hey i recently went to a Sunoco gas station in the area and they sell race fuels. They sell Sunoco Racing Alcohol for 3.25 gal. Thats alot cheaper than denaturated alky from home depot for 12/gal. Does anyone use the sunoco alky? Is it the same?

 

Straight alcohol fuel is not the same as the denatured alky we use in our alky kits, is it?

 

From their website

Sunoco Racing Alcohol available - 99.95% pure. Please contact the Sunoco Race Fuel Distributor in your area or call 1-800-RACE GAS (1-800-722-3427) for more information.

I called Sunoco and they gave me a number to another distributer that said what he carries is methyl alchohol (methanol) which is 99.8 %pure alcky.

So I am just guesing that this is methanol @ 3.25 per gallon.

Denatured alcohol is ethanol with added adulterants that make it useless for consumption as an intoxicating beverage by rendering it toxic or extremely distasteful to drink, but still useful for industrial processes or as a household chemical. This is done in order to make it exempt from taxes that apply to potable alcohol.

There are diverse industrial uses for ethanol, and therefore literally hundreds of recipes for denaturing ethanol. Typical additives are methanol, isopropanol, methyl ethyl ketone, methyl isobutyl ketone, denatonium, and even aviation gasoline.

In this sense of the word, denatured means "a specific property of ethanol, its usefulness as a beverage, is removed". The ethanol molecule is not denatured in the sense that its chemical structure is altered.

 

hmm...so i could or could not run it in place of denatured alky with same tune? i guess i'll just ask turbotrix tomorrow when i get my tune.

 

i wouldnt use it in your alky set up because of the volitile state it is in. i would think it is a different mixture for "racing" purposes as opposed to denatured alcohol. it has different aromatics for use in combustion engines as opposed to being "added" to your already mixed premium fuel (93oct). remember that you are adding in your alcohol to the fuel mixture you already have. i believe this is a mixture already suited for combustion(aromatics already added in the fuel itself)...i think i explained it right...?? did that make sense??

hey WARR, did that make sense??

 

^^it makes sense, but are you right?

 

He's asking about using this in an alcohol injection system, right? Where are you coming up with "aromatics?" If the choice is between hardware-store denatured alcohol and Sunoco methanol at a third of the price, go Sunoco. With denatured alcohol all you know is that it's somewhere between 90 and 99.5% ethanol with any of dozens of other chemicals added to make it non-potable. The Sunoco product is nearly pure methanol -- consistency is a virtue.

Dave

 

That is EXACTLY what you want, and the price is right.

 

Make sure that your pump can handle methanol/alchohol instead of just water etc and running the sunonco methanol should be fine.

 

contact the maker of your pump and ask him...

 

i understand what he was asking, but i was trying to refer to the balance of chemical content as you pointed out. the aromatics(the differing chemical mixture) are going to be different for this application. the Sunoco in this case is sold as a race FUEL not a shelf item at a hardware store. the blended mixture is more volitile than the denatured alcohol. the denatured alcohol doesnt have the lubricants mixed in either. will this hurt or help the pump?? either product is highly corrosive and would need a lubricant to help to not corrode any parts its flowing through. this is only applied to if he is going to use it at 100% mixture as versus a 50/50 with water-etc.

as it was pointed out, contact the pump manufacturer to see if flowing 100% methanol is safe for the pump. when we ran methanol in our race car(700hp 368ci small block chevrolet) we used a "top end lube" (like a syrup) you added to the methanol to keep the lines, jets, and carb parts from corroding. at the end of the race, we had to run another lube through the whole system to keep everything from corroding as well from just the fuel sitting in the lines.

my .02

 

Whatever you do, don't just start using this instead of denatured alky without a retune. They do not behave in the same manner.

 

FWIW, information on the web indicates that Sunoco racing alcohol is 99.95% methanol, which is essentially pure methanol.

 

OK, I'm a chemist, so the term "aromatic" has a precise meaning to me, and it really doesn't apply here. Fuel methanol is practically pure and hardware-store denatured alcohol is almost a crapshoot.

Warrtalon brings up a good point about the tune, since I guess most people are running enough alcohol that it's really being used as a fuel, not a simple boost fluid. Aviation has been doing that for years and pretty much standardized on 50/50 methanol/water. Are people typically running straight alcohol? If you're not knock-limited (your actual fuel has as high an octane rating as your boost fluid) you get the best results using plain water. The av folks used methanol primarily to keep the stuff from freezing.

Dave

 

We make a ton more power with 100% alky over just water. Yes, it acts as a fuel, which we retune for with a lot of timing and boost. Can't go as far on water. Some people do a mix, but testing has shown mixes don't make as much power either.