I ran alcohol injection on my evo8 for 50,000 miles and here's what my pistons look like:
I have a lot of respect for Mike, but the point I want to get across to everyone that read Mike's
thread is that it is grossly generalized! There are two kinds of alky kits out there:
-ones that are cheap and could very well blow your motor up (especially if they fail)
-ones that will work well and serve you well for years on end and no they won't blow up your motor (if they fail)
EDUCATION is what keeps your motor healthy. Using the wrong kits is like playing with fire! There are really only three things you need to know about alky kits: -precise, consistent spray pattern -failsafes that work -reliably add 50whp/50wtq
PRECISION
Ok from the top! Why do some alky kits cause pistons to crack? Because they do not consistently spray alcohol(and/or water) into your entire engine, evenly. The best way to have an even distribution is with consistent fluid pressure. This is NOT rocket science, right? Fuel pressure from your stock fuel system is consistent, so should the alky you're spraying in on top of it.
Most of the cheaper kits on the market are progressive pump speed kits, meaning as they start spraying on the pump kicks on, pressure builds up and then it starts spraying. Kind of hard for a nice fine mist to spray into the engine when its dribbling out of the pump eh? Then, when you let off the gas, the pump turns off and pressure slowly falls off in the line and fluid slowly stops spraying out. Does this sound precise to you? (note: the pump mike pictured in his post is a progressive pump speed kit!)
The right way:
Other kits on the market have a pump that is *always* pumping (remind you of your fuel pump in your gas tank?) and output consistent pressure *all* the time. Sound good? Yup! Now, they also have a valve located very near the engine that turns on and off when you want it to inject (sound kinda like fuel injectors?). With the full pressure fuel pump running behind this valve, you can very precisely control the fuel injection.
Here's a few videos clearly demonstrating the difference between these two different types of kits. They were originally taken by Abner aka SlowCar but I can't seem to get a hold of him, so I rehosted them on youtube.
Note the difference between the nozzle on the left (high speed valve) and the nozzle on the right (progressive pump). Pretend the green lights are when you are WOT.
Think about those nozzles dribbling away when you're trying to run 30psi of boost (on onset) or just let off the throttle, might cause problems sooner or later eh? The kits that can accurately control when you want (and don't want) fuel injecting into your engine can reliably add power to your engine for years on end!
FAILSAFES
Ok next up, failsafes! This info has been a sticky in the Water/Alcohol Injection forum for a long time, but its not like anyone reads those things anyways right?
Here's what happens when a well-setup alky kit with a well-setup failsafe when a problem happens (yup, even good kits have problems). This is a WOT run on a dyno, failsafe kicks in at ~5000rpm, AFR drops to a 100% safe pump gas level (and your pistons don't crack!):
Furthermore, boost drops to a safe level:
There is no question, lots of things can happen: too little flow, too much flow, zero flow, low fluid level, loss of power, etc etc etc and if your alky kit is setup properly, your engine will SURVIVE!
Here's my stock turbo setup with and without alcohol injection (with tuning on both) 358whp vs 318whp:
Here's my BBK setup - 384whp vs 432whp:
SUMMARY
Alky kits don't caused cracked pistons, CHEAP alky kits cause cracked pistons. I used it for 50,000 miles with tremendous success, and so can you!
side note: e85 is pretty awesome (in some ways better, some ways worse than alky injection), but not everyone can get it, let's leave discussion of it out of this thread please
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by Murlo26
I need to listen to Scheides more often i think :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by turbotalon1g
...I realized that I can't keep up my shit talking without anything to back it up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JV
S2000: For those of us that know the Miata is the best car on the planet, but also want extra power and to not have to turn in our man cards.
Re: 50k miles of alcohol injection and no cracked pistons! Cheap alky kits exposed.
Also, correct me if I am wrong, but isn't alcohol safer than methanol also? Simply because of the corrosive properties of methanol? (NOT Ethanol you E85 guys!! lol)
Still, great write-up dude!! Way to stick it to the mis-information man!!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by scheides
I swing from the nuts of cold hard data. Anything less is a guess.
Re: 50k miles of alcohol injection and no cracked pistons! Cheap alky kits exposed.
I ran 100% denatured alcohol (49% methanol, 49% ethanol, 2% misc) for about 2 years in my car, then switched to 100% methanol for a few months, then 75/20 meth/water, and finally landed on 50/50 meth/water. The 50/50 is the best imho, the water has the highest heat absorption possible and the meth is a good solid high-octane fuel. Together they quench knock, cool the shit out of the intake charge, and if you flip your car, it won't catch on fire
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by Murlo26
I need to listen to Scheides more often i think :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by turbotalon1g
...I realized that I can't keep up my shit talking without anything to back it up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JV
S2000: For those of us that know the Miata is the best car on the planet, but also want extra power and to not have to turn in our man cards.
Re: 50k miles of alcohol injection and no cracked pistons! Cheap alky kits exposed.
^LOL pretty much! Seriously tough, if the tank had cracked and there was water/meth spraying everywhere I would have not batted an eye, the water makes it non-flamable (in an open flame) which is a huge load off of my mind when crawling out of that passenger window!
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by Murlo26
I need to listen to Scheides more often i think :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by turbotalon1g
...I realized that I can't keep up my shit talking without anything to back it up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JV
S2000: For those of us that know the Miata is the best car on the planet, but also want extra power and to not have to turn in our man cards.
Re: 50k miles of alcohol injection and no cracked pistons! Cheap alky kits exposed.
