold design) meth/water aux injection system. A flow-fail safety check device is used to alert the driver when the flow of aux fuel fails. The driver was warned by the tuner already that "at some point the aux-pump WILL fail, they ALWAYS do, it is a SERVICEABLE part that needs replacement/rebuilding at some point".

The only differences to engine A and engine B is the way they are tuned, apropos
Engine A: Boost pressure was raised from 15 to 22psi. No additional timing was invested or necessary to increase power output from 520rwhp to 640rwhp with the extra boost pressure. A/F during the run with aux injection was around 11.3:1

Engine B: Boost pressure was raised from 15 to 22psi. The tuner threw in a couple degrees of timing as well, and re-tuned a/f ratio to be a leaner 12:1 which is acceptable at the engine's current configuration (compression ratio and internal design). Tuner checks plugs and everything looks good. Power increased from 520rwhp to 660-670rwhp.

So now lets look at these two engines when the aux-pump fails
Engine A: The aux-pump fails and the a/f ratio dips towards 12:1 and the temperature of combustion is now increasing at an alarming rate. The driver is alerted to the failed-flow and lifts from the throttle before any permanent damage occurs, because the reduced timing and lingering cooling effects of 50/50 keep the motor safe enough for a moment to shut it down.

Engine B: immediately explodes before the driver can react. The 12:1 ratio on aux injection means it now sits at 12.7:1 with a couple degrees of addl. timing on it's base fuel (93) alone, which is enough pressure to blow the headgasket or fracture a piston immediately regardless of the temperature, at that boost pressure. There was no time for the driver to lift, the setup was deadly. Yes it made more power on aux-injection but it was not setup properly for a reliable car with an expensive engine.

------------------
So now lets come back this And discuss what timing advance and reaction rate of fuel does in an engine (to a small extent as I can in a couple minutes)
Heres a pretty pic I found we can use for a basic idea



I want to point out that the pressure escalates after a spark quite significantly before/as TDC occurs, which is during a time when no torque is being delivered to the crankshaft lever arm. That is, a perfectly vertical rod (TDC piston) cannot apply any TORQUE to the rotating crankshaft lever arm because to have torque you need to apply a force at some perpendicular distance. Also realize that for most of the entire two revolution of each combustion cycle, the engine is losing power because there is no expanding pressure source. So engine output occurs in "bursts" only one time for a very brief instant as the piston descends on the power stroke... and is losing rotating speed the rest of the time. You can think of it as constantly speeds up for a short burst, and slowing down the rest of the cycle ........-'-........-'-........-'-........-'-........
Next imagine the timing was advanced in that picture. The spark starts sooner and what happens to the peak pressure? It should go higher because the force being applied to the piston once the crankshaft rotates beyond a specific number of degrees is what allows the piston/rod to apply a rotating force the crankshaft and that is what creates volume in the cylinder which reduces the pressure, and IF the crankshaft cannot rotate as pressure is being applied (because of it being too near TDC) then the pressure will simply rise and rise and rise until it blows a hole in something. That is how addl timing can be so dangerous, even if the fuel and air is 'cold'.
That is also tentatively why addl timing in a motor that 'doesn't run better with addl timing' can still make more torque/power on a typical dyno, like a dynojet. The dynojet roller is a set weight roller, it is not affected by vehicle weight or wind resistance or many of the factors which alter the rate of change of the combustion engine during actual driving. That's why you might hear that street tunes are 'better'. I'l elaborate...
Internal energy of rotating parts would carry the piston past TDC and rotate the crankshaft even without any combustion if the motor was shut off mid-run, due to the weight of the rotating parts (kinetic energy). That means even if pressure spikes undesirably high through a TDC event and part of the energy of combustion is lost (due to poor crankshaft lever arm placement at the time of high pressure) the engine will still eventually rotate around and the extremely high pressure will bleed down as the volume in the cylinder increases (if the pressure spike didn't blow the motor apart).
That means you can improperly time an engine with an extremely stable fuel, have an enormous pressure spike (the materials of engines these days are really good. It would handle quite a few) and still have high enough residual pressure to create a falsely acceptable torque output. The (torque) graph in that scenario should look terrible (at smoothing:0) because those same pressure spikes create more of an instantaneous push that relies on the current rate of change of the engine to carry it through a shorter range of crankshaft motion, rather than the smooth rise and fall of proper cylinder pressure as above.
In other words, the pre-TDC pressure is acting AGAINST the crankshaft, if you read the graph correctly you will realize that just prior to TDC the pressure is high enough to resist the forward turning motion of the crankshaft, it subtracts useful work whether the timing was set too advanced or not, just more so when too advanced. If we kept advancing the timing far enough, the pressure could rise high enough before TDC to completely stop and reverse the engine- if the rotating internal energy was low enough to allow such a thing (it isn't for a typical V8, the engine would keep rotating forward and a hole will appear in a part). In this situation, more power is being 'robbed' prior to TDC, lost during TDC, and then some extra is 'put back' due the unacceptable high pressure in the cylinder as it moves through TDC to a proper Atdc torque accepting position, thereby potentially creating a 'falsely high' appearance of torque on a fairly jagged curve(the computer will see the tiny 'jagged peaks' as a new, higher peak number that reports a total higher power) as the dynometer interprets these extra 'delays' and 'spikes' in acceleration of a rotating body (the dyno roller is 'spiked' frequently exactly as pressure 'spikes' in the cylinder for a brief instance during the power stroke) by working backwards from power(work/time) to torque through the ignition clamp to give a torque figure. The difference is subtle, The take away from this is to always use smoothing:0 because it will be the most revealing to (any potential) conditions which might indicate the engine is in danger, and btw what does all this have to do with methanol/water?

