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Old 22-12-2004, 12:41 AM
Richard L Richard L is offline
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Default Aquanitro injection?

I was wondering if anyoneelse has tried injecting Nitromethane with Water into the engine to get some power increase.

Nitromethane (Nitrocarbol) CH3NO2 contain a certain usable oxygen, will dissolve in water happily. Apparently, if you throw a lit match onto a puddle of nitromethane it would even set alight. But if you hit it with a hammer onto a hard surface, the shock will make it explode (below the hammer).

If the application is feasible, we can produce a nitromethane compatible pump and make life a bit more interesting on the WI front.


Anyone with more information?
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Old 22-12-2004, 04:39 AM
hotrod hotrod is offline
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Default Nitro

Nitromethane by itself has limited water solubility.
2.2 cc H2O / 100 cc nitromethane. Listed as soluable in both water and methanol. I suspect mixed with methanol that limit is pretty much not an issue as the methanol is 100% miscible in water.

autoignition temp 785 deg F ( 418 deg C ), lower explosion limit in air 7.3%, used in rocket fuels and some explosive mixtures. Most RC fuel is a mixture of nitromethane and methanol at 5% - 15% nitro plus a lubricant like castor oil or a synthetic castor oil. Its been a long time since I bought any, not sure if you can buy it over the counter without the lubricant as most RC models use the fuel for cylinder lubrication. It's hard to find and expensive in pure fuel grade form, usually only sold through racing fuel outlets.

Nitro's main advantage is that it only needs about 1/10 th the oxygen to burn that gasoline does, so you can burn a huge amount of it as fuel for a given amount of free oxygen in the cylinder. AA fuelers pump so much fuel that its like shooting a garden hose into each cylinder.

In high purity concentrations it is explosive from shock, which along with efforts to control top speeds NHRA currently limits it to a maximum concentration of about 85%. Years ago they had some nasty engine explosions with higher concentrations. Like Nitrous oxide systems, if you go lean it will cook an engine before you can lift your foot off the throttle. Because of this I don't think it would be a really good idea to use a water/nitromethane injection system except in a fully mapped injection setup like the top end Aquamist systems. A fixed rate injection would likely go lean at high rpm if your using it in any significant amount. As one nitro vendor puts it "More that 1% nitromethane by volume will require increased fuel delivery, when used in gasoline."

On the other hand this tendency to "lean out" might be an advantage as a chemical means to get a lean mixture to fully utilize the water injection's potential !!

Nitromethane burns quite slowly by comparison to gasoline so you will probably need more ignition advance to fully utilize the additional fuel.

The addition of water "should" tame it a bit, but I'd be worried about intake manifold explosions if you sprayed prior to the throttle body. If the engine hiccups and backfires into the intake manifold you might get to watch your intake manifold exit through the hood.

For those who have been to the drag races when fuelers are running the exhaust from a nitro burning car is very pungent ( contains a nitric acid mist basically) not good for your lungs so, be aware of the fact you need excellent ventilation and if your using any signficant amount, people will know it from the smell of you exhaust.

If anyone wants to experiment with this --- be VERY careful until there is a body of experience to tell you what is workable.

Nitromethane exposed to bright sunlite undergoes chemical changes and may perform unpredictably !!!

If used as a direct port injection setup it might be pretty good setup, especially for someone who wanted to avoid having a nitrous tank in the trunk but wanted the same sort of kick in the backside.


http://www.eskimo.com/~daddog/fuels/nitromethane.htm
http://www.turbofast.com.au/racefuel8.html
http://www.wediditforlove.com/techtalk4.html
http://www.cosbyoil.com/sunoconitro.html
http://www.pricechemical.com/nitromethane.htm
http://members.aol.com/FHSoil/FHSorder.html


Larry
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Old 22-12-2004, 01:00 PM
Richard L Richard L is offline
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Thanks Larry, as always for great set of informative links.

One suit mentioned that Nitromethane contains 49.5% of oxygen by weight and be released during commbustion.