I am with Mike@AWD. EFI dry intake manifolds are not designed to flow fuel like a wet carb intake manifold. And I remember some guy on the dyno with a nice expensive Aquamist setup with a flow gauge on it and everything and having problems with it not flowing quick/fast enough when it was cold out, hmmm, what was his name... My main problem with the alky stuff is that even the best kits have problems and MOST of the people who want to run it or do run alky injection are not people with enough technical knowledge to be doing so or don't know enough about their car/setup/tune etc to be safely running it.
Re: 50k miles of alcohol injection and no cracked pistons! Cheap alky kits exposed.
Touché shane! However, no cracked pistons here right? That's my point I guess. Life/real world stuff does still happen and problems can occur, make no mistake.
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by Murlo26
I need to listen to Scheides more often i think :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by turbotalon1g
...I realized that I can't keep up my shit talking without anything to back it up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JV
S2000: For those of us that know the Miata is the best car on the planet, but also want extra power and to not have to turn in our man cards.
Re: 50k miles of alcohol injection and no cracked pistons! Cheap alky kits exposed.
I don't think Alky injection is terrible, but if you can run corn, do that.
However if you can't I think it simply requires lots of homework and a good kit etc to be able to know wtf you are doing. A lot of that work most people won't put in so that is why so many people f up their stuff on alky. Scheides I agree with you on a lot of this stuff, but just because your car lasted 50k miles on it doesn't mean others will, too small of a scope. However, the same goes for Mike at AWD...sure he sees all the problems and reports them but how many ones are running fine out there...double edged sword.
Re: 50k miles of alcohol injection and no cracked pistons! Cheap alky kits exposed.
Sure it does. It's a valid alternative. And I personally don't see why someone would opt to spend all the time and money on an add-on alcohol injection setup when we have an abundance of alcohol laced fuel at our finger tips here, especially considering the risks, consequences, and chances of failure as was shown in the original post.
Corn, a viable alternative. Only thing you need to worry about is changing mixtures during the seasons. But that's not too tough to work around, just don't tune your car on the edge, pay attention to when the blends typically change and throw on a different fuel map if you so desire. Easier then buying and filling up a meth tank every few weeks.
But I'll stop, don't wanna stir that pot anymore
Good luck playing with meth, but I'll just listen to the commercials I see everyday telling me Meth Just Isn't Worth It
Re: 50k miles of alcohol injection and no cracked pistons! Cheap alky kits exposed.
Just to clarify, this discussion is not about e85 versus alcohol injection. I said it in the first post, all it does is dilute the discussion and really is not the point I'm trying to get across. E85 is great, but not everyone can get it easily, not even me. I've said it 1000 times before, why it needs to get beaten to death just because we live in MN, I have no idea.
Back on topic, here's a great article that Richard @ Aquamist linked me to:
Re: 50k miles of alcohol injection and no cracked pistons! Cheap alky kits exposed.
I guess one thing I am always scared of is how do you ensure even atomization/distribution of Meth across all cylinders? Most meth failures it seems are the piston/cylinder furthest from the throttle body...is this not a problem with all meth kits that aren't direct port? I guess I would feel a lot better with a nozzle on each intake runner but maybe that is excessive and I don't know enough.
It just seems that last piston always bites the dust.
Re: 50k miles of alcohol injection and no cracked pistons! Cheap alky kits exposed.
I wouldn't say that's true from what I've seen but it surely seems probable.
The way around this is with precision, mentioned in first post. Always spraying at high pressure ensures that the alky/water mixture is always fully atomized. Then, making sure you have your injection point a ways upstream from the throttle body will ensure that it mixes evenly with the air flowing into the engine. If its fully and evenly distributed in all of the air going in, it should go to all cylinders equally.
If you use a PPS kit and it doesn't always spray at full pressure, then yea, you can surely get alky in some cylinders and not others, especially right when the pump kicks on...which incidentally is right during boost onset and then peak torque...see how that could lead to the pics mike posted? Yup.
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by Murlo26
I need to listen to Scheides more often i think :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by turbotalon1g
...I realized that I can't keep up my shit talking without anything to back it up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JV
S2000: For those of us that know the Miata is the best car on the planet, but also want extra power and to not have to turn in our man cards.
Re: 50k miles of alcohol injection and no cracked pistons! Cheap alky kits exposed.
Like I said I don't dislike Meth It just worries me a bit and the setup is tough it seems.
I would be pretty comfortable with a nice Aquamist kit (honestly the only brand I would consider) and a direct port setup like I mentioned but yea I see your point on it fully mixing with air.
I guess if it wasn't possible to fully mix it with air, any intake manifold wouldn't work right because the air wouldn't make it evenly to all cylinders so that makes sense. (If what I wrote makes sense)
I still think Mike has a point as well as other Meth haters do but I fully understand your point and the fact it can be done with minimal risk. Any high boost application is risky, so with power comes risk. The key is to minimize it.
It is just funny that a lot of the guys that support meth rather than having anything intelligent to say always say...I know this one guy who is running 600whp and he has been for 2 years...which equals Meth is safe no matter what.
Re: 50k miles of alcohol injection and no cracked pistons! Cheap alky kits exposed.
Nice post Scheides. I'm neutral on the injection stuff since I never had it, but It sucked seeing aquamist try to defend it himself in that thread on evom. It's more about the person with the kit, than the kit itself.
Re: 50k miles of alcohol injection and no cracked pistons! Cheap alky kits exposed.
This is the TECH section. Next OT post can be the 2nd go to on vacation b/c of this thread. I'm tired of having to clean it up every time I read new replies.
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