Methanol vs Ethanol

[QKsilverF1]

I posted this over at srtforums as well here is the link if you want to read what other people think
http://www.srtforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=204379


ok ive been doing some research on the internet and what do you know, the internet sucks at giving consistent info. here goes

this site says a 50.50 water ethanol mix is best and the Meth is not good.
i quote
" 4. Methanol, as an additive, is not a practical choice as it is prone to pre-ignition, is not safe to handle and is not readily available."
http://www.rbracing-rsr.com/waterinjection.html
I dont see how the "prone to pre-ignition (knock)" can be true due to its high octane rating and that ALOT of people use it to reduce knock Including those people in the indy 500 who run straight meth for fuel.


Other sites say methanol is the best, one even says straight meth is not corrosive to your fuel system or rubber.....
"Methanol has no effect on rubber, neoprene or OEM carburetor or fuel system parts nor does it get stale like gas does. But it will corrode aluminum as plain water does if it is not drained and allowed to evaporate from the fuel system over an extended length of time."
http://sneakypetespullers.com/technical%20Articles.htm
Why do so many people talk about how corrosive to the fuel system it is?

Wikipedia gives these octane ratings for the fuels
Methanol 123
Ethanol 129
from (scroll half way down to the table)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline

This site says
Methanol 99
Ethanol 100
http://www.leeric.lsu.edu/bgbb/7/ecep/auto/m/m.htm

This site says
Ethanol 113
http://www.gov.mb.ca/est/energy/ethanol/ethanolfaq.html

http://www.srtforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=107888
FastAttack says
"Alky , is a type of alchohol used primarly to decrease the temperatures of the charged air , although cheaper than methanol , it will vaporize a lot faster than methanol or water thus not having the same level of efficiency in cleaning your motor and preventing detonation."
Doent all fuel vaporize by the time it is ignited anyway??? im pretty sure enough heat is produced during the compression stroke to vaporize all the fuel "gas/meth/eth/water" etc. in the cylinder also if eth has a higher octane rating than meth wouldnt it be better at preventing knock?

Here is an MIT PDF about Direct Ethanol Injection
http://lfee.mit.edu/public/LFEE_2005-001_RP.pdf

Other sites with info if you are interested
http://www.energy.ca.gov/afvs/vehic...s/methanol.html
http://www.agriculture.state.ia.us/e85q&a.html
http://www.palatineoil.com/fuels.html
http://www.ncga.com/ethanol/main/your_car.htm

So can someone who actually knows please clear up my confusion.
please tell me what the differences between ethanol and methanol are (as well as advantages/disadvantages to each) and try to clear up some of the contradictions found in my links.
Again please only post if you actually know what you are talking about and can back it up with an understandable explaination
Thanks

[B.A.P.]

Methanol is very corrosive so if you are planning to do an alchohol injection, it is way easier to use ethanol. If you aer going to run alchohol vs. gasoline as a primary fuel, it is worth it to set up the fuel system to handle methanol...

The real question is why someone would run alcohol injection? Most of the time it is better to just run the proper amount and octane of gasoline.

[QKsilverF1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by QKsilverF1 So can someone who actually knows please clear up my confusion. please tell me what the differences between ethanol and methanol are (as well as advantages/disadvantages to each) and try to clear up some of the contradictions found in my links. Again please only post if you actually know what you are talking about and can back it up with an understandable explaination Thanks

.....

[B.A.P.]

Quote:

Originally Posted by QKsilverF1 .....

..... yourself!

Well, from your response, you obviously think I dont know what I am talking about so I really do not feel compelled to answer your question further or explain anything which you would have a problem beleving anyways.

You said it yourself,

Quote:

the internet sucks at giving consistent info.

and all you are going to get here is more OPINIONS just like every other place you looked online.

Why do I say methanol is corrosive? Because it says that in several Chrysler publications including most vehicle owner's manuals and service manuals...

And I really dont care anyways because alcohol injection is a patch people use instead of a properly tuned fuel system.