Methanol being a race fuel, it's bonds contain less energy than regular gasoline. Horsepower comes from the energy a fuel provides, so all else equal methanol should make less power than gasoline.
on the other hand, methanol is a racing fuel, the reaction rate will be slower. So an earlier spark that would have generated an unacceptable pressure spike near/during TDC with gasoline is now suddenly acceptable because the rising rate of pressure is slower. As long as the methanol is present. As soon as you rip away the methanol- the very next moment/attempt at a spark- the reaction goes back to it's previous ways and the pressure spikes and the engine is damaged. That is why you should never rely on methanol to add increased timing advance to an engine if you can help it.
-> but how does methanol and increased timing tend to increase the output of an engine to begin with? If meth truly contains less energy blah blah blah then why does increased timing on meth give more power?
Please see above discussion about TDC pressure. I will also repeat another point of view here. More timing will typically give MORE torque regardless of whether there is any meth or not, so to blame the meth for addl power/torque due to advance is unwise/impossible to say. The reason it becomes 'safer' on the methanol is because the rate of reaction is lower so the piston has more time to approach TDC before pressure ramps unacceptably high. Because a dyno/drag run is typically done from a calm baseline (the engine was sitting at idle for a bit then it gets to "heat up suddenly" as opposed to being run hard for several minutes straight like a boat) the temperature of internal parts often starts low and works their way up as the run proceeds, so it should be expected that a long-duration run will heat parts up more than a short-duration run, and this will influence decisions about fuel quality with respect to peak temperatures and reaction rates (everything matters).
Next, for a similar reason, the reaction rate being slower means that during the power stroke the piston has more time to 'move out of the way' from climbing pressure. This is where the vehicle application plays a LARGE role, i.e. heavy 4500lb vehicles in 'high' gear have extremely low rate of change rotating engines (the rpm climbs more slowly) than typical corvette style cars with 'fast' gearing and high acceleration. The slower rate of acceleration requires/desires the slower fuel, if that makes any sense. This is where you learn that the fuel being slower and the engine being faster both affects the outcome in a similar manner; that is, if the engine's rotating rate of change is higher (acceleration is better due to low weight or altered gearing) then the fuel can be 'faster' (lower octane or higher temperature could be acceptable). That makes 1st gear far more friendly to high pressure/poor fuels than 6th gear, for example, and its why we never tune an engine to the bleeding edge on a dynometer in the 1:1 gear when the owner might later put their foot down on the highway, in overdrive, against a headwind, and uphill, where the rate of change will be much lower for the engine and thus the pressure as the piston approaches TDC will be much higher if the fuel is the same. Since most cars do not have gear based/hill detection/headwind compensation 2ndary timing maps, the tuner need to take all of those situation into account for the vehicle when it hits the actual road. HOWEVER, for the sake of a peak dyno graph, it is often perfectly safe and acceptable to temporarily advance the timing to regions where none of those other influences matter.... thus giving a higher dyno output than would be safe during regular road conditions... just don't leave it like that. In other words, with a light weight dyno roller such as 'dynojet' it is often possible to increase timing without damaging the engine thus producing higher output graphs for a vehicle than would ever be possible in the real street conditions. Those type of tunes are 'dyno tunes only' and should not be left that way when the car is put back on the road.

