Alcohol?

dynevahn · 05-21-2006, 12:18 PM

First off I have a 79 sc body with a 3.3 87 930 motor with internals and alot of bolt ons, dynoed at 425 to the wheels with 100 octane. Heres the story, I was cruising around last night when a lancer (with 490 to the wheels) came up beside me and said he wanted to race me for $500. If he won I wouldnt have to pay him anything, I thought for about a second and said sounds like a deal to me. I told him we needed to go out on 485 where there were no cars and so we did. Hit it from 3rd gear and got about 3 car lengths on him and we slowed down. I think he was surprised I beat him. Anyways he showed me his setup, he was running alcohol from his windhshield washer bottle to his throttle body and said it gave him a good boost and was alot safer then nitrous. Now he gave me the hoses and t to hook it up. Before I go ahead and do this let me ask you guys is ok to do this? Im going to tap it into the boot after the turbo. Sounds to me like cheap horsepower but couldnt find much about it on here. Would appreciate any info. Thanks

btw I didnt take his money.

MattAlpha · MattAlpha's Garage

I have no idea about the alcohol in the TB, but it sounds like something like a "moonshine runner" trick. Well I think they used to pour it straight into the gas tank. Maybe he's trying to get a hotter burn with the alcohol and oxygen mixture for combustion.

Aside from that, I'm pretty sure that nitrious (which he said "alcohol was safer than") is shot straight into the cylinders with its own injector, or it is mixed with the gasoline (before injection) and then that mixture is shot in using the gasoline's injectors.

Did he have some sort of gismo that regulated the alcohol amount that was being dumped into the throttle body?

This could also be a nice way to catch your engine on fire, unless the installer is a master craftsman/machinist.

dynevahn · 05-21-2006, 12:55 PM

yea he had this thing like a boost controller. open wide open or close. He said to dillute it but I forgot how much he said

sammyg2 · 05-21-2006, 12:59 PM

Alcohol injection does not give "extra" power.
The BTU content by volume or weight is lower with alcohol than with gas.
What it does is to cool the combustion temperatures and allow higher boost levels, which increases power.

Ironically, injecting pure water instead of alcohol does the same thing but to a lower extent.

dynevahn · 05-21-2006, 01:02 PM

so is it safe to inject it into the throttle body after the turbo or before the turbo?

sammyg2 · 05-21-2006, 01:54 PM

After the turbo is much better. You don't want water or anything going through your compressor impeller.
Please note that this will reduce your horsepower if you don't increase your boost levels and you are not having problems with pinging at your current settings.
The only benefits to it are to allow you to run a little bit more boost without pinging or to reduce the pinging at current levels.
A more efficient intercooler or higher octane does the same thing only better.

There are kits out there with full instructions and properly sized jets. If you decide to try and put something together yourself please use caution, engines under boost don't like to go into hydraulic piston lock