[ZEROLAG]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BadAssPerformance The real question is why someone would run alcohol injection? Most of the time it is better to just run the proper amount and octane of gasoline.

I think the main answer is that for street cars most of us don't want to run 100+ octane gasoline for our trip to grandma's house with the wife and kids in the car. It's just not practical as we can't get high octane fuel at most pumps, and it would be expensive if we did. With alcohol injection we can certainly run schmoe pump gas (filling up at any gas station) then bang on it when we want because we have alky turning on in boost.

While you make a valid point that gasoline of higher octane would be good, I'm not sure that's very convenient for some of our quick daily drivers.

Later,

[QKsilverF1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BadAssPerformance ..... yourself! Well, from your response, you obviously think I dont know what I am talking about so I really do not feel compelled to answer your question further or explain anything which you would have a problem beleving anyways. You said it yourself, and all you are going to get here is more OPINIONS just like every other place you looked online. Why do I say methanol is corrosive? Because it says that in several Chrysler publications including most vehicle owner's manuals and service manuals... And I really dont care anyways because alcohol injection is a patch people use instead of a properly tuned fuel system.

the reason i posted that was to try to get everyone to stay on topic and answer the question at hand, in my opnion you did not at all answer my question and in addition, you hijacked my thread by asking "why would anyone run alcohol injection?" which had nothing to do with my question. the reason i dont want side discussions is because i do not want to clutter up yet another thread so when someone is actually trying to do some reasearch they have to read through a bunch of BS posts, like this one now thats taking up space just because i have to explain/defend myself

[GLHandGTS]

Tidbit- E85, a fuel for flexible fuel system cars, is straight ethanol with a 15% gasoline content (in a nutshell). This is done for a couple of reasons, one of which is corrosion resistance, another being so you can't drink it!

Methanol IS corrossive to fuel systems. Ethanol is as well. Go look up FFV (flexible fuel vehicles) for information on the liquid. Also, the FFV cars have specific fuel systems designed to take the abusive, or more abusive that is, nature of the E85.

When one of the five certified facory AEM tuners, Devon, came to tune my brothers car we spoke about the pros and cons of meth, alchy, nitrous, etc. He said if it were his car he would build one to run solely off of E85, as it has the cooling effect of methanol without the severe corrosion problems, and it's available across the country at certain stations. If you've got one close why not? It would be the ultimate pump gas car.

On methanol systems there can not be any rubber pieces on the fuel system as to my knowledge. Not only that, but after an extremely short period of time the fuel system should be thoroughly cleaned out and checked. Injectors might need to be replaced over time from the wear of the fuel.

Aaron Miller

[GLHandGTS]

Oh, and just in case you don't choose to believe me, no hard feelings.

http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/e85toolkit/

Aaron Miller

[B.A.P.]

Quote:

Originally Posted by QKsilverF1 the reason i posted that was to try to get everyone to stay on topic and answer the question at hand, in my opnion you did not at all answer my question and in addition, you hijacked my thread by asking "why would anyone run alcohol injection?" which had nothing to do with my question. the reason i dont want side discussions is because i do not want to clutter up yet another thread so when someone is actually trying to do some reasearch they have to read through a bunch of BS posts, like this one now thats taking up space just because i have to explain/defend myself

Sorry to 'hijack' your thread... welcome to the world of internet discussions, it happens to all off us.

If you want to help the common good with a thread that is not filled with opinions and discussion, then once you figure it all out, write up a nice FAQ about it and submit it to Frank for the FAQ section...

and btw, I did offer a response to your question when I posted that Chrysler says not to use methanol because it is corrosive.

