Fuel additives

[Gerry H]

Post of the week Francis

Yep! Well done Francis. I'm not that clued up on the whys and wherefors of the technical bits but do have some practical experience of using the stuff.

If you can buy in quantity you'll save a fortune. I used to get it in 25L containers at over

[ScoobieWRX]

You're welcome.

I've remapped for Methanol mixes and methanol/water injection so i have some experience with it from a tuning point of view, as well as being a frequent user of it

I know people that manufacture their own bio-diesel at home and store Methanol in large quantities in their garage. They all say that it's just a matter of common sense when handling it. Rubber gloves, goggles, don't breathe in the vapours (as nice as it smells) as it will give you a huge headache and/or irritate your eyes. Avoid splashing it everywhere (gets on your skin and dries/cracks the crap out of it, gets in your eyes and stings like buggery/may cause temporary blindness), but I've not yet heard of someone in the UK having a bad accident using/storing Methanol.

Just be sensible, and no knocking it back!!

Edited to add: If you are going to use Methanol either in a very high % mix or neat you will have to increase the the size of your injectors. So roughly speaking for using pure methanol you'll have to double up injector size and for Ethanol half as much so for instance 500cc injectors will end up being 1000cc for methanol use and 750cc for ethanol use. Working on that basis and presuming you have ample/strong fuel supply and mapping to suit there should be sufficient capacity to do what you want and not lean out.

[Bart]

Post of the week Francis

that is very good and infomative reading indeed.

[pablo]

Francis, thanks for that very informative reply. We are not planning on using it neat as the rules only allow it as an additive. Time for us to go and speak to Gordon to make sure that we are doing will still be ok fo these changes.

Thanks guys:thumbs:

[Andy916]

Avoid splashing it everywhere (gets on your skin and dries/cracks the crap out of it, gets in your eyes and stings like buggery/may cause temporary blindness)

The greatest hazard, surely, is that it's a carcinogen and is absorbed through the skin. Burns with an invisible flame too, so need to be precautious on the fire risk.

[ScoobieWRX]

So if you add it to petrol as a 90% mix technically it's still being used as an additive.

Maybe not then, but i wonder what their limit % wise is.

[ScoobieWRX]

The greatest hazard, surely, is that it's a carcinogen and is absorbed through the skin. Burns with an invisible flame too, so need to be precautious on the fire risk.

Technically Methanol in itself is not a carcinogen or even a Mutagen. So handling it is not the issue. Only when it's metabolized by your body does it then turn into Formaldehyde which is both toxic and a carcinogen. The body naturally produces Methanol as do some fruits so in tiny quantities it's safe to humans.

Normal petrol however is a carcinogen because it contains Benzine, therefore you should handle petrol as carefully as you would Methanol. Also, methanol fires can be put out using just water but that's not something you can do with a petrol fire as petrol floats on water.

Methanol does have it's advantages over petrol and can be made non toxic by mixing it with Ethanol.

[Andy916]

All good info, thanks for posting that!

[duncan]

If using methanol a ingestion of 15ml is fatal.

Vodka is the best treatment of the effects if a small amount ingested / vapours breathed or absorbed through the skin.

Pablo - as said E85 is no longer available at morrisons. if they do have it it will be over 2 years old and questionable quality.

Race E85 is an option but to be honest for the money it would probably be easier (injector and fueling wise) and cheaper to run Sunoco 109 - have had some great results on customers cars on the dyno with this stuff recently.