I can't discuss methanol and slow fuels without talking about water. I prefer 100% distilled water for street cars and here is why.
Unlike methanol, water doesn't add heat to the combustion process, so I know it is a one way street. That is, if you inject water, the EGT will go down. No question. That means the temperature of those parts involved will also go down; piston surface, cylinder head, exhaust manifold, turbine inlet, etc... will all get cooler on water. It is also very obvious when the water stops flowing if you have an EGT gauge in most turbo applications and this is helpful wherever a maximum desired turbine inlet temperature is negotiated (Borg warner for example specifies 1380*F as a max inlet temp). Because water absorbs energy and lowers combustion temperature, this will slow the reaction rate of combustion, more or less depending on the fuel type being used (I assume 93 here which is extremely temp sensitive). There seem to be two issues with 93 we typically face and water helps with both. The first is temperature sensitivity. You've all heard the term detonation and I won't be using it here. Instead I will use a common sense approach and say simply that there is some maximum temperature that 93 will tolerate before it explodes violently, perhaps with or without a spark (hot spots or compression based heat input may contribute), and that water may be used to keep an engine away from that peak temperature range when used properly.
The second issue with 93 is it's reaction rate- look back at that picture I posted earlier and try to imagine the spike becoming more spike-like (higher, sharper peak). The gasoline reaction is considered 'fast', especially compared to say diesel. In thermodynamics they often call it a 'dirac'(or something that sounds like that) and try to represent it as a sharp sudden spike on an engine cyclic graph. And for regular engines it is fine to think of it that way. However, for high performance, high output engines, there is certainly something to be said for the rate of expansion of combustion gasses, especially when high boost pressure is utilized. The difference between the sudden 'explosion' I mentioned before and the 'rate' of combustion in this context is the position of the piston at the time(s) of highest pressure. In other words, the water may 'flatten' the spike, i.e. the peak pressure should be lower, the reaction is slower, the piston has more time to move out of the way (sound familiar?) and the reaction may proceed as the piston moves instead of more suddenly, earlier. You might think of it as a brief, constant-pressure effect while cylinder volume is changing, rather than a sudden spike followed by the piston moving down due to the sudden force, which puts a heavy emphasis on the exact moment at which the spike occurs (thus timing an engine on pure gasoline is more difficult than with slower fuels). The down side of course is the reduced energy available (which should reduce power). So the trade off is we lose fuel speed (or gain fuel tolerance) and we lose peak pressure and perhaps even total pressure-area (due to slowing the reaction with respect to the acceleration of the engine).
Yes, its a lose/lose situation, the result of which you can now raise boost pressure and put even more fuel into the engine to make more power. Most people miss that part. The lose/lose effect is still in effect its just allowing us to increase the boost (density) while using the same poor fuel without the same risk of the fuel misbehaving. In a similar way just for comparison, increased boost pressure usually means increased air temperature which lowers air density, yet the increased density due to boost outweighs the increased temperature so we keep using forced induction. So to re-evaluate, the water causes the motor to lose energy, lose power, but the increased power due to the additional boost and fuel you can now pile on top without the fuel complaining is worth more than the energy you lost due the water robbing energy. Its sort of like saying, "turn the heat and the a/c on at the same time, but turn one up way higher so it overpowers the other". Another analogy might be "waste/throw away more fuel to safely increase the total output". We actually throw away heat all the time for the sake of increased power, it just isn't seen this way by novices. For example, An Intercooler will reduce power because the intercooler is a length of tube that presents some form of restriction, and it takes energy to push air through any length of tube, therefore power is lost. Furthermore the intercooler will throw away heat, which is energy, which further reduces power. The reason we intercooler is not to increase power; it is to reduce the air temperature which will allow the fuel to be tolerant of conditions, it allows more pressure to be used safely. Engines that use fuels that do not care about air temperature (E85/alternative fuel racing applications come to mind) will not use intercoolers because all the intercooler would do is act as a restriction, throw away energy, and reduce total power output. When we intercool pump fuel cars more boost can be used, which means more power is possible. But it was never the case that the intercooler added that power. In a similar manner water injection will throw away energy, make the fuel more tolerant of conditions, allow more boost. But it won't add any power.


I think I said enough go ahead and rip me apart for blasphemy, I might enjoy it

billviverette

And you think this why?

I am thinking about adding meth injection (likely a 50/50 mix)

billviverette

Seems to me you are the one that is that is just exhausting. Without adding much power.

Kingtal0n

hehe. reading comprehension is strong in this thread


You can also find me on a bunch of other sites, including (randomly selected thread somewhat recent):
freshalloy.com (http://www.freshalloy.com/showthread...ir-and-Restore)
zilvia.net (http://zilvia.net/f/showpost.php?p=6285960&postcount=4)
yellow bullet (https://www.yellowbullet.com/forum/s....php?t=2559833)
thirdgen.org (https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/ltx-...ml#post6275849)
hptuners forum of course
nsxprime (http://www.nsxprime.com/forum/showth...=1#post1862819)

thanks for playing