water mixture help?

[hotrod]

Isopropyl alcohol acts more like a fuel that an antidetonatant.

You should increase your water percentage or reduce you timing advance or booth until you figure out what was happening.

Methanol would need a different blend for best performance. You may have been on the ragged edge of pre-ignition which can kill an engine very quickly ( ie as in melt the tops out of pistons and burn valves ).

One of the reasons they went to a 50/50 blend of water and methanol on the combat aircraft is at higher percentages of methanol they would get pre-ignition. If they substituted isopropyl alcohol for the methanol they would blow engines due to its lower flamability limit.


Be very careful --- drop back a bit and work up slowly, you may have just missed melting an engine.

Larry