As an injectant for WI / alcohol injection ethanol and methanol are essentially interchangable as far as the engine is concerned. There are some issues of compatibility with different pumps etc, but once its in the air stream its pretty much interchangable. The test Pratt & Whitney did on their R-2800 series air craft engines during WWII ended up using the same injection rates for both methanol and ethanol on their ADI systems.
If he's going to a full alcohol fuel system, I highly recommend high ethanol fuels. I am currently running my WRX on 85% -100% E-85.
E-85 is a mixture of 85% ethanol from corn, and 15% gasoline. There is a small penalty in miles per gallon. Mine dropped from the low 20's to the high teens but the E-85 sells for $1.59/gal vs $2.05/gal for pump premium.
There is also about a 5% gain in power/torque on it when properly tuned.
The Ethanol burns a couple hundred degrees cooler than gasoline, (so cool I need to put a standard thermostat back in during cold weather to get normal engine warm up). Produces slightly more exhaust gas combustion products per pound of fuel than gasoline --- this gives more exhaust to power the turbocharger and slightly better spool.
You can buy the fuel here in the Denver area and much of the mid-west U.S.
For those interested in emissions, since it is 85% renewable fuel (ie the alcohol) its net emissions are much much lower than gasoline. My net emissions of CO2 etc. is approximately what a car that got 120 mpg on gasoline would be. By net emissions I mean the CO2 emissions that are not recaptured in growing the next crop of corn.
For those interested in following my experiment;
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/show...highlight=E-85
http://www.coloradocorn.com/resources/ethanol/facts.htm
http://www.e85fuel.com/
http://www.ethanolrfa.org/factfic.shtml
http://www.ethanolrfa.org/press.shtml
The last time I ran a data log on my car I had an ignition advance multiplier of 16 which is the highest possible, -- in other words my ECU is very happy with the fuel octane.
Oh by the way the 5 times IHRA funny car champion Mark Thomas runs ethanol fuel!!
http://www.ohiocorn.org/news_2001_0831.htm
http://www.fb.org/views/focus/fo2004/fo0830.html
http://www.ethanolrfa.org/pr040922.html
http://www.mncorn.org/servlet/mcga/n...articleDir.iml
Larry