[Wet1]

Originally Posted by Richard L

Wet 1,

Thanks for the link, the shurflo pump is ideal for the application as many alky-injection manufacturer uses it, in fact all of them except SMC - pure alky injection. It will surely do the job as a much lower priced and flows more.

As said before the aquamist pump was originally designed for water only. I think in order to design a good water/alcohol injection system, it has to be able to control the flow accurately so one will know the ratio between the gasoline and alcohol or at least predictable. The Aquamist's HSV + the FIA2 or MF2 can easier to adapted for use with alcohol injection/shurflo pump - the HSV seal is made of EPDM and good for most alcohol at high concentration. If you are interested, I can post a schematic on a new thread so it won't alter the thread topic midway.

For your 20% injection rate, it would just be as simple to add 20% of alcohol to your fuel tank to be done with it. If your fear of the leaning up due to the a/f/a ratio, just turn up the fuel pressure a bit to compensate. I remember someone posted this particular method to this board and proved that it is very effective.

The biggest problem facing the usage of alcohol by injecting it as a fuel and not as a coolant - it makes the accurate delivery to each cylinder more difficult especially the log-type manifold/plenum. This critcal factory has to be overcome for a alcohol injection system to be reliable, I suggest the only way to tackle this problem is by using port injection to guarantee even delivery to each cylinder.

Further down the line, the controller that meters the alcohol injection valve has to be mappable and tune exactly as the gasoline injection system. The blockage detection circuitry is also vital since we are offering the system to mostly a DIY market where strict installation procedure is not often followed and debris may be introduced into the alcohol line and blocks one jet. Since alcohol injection is often triggered during boost , one clogged jet can be very bad for the engine.

As I am reasoning my approach to my ideal alcohol injection system, you might as well contact the proper company that supplies the alcohol fuel dragster. It is a subject I know little of and how any alcohol/gasoline engine should be tuned - difficult enough to get tune individually as it is but infinately more complex to tune both with two separate mappable controllers. I think it will be a long time before an aftermarket duel-fuel system is available and the cost? it won't be 399 dollars for sure.

Do you think I am being over-cautious? As hothod has pointed out, WMN has an in-built "fail-safe" mechanism within it. This is the reason I am reading more into the technology as a simple power adder.

Please post the schematic as I'm not familiar with this.

While your notion to just add 20% methanol to the gas tank sounds like a simple solution, IMO it gets away from some of the ideals of AI. First, methanol is pretty corrosive. A 20% concentration in most fuel systems would certainly create problems. Second, it would be a major PITA to try mixing proper ratios at the fuel station every fill-up. Third, it would be far more expensive since you'd use a lot more methanol. The nice thing about AI is you only use the alky when it's needed (under boost), if mixed in the fuel tank you'd be using the methanol all the time. BTW, you wouldn't add a 50/50 mix to your fuel tank would you?

While I totally agree that even distribution is a concern, but I have yet to hear of this being a problem in application. Some of the turbo Regal guys are shooting large amounts w/o any issues. As you know the alky is discharged in a very fine mist, as long as it's injected with a reasonable distance away from the intake manifold, there should be pretty even distribution. IMO, the same holds true with water, not just methanol as a fuel (and it is also a coolant). Many people rely on water to keep the engine from detonating... so it holds true for both alky and water. Look at wet NOS systems, many use a single nozzle to inject the required fuel and you rarely hear of problems with a single lean cylinder when shooting reasonable amounts. There are thousands of wet single nozzle NOS systems running on the streets w/o issue. I agree a direct port system is the way to go, but unless you're heavily relying on the methanol (or water) I see no problem with a single or dual nozzle system downstream of the manifold.

You would know far more about blockage than I would, but I would think using a dual nozzle system would highly reduce the fear of engine failure since the likelihood for both nozzles becoming clogged at the same time is pretty unlikely. Using a single nozzle system, I've never had any problems with clogs (knock on wood), but I filter everything that goes into my system. I also press a test button before I make a heavy load run to make sure the alky system is working properly, it's habit now. Either way, I don't think it's fair to say blockage is much more (or less) of a concern with AI vs. WI... they are both being used to keep things safe when pushed to the limit. Again, look at the wet NOS systems? no issues there. I guess you could even say the same for direct injectors, there?s still the possibility of clogs or failure.

I think today?s AI / WI systems are pretty crude, but they work. I suspect people like yourself will develop much more advanced systems in the future with stand-alone computer interfaced into the ECU running direct port injectors. We already have everything on the market to build such a system, it will just take someone to put it all together... and for people to realize how incredible AI systems truly are. I'm amazed it's taken so many years for AI/WI to catch on given all the benefits it offers, yet so many people do not believe in them. Once they really take off more advanced systems will certainly follow, and you?re right? they will be more than $399!



BTW, regarding the Shurflo pumps? I didn?t know there was a concern of seal failure. I?ve been using mine for years with 90% methanol and no problems. Most of the TR guys are using straight methanol (or ethanol) with no problems either. I do know Julio at Alky Control has come up with some new seals if there?s a concern (Teflon?) but I haven?t seen a need to change mine. Then again, how much can you expect from a $70 pump???