The owner of the car wanted Al to keep pushing and trying to make more power. That is why he then hit it with the nitrous on top of the pump gas/alky tune.

If the stock turbo would hold 30 psi of boost it would be very inefficient. The short time that it is there I think saves it from just turning into a mess.

David Buschur
www.buschurracing.com

 

Hi:

I fully agree. Better safe than sorry. I reckon one of these days with all the oxidizers being injested by these evos it's only a matter of time before one or more explodes on a dyno. BTW what do you feel about the tune you made to evodoers car, and adding methanol? Would it make the same or better #s in your opinion? Do you like the 280 camshafts over the others? Thanks

 

Interesting sales concept.

 

Now thats how a well tuned torque curve turns out...great job Al, and I canno wait for a ride in "Darth Evo"

 

Al: Do you ever tune on race gas any more? Or are you just going to tune on Methanol, and pump gas?

 

Interesting question.

When looking at the power levels of my reflashed dyno sheets with stock turbos people will see the new alcohol tuned pump gas dyno sheets and ask themselves WHAT is going on here ? HOW is Al able to make more power (particularly low end tq) on pump gas with alcohol than with race ?

Here are a few reasons WHY we make more low end tq with the pump gas and alcohol combo

1 - The evaporation of alcohol which has a very low boiling point significantly cools the intake charge which is fairly HOT on the stock turbo. This cooling results in a substantially denser charge temp and greater concentration of air and fuel to burn - ergo more power.

2 - The alcohol is very knock resistant - even more knock resisitant than 90% of race fuels and thus the stock ecu "hears" virtually ZERO knock counts and does not pull any timing.

3 - Alcohol is an oxygenated hydrocarbon. This additional oxygen creates additional power. Its like inhaling more air into the engine. The stock turbo is basically maxed out so when you can breath in more oxygen through your fuel you can make more power.

4 - Alcohol burns slower so on spool up its still burning as the exhaust port is starting to open and this creates a lot of energy transfer into the manifold which spools the turbo harder. I accentuate this effect by leaning out the a/f on spool up.

Basically what I am saying is that with Alcohol injection, your car will spool harder and make more low end power than it can on staight race gas, due to the chemical nature of the alcohol.

The top end power at least on the stock turbo is similar to a race gas tune with my testing thus far.

Thanks

 

Well al, first off alcohol is not oxygenated ... . Second,, you cannot compare mixing alcohol and pump gas with Race Fuel. You are assuming that the guy mixing the mix is A. doing it right B. Injesting it in the right location. C. using the right nozzle. There are too many variables involved and running 30psi of boost is IMHO is insane. Race fuel is stable. I've seen plenty of alcohol mix cars knock. It lowers the charge yes, and lessens detonation.. absolutely, but it does in no way become zero.

What happens to the guy when hes on the highway doing a 30psi pull ,, and he runs out of meth/water? Does the car know its gone? Will the stock ecu say .. hey let me back down the timing ? NO..... Also keep in mind that with the stock ecu you would need to pull alot of fuel out when using the mix, again ..what happens when its gone, the ecu doesnt know

If evo-doer ever wanted a meth injection for pump gas, i would set it up as an input to the aem, When he runs out of meth, he would lose a ground and ems would know to run a much lower ignition and bump up the fuel. Unfortunately you dont have that luxury with the stock ecu

My .02 cents. ..

Mark
Turbotrix

 

Thats a pretty weak example you guys thought of,"what if he runs out of Alkohol" Come on give Al a break.
You might as well through in there, what if this guy runs out of gas.
Hopefully anyone using Injection is going to be smart enough to, I dont know, check to make sure they have alkohol before running there car.
And, I also doubt this guy will be running 30psi 100%, maybe track days.
Anyway, those #'s look sweet Al, can't wait for my Injection tune...

 

Mark, respectfully, I must disagree with your assertions on several grounds.

First - as for Alcohol being a ogygenated hydrocarbon - the laws of nature are not a matter of debate and any grade school chemestry text can reveal the exact molecular make up of alcohol. Here are some definitions from a dictionary

If you care to digest some more in depth anaylsis of the chemistry of Alcohol combustion I refer you to this very helpful report - http://www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/ert/afrw/afrw-02.pdf

Secondly, I find it quite bizzare that you would be the one to caution me regarding the saftey of my tuning.

Just for your reference, the customer who's car this dyno sheet came from was one of the very first people to run a Dyno Flashed ecu in his car.