[tonyz2897]

I can at least kill the myth that methanol is "not readily available". It's pretty easy to find in areas where dirt track or drag racing is popular. The last I bought was $1.89/gal last summer. As for corrosion, I'm sure it's more corrosive than gasoline for two reasons. First, it's an oxygenated fuel and second, it mixes fairly readily with water. On the bright side, a good race grade methanol should contain an additive package that includes corrosion inhibitors in addition to a top end lubricant and an additive that makes the flame easier to see.
For what it's worth, I ran Turbo Blue brand racing alky through a homemade injection rig to 28 psi as my sole means of fueling above 15. Below 15 it was the stock fuel system and premium (93) pump gas. It worked great! Not a hint of detonation and the plugs looked beautiful. My only regret is that I only got to run this setup for a few months before the trans grenaded and never really had a chance to tune it properly. I would have liked to see the long term effects on the engine and the components I used to assemble my injection rig. I ended up dealing the car off to a friend and it's detuned for reliable daily driver use now. I do intend to build a similar setup for the Sundance once it's back together, and hopefully the driveline failures will hold off long enough for me to get some real long-term testing in.
Hopefully this will help answer a couple questions.
Tony

[Frank]

Fuel Octane Rating is based on a formula using the Research Octane Number (RON) and Motor Octane Number (MON) numbers....

Methanol's RON is 106 and MON is 92. Ethanol's Ron is 107 and MON is 89. Gasoline's RON is 92-98 and MON is 80-90.

Fuel Sensitivity = RON - MON
Antiknock Index = (RON + MON)/2 (Pump Number)

What conditions determine the RON and MON?

Inlet Temp
- RON: 125degF and MON: 300degF
Inlet Pressure
- Atomospheric pressure for both
Humidity
- 3.6 to 7.2 g/kg (g of water vapor per kg of dry air)
Coolant Temp
- 212degF
Engine Speed
- RON: 600rpms and MON: 900rpms
Spark Advance
- RON: 13degBTC and MON: 19-26degBTC depending on CR.
A/F
- adjust for maximum knock

So as you can see between conditions and the fuel sensitivity conditions, the higher octane is good, but higher MON is even better. Everyone plays the number game to sell their product.

Fuel Sensitivity
- Methanol is 14
- Ethanol is 18 (more sensitive)

Antiknock Index
- Methanol is 99
- Ethanol is 98

That there tells you that Methanol is better. However there are trade-offs. Methanol requires more fuel then Ethanol when using it as a fuel source. However Methanol can evaporate a bit easier then Ethanol. They both carry about 2.5x the heat that air can carry. Ethanol can be more corrosive then Methanol in some conditions.

Alky injection is great for removing heat and decreasing combustion burn times. Its a great suplement or addition to an intercooler. For N/A applications or even some high CR turbo cars, one good additive for the fuel tank is toluene. It has a RON of 120 and MON of 109. It has similar properties as fuel, however only carries 1.7x the heat of air. It needs to be put in the fuel tank.


Frank

[QKsilverF1]

awesome post thanks frank

[SpraynLog]

Quote:

Originally Posted by QKsilverF1 awesome post thanks frank

I agree! In my research about this, the only difference I could see was
a slightly higher boiling point for the meth. For health reasons, however, I would use the denatured. Meth is insidious, it attacks the
central nervous system & internal organs. It can be absorbed through the skin or inhaled as vapor. In many cases, your sense of smell is not
good enough to alert you to the fact you are being exposed. If you want more info about this, do a google search, MSDS for Methanol.

[Putter]

+1 ^ Methonal is nasty stuff. Even washer solvent containers carry large warning lables.

[tonyz2897]

Ah, I had my methanol tank in the back of the Daytona, and I used to use the stuff to clean the grease off my hands and I'm fine (twitch, twitch, drool...).

Seriously, yes I had the tank in the back, but it was vented to the outside, and I stick with either dish liquid or laundry detergent for hand cleaner.
If you're going to use methanol in your alky injection system, be careful when handling the stuff. If your supply is in the passanger compartment, make sure it's vented to the outside. Also, (it's a good practice anyway) KEEP A GOOD FIRE EXTINGUISHER HANDY.
Hopefully you'll never see the need for it, but it's better to have one and not need it than need it and not have one.
As I mentioned in my previous post, most of the race grade methanol contains an additive to make an open flame visible, but without this, the stuff burns clear and all you can see is the results of the fire like burning paint and heat shimmer.
With that said, if you use some common sense when building your injection setup, and handling the methanol, it's well worth the trouble.
HTH,
Tony