In some states (and I heard Canada) they offer fuel that is 85% gasoline and 15% alcohol. I believe the alcohol is methanol. I have owned vehicles when I lived in Brazil that were ethanol powered (89% ethanol, 11% low octane gasoline) and they had loads more torque than the gasoline powered vehilcles. Since alcohol runs cooler than gasoline, it seems like turbo applications or for N/A purposes you could tune the car to higher horsepower with an alcohol mix. The downside is the alcohol corrosion on fuel hoses if they are rubber, fuel level gauges, and any rubber parts in the fuel system that are not alcohol resistent. My question is if anyone is running the 85 /15 mixture, what are your tuning parameters for either turbo or N/A applications? I live in Houston where we can't get that kind of mix, but I would like to experiment with tuning my lude with 15% methanol, even if it's just for a few tanks of fun. I can get methanol from speed shops and do the mix for a few tanks to see if it's worth it. Any help would be appreciated.

 

I don't want to be a post *****, but consider what we spend on performance mods. If we could tune for a different fuel mixture, like 15% methanol, do the math. I'm telling you alcohol opens the doors for tuning. Remember the Hyundai Tiburon with two motors /trannies running on alcohol with 600+whp? Maybe we should experiment.

 

I wouldn't experiment with it unless you get everything alcohol safe. My 5th gen owners manual says specifically to not use fuel with more than 10% methanol in the car.
If you remember SCC, that tiburon got horrible mileage (and I think it only ran on one engine for that test) Methanol/alchohol/ethanol all have low specific energy compared to gasoline, so you'll have to burn a lot more to get the same level of power. If you're that into goine nutty with fuel, just go with 100 octane unleaded, and tune to that. If you really need more octane on top of that go with 10% ethanol or methanol to prevent fuel system damage.

 

Yeah, you're right about fuel consumption being high on alchohol. I had an ethanol powered Fiat 147 with a 1.3L engine that burned about 30% more fuel than gasoline-powered. The higher torque from the alcohol made it feel like a bigger engine. Alcohol was 30% cheaper than gasoline though.

 

Every test I've seen on FFVs (ones that run gas OR gasahol) showed some better acceleration on the gasahol, but that was just because it was able to run a lot more timing advance than it was able to run on 89 octane. 100 octane unleaded should produce similar or better results.

 

Canada has Ultra 94 it's up to 10% ethanol...anything more than that and it's bad for the engine.

 

The "oxyginated" gases in california were banned IIRC, because it can produce some really toxic gases they didn't know about before hand

 

Some useful information...

http://texas.hybridgarage.com/viewtopic.php?t=862

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by wannabe &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I'm telling you alcohol opens the doors for tuning. Remember the Hyundai Tiburon with two motors /trannies running on alcohol with 600+whp? Maybe we should experiment.</TD></TR></TABLE>

You are a little late upon introducing the idea of tuning our motors on alcohol opposed to regular fuels. Depending on how 'built' our motor plays a huge factor on what octane fuel we run or even as you mentioned alcohol, and some use methanol as well. For a daily driven car, running alcohol or methanol is not the most practical thing to do. For those of us that do boost high amounts of pressure, we have the choices of running a higher ocatane... such as c16. And yes, we can mix our own fuels with ethanol, alcohol, methanol, or toulene. Just remember, if you plan on switching back and forth from say a 93 octane to a 116 octane, you better have 2 different maps tuned for both of the fuels. When increasing octane, not only do you change your fuel tables, but higher octane will affect your ignition tables as well.

Basically what i am saying, plenty of people have already experimented already. When a motor can no longer run on just regular pump gas, you will know it when you see how toasted your pistons are. Plenty of guys on this board have pushed 500+whp on their daily drivers and all they have ran was around a c16 octane. Just because a hyundai tiburon runs alcohol fuel and puts out 600whp does not mean it is going to make your car do the same. That car is most likely strictly for the race track.

Fuel is a very important key in having a tuned motor running well and i am glad you understand that, but dont think just by switching to alcohol you are going to gain crazy amounts of horsepower. Tell us a little more about your setup and maybe we can lead you in another direction that is more benificial to you.

 

Actually using a higher octane than needed will hurt your performance. Higher octane is less prone to burning. Since you're making it burn slower, you're not getting an instantanious *BANG* you need to really get power. use the lowest octane rated fuel you can and you'll get the most HP for your setup.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rjr162 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Actually using a higher octane than needed will hurt your performance. Higher octane is less prone to burning. Since you're making it burn slower, you're not getting an instantanious *BANG* you need to really get power. use the lowest octane rated fuel you can and you'll get the most HP for your setup.</TD></TR></TABLE>

el correcto, unless you advance your timing like you are supposed to do when running high octane fuels which is what results in increased horsepower.

Like i said, this whole discussion is pointless unless you are talking about what all is done to the motor and how much power you are planning on putting out. There are a few more other factors out there such as thermal coatings you can use on your pistons that will let you get away with a lower octane fuel safely then again there is the whole mean specific brake consumption of your motor that is the saferange on how much power a motor can put out. There are a lot of factors out there, and since i dont have time to go into them i am not.