He has had it for well over a year and a half and a total of 34,000 miles. This particular customer has been previously running 100% race gas every day at a great cost and expense in order to reap the benefits of a highly responsive and fast car while mainatining a stock turbo to keep a fast spool up. This customer frequently runs auto cross, road race track days and frequent trips to the drag strip. Although its his only car and he runs it every day, there has never been one isssue with my tuning and the car never broke. He has been well into the 11 second range before and running 30 psi on many occassions.

As you must know - on the stock turbo it spikes very quickly to 30 psi and then falls down into the mid 20's and hits 20 psi or less at red line.

I think he turns down the boost for daily driving and turns it up for only track events. What ever he is doing has been working great.

Wisely - he has invested in some gauges to carefully watch his engine functions as well as a OBDII scan tool to frequently log for knock.

I have over 1500 flashed ecus out there at this point and with one or two exceptions of head gaskets blowing there has been zero problems with engine failures with my product.

After we hit 30 psi - we hit it with a 50 shot (which is not something I recomend on stock pistons at all) - but again the customer's decision. OBVIOUSLY - if the engine could withstand the 50 shot on top of that tune - there must have been some reserve capacity left in there.

As for the alcohol kit itself - there have been many alarmists who have provided dire warnings of severe results which may occur with alcohol injection. However, with a LARGE number of these kits in use to date in both the Evo community and also in the www.turbobuick.com community there are NO reported problems or failures.

The kit comes with a test button, gauge, low level indicator light and spray on light. IF it does not flow 40 psi of pressure into the line or greater the yellow spray light will NOT come on. When you hit boost the yellow light comes on immediately and you can visually verify that its spraying by looking fo rthe yellow light. The red light means LOW level - time to add some more. Any responsible user of these kits who is careful to keep it full and put an occassional glance to the warning lights will NOT have a problem.

Just as if the oil runs out in your engine and you ignore the "idiot" light on the dash you may have a problem - similarly with alcohol you will have a problem if the unit runs out and you fail to refill it.

Also - in 99% of cases with the reflash - even if the alcohol failed or was turned off - the car would still suffer zero harm. The stock ecu is very fast to pull timing and the power drops almost in an instant. I have tested this on one car and the timing immediately pulled back. This is a great advantage of stock based ecu tuning - its almost like you have to TRY to blow up the engine. The built in protections are very effective. Not something i would rely upon - but a comforting thought to know that has designed a very world class knock protection system.

 

Give anyone who's had basic chemistry a break - ethanol is CH3CH2OH.

(The O stands for Oxygen.)

I hate it when you guys start hating.

Just in case you missed it - the h is for hydrogen and the c is for carbon... are you getting this, yet? (oxygenated hydrocarbon?)

Stop acting like *****es and let Al do his thing - and no, I don't know him or have any of his stuff on my car... but let him work. He doesn't come and throw rocks at you while you're running your leaf-blower, does he?

 

http://journeytoforever.org/ethanol.html

For your further edification.

 

Mark - Alcohol is made up of hydrogen, carbon and oxygen - that's it. The reason it works is latent heat of vaporization - simply put it can remove heat VERY quickly. Is it "ideal" to run it off a stock ecu - frankly, I dont see why not. As with ANY of the mods people do at this level of performance, some common sense and responsibility is first and foremost. What Al posted about the GNX community is absolutely the case....these have been used for years, and many of the owners run it on the street day in and day out as a way to run more boost and more timing than would otherwise be possible. Not to mention the kits that I am aware of all have safety measures built in to ensure catastrophic failure does not happen.

Let's not turn this into a ***** fest back and forth.....we should be learning from this, not getting pissy because someone got good results with something

 

Good Points. A lot of chemistry lessons are being shone. I do like Turbo Trix's concern for safety. The Aem is better configured to monitor a engine without a doubt. I like to hear about alcohol because it does intercool the engine. The long term effects have to be seen.

 

Al: What fuel do you use in your race car? Do you run Pumpgas/ methanol, Racegas/NOS,or Racegas/methanol or Racegas/NOs/Methanol or just Racegas? It would be a sales plus for you if you used pumpgas/methanol to race your car. Will you run it this way at events?

 

You'd be surprised at how often people dont check things.. And running out of gas would be a good thing, compared to running out of alcohol. It will happen and you will read about it. Just a concern... Good luck

Mark
Turbotrix