It is similar to injecting Nitrous oxide but less complicated due to plumbing. Since most turbo car runs rich historically from factory or aftermarket tuners, adding a small amount into the water injection will help using up those excess fuel for power, otherwise being wasted out of the exhaust pipe.

The density is slightly higher than water so by mixing it 4:1, there will quite effective as an oxygen suppliment.

8Kg/m of air will probably support a 200HP engine and it contains about 2kg of oxygen. If we can suppliment 100g of nitromethane in water, you should in theory get a 5HP increase.

Am I close?
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Old 22-12-2004, 01:11 PM
Richard L Richard L is offline
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I also wonder if nitromethane is mixed with waer, it wil make it much safer to handle.

There is something I am not too sure, how much of the stuff can be mixed with water before saturation. Adding a small amount methanol will allow higher concentration?

The only seal that is recommended and compatible with the stuff is Teflon, Chemraz, Kalrez rubber.

I think I can make the Aquamist pump with teflon seals and would be interesting to test it.

One concern on the safety, will a moving piston sliding on a shaft seal ignite the nitro? :shock:
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Old 22-12-2004, 04:21 PM
hotrod hotrod is offline
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Default safety

Quote:
One concern on the safety, will a moving piston sliding on a shaft seal ignite the nitro?
Shouldn't be a problem, my understanding is that nitro is only shock sensitive if it is very high purity. There were some serious accidents with 99+% purity nitro in rail tank cars that detonated when they were being "humped".

(humping -- practice of letting rail road freight cars roll down a siding to sort cars. If the car gets going too fast, the impact when it crashes into other cars at the bottom of the hill, can be a pretty good collision)

Speculation was that the liquid nitro sloshed forward in the tank and water hammered when it hit the dead end creating a superheated compressed vapor bubble initiating the explosion.

Your best bet would be to touch base with Sunoco fuels or someone experienced with handling nitromethane.

The above incident involving Nitromethane in freight cars is commonly mentioned in hazardous materials training courses for fire fighters here in the U.S. in fire science college classes.

Larry
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Old 22-12-2004, 04:27 PM
hotrod hotrod is offline
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Default teflon seals

FWIW a teflon seal pump should be good for just about anything someone wants to run through the pump, such as ethanol and other less commonly used alcohols.

It might very well be a multi use optional configuration.

larry
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Old 22-12-2004, 07:57 PM
Richard L Richard L is offline
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This is indeed good news.

Making the seal for the pump with teflon is not a problem now that I know the chance of ignition is not possible.

Split pipe is also not a problem due to dilution of water. I am concern about alcohol, if people were to run 100% alcohol (any type) split pipe could cause a fire.

I may just say the pump is only compatible up to 50% of anything until we use braided host.
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Old 23-12-2004, 03:57 PM
hotrod hotrod is offline
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Default My system

I'm running -3 teflon lined Aero quip line on my shurflo system but when I got up near 70% alcohol ( mix of ethanol and methanol) the pump seals took a crap and ruined the pressure switch. I got a Viton seal from shurflo but have not run it yet as it's too cold here to need WI ( 2.1 Deg F coming home from work this morning).

If you want a guina pig for high alcohol mixes, I'd be interested.

Will be warm enough to use WI in about 16 weeks.

Larry
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Old 25-12-2004, 09:40 AM
Richard L Richard L is offline
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The Shurflo diaphragm that isolates the switch from the water is very thin, frequent cyclic use may reduces its life expectance by a fair amount. On the other hand it may be combination of alcohol and mechanical wear?

I gladly accept of your offer of being a guinea pig, but the aquamist won't run enough water for your application?
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Old 19-11-2007, 05:33 PM
Pit Viper Pit Viper is offline
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I'm still looking into this, Richard, once I settle on my turbo and get my nozzles sized accordingly.
I've found a source for the nitro here in the US, and have been doing as much reading as possible.

With my direct-port setup, I'm going to switch my regular injection mix to more of a 70W/30M, so I have to recalculate how much Nitro I can add, vs. my original 50/50 mix, where I was going to go 50W/40M/10N.
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