Is it worth any HP over gas if so how much? Can anyone tell me what i need to convert. I want to try to pick up on the motor. Any info on running alcohol would be appreciated thanks in advance

 

If you do a search you can see a recent discussion of this. My new car (race only) is alcohol, but it isn't practical for a street or street/strip car, IMHO. It takes ~2.3 times as much alcohol as gasoline to get the same AF ratio. So, the whole fuel system (including the inejctors) needs more than twice the capacity. Obviously, reprogramming will be needed if running EFI or a rejetted carb, if that's what you are running. Alcohol is corrosive and readily absorbs water, so unless all the parts of the system are designed for it there can be rapid corrosion when alcohol is used. Alcohol will run much cooler than gas. So cooling system mods may be needed as well.

Rich

 

last time I was at the track I just about ran out of gas but my buddy had a five gallon jug of 4 gallons of 114 octane mixed with one gallon of alcohol. I did end up getting my best run ever using that fuel, but I don't know if the fuel gave me that little bit extra or the cooler temps that came at night.

 

Well, it would be ~10% leaner with the alcohol/gas mixture. So, if the calibration is rich (as most are) the effect of leaning it out would be a benefit. Alos, the knock resistance of the mixture may have been higher than the straight gas you were using, and if you have knock sensor you might see less retard.

Alcohol has the potential to make more hp, but the motor has to be set up for it. Besides what I mentioned in the previous post, alcohol needs different timing than gas, so that's another thing that would need to be changed to effectively utilize alcohol. Many alcohol racers run fixed timing: i.e. no advance "curve", though I can't say I understand why this works. I have thought the "dual fuel" idea through both for my car and a buddies SC 5.0 and we both decided against it. He may be converting his to straight alcohol as it is almost exclusively a track car. The potential hp gain is up to ~10%, maybe more for a blower car, so the attraction is clear.

Rich

 

As a dual fuel system, no. My race car is on alcohol and I'll never switch back to gas. The closest thing to a dual fuel system will be a gas injection system to help start the engine when it's cold.

There is less BTU energy in alcohol as gasoline but you burn about twice as much alcohol so you make more power. At 1/4 the cost of race gas, you still come out ahead. Because of the cooling effect, an alcohol engine runs cooler. I use a rad from a turbo firefly in my race car.

Because of the high amount of alcohol you need to burn, the entire fuel system needs to be changed.

Larger fuel lines
Bigger fuel pump
Larger jets and passages in the carb

It's a high maintenence fuel. Carbs need to be cleaned out after every race weekend. Fuel systems should be drained if the vehicle sits for longer than a couple of weeks.

 

ttt...

 

What about sparkplugs, would you move to a hotter sparkplug?

 

It's hard to read plugs with alcohol. I use NGK -7 race plugs. R5673-7. -6 is considered hot and -9 is considered cold.