Nitromethane

[nofear57]

Has anyone tryed a shot of nitromethane with their methanol engines(20 or 30%)?

[Robert1320]

Have you priced it lately?
Holy Chit...

[dart441]

Yes with injected BBC. At 10% almost no change, at 30% about .29 sec in an altered. Not work messing with unless you go to 50% or more. However, don't start at 50%. If you want to play then start at 10-20 and work your way up.

[bjuice]

you better have some really good stuff in the bottom end of the engine set up..or you will bring it home in a box..
Nitromethane keeps exploding and expanding the entire length of the stroke and more if it could..so this means if you have cheaper parts as rods, piston,crank department it will push them straight thru the bottom of the oil pan...when the Top fuel funny car guys lose cylinders.most of the time its the nitro taking out cylinders..of course this is at 90%....

all it takes is one mixture too strong and your done..

i go-cart raced back in the early thru the late 80's..and we would run this stuff in our GO-CART motors....unfreakin real what it would do..


i am not saying DO NOT use it...but i am saying please do your home work on this stuff and fully understand how it works..

the Funny car guys are lobbying to bring back the Higher content of Nitro mixture. they claim it will be easier on parts in that they would not have to run their compression ratio's soo high that is currently needed to give the initial POP on the piston at the begining of the stroke.....

my cost on Nitro back when i sold it 6/1/2006..this was ANGUS brand.

500lbs nitrofuel 100 $1,150 w/d- $825.00
500lbs VP nitro 100 $1,000 w/d-$750.00
500lbs = 52.3 gallons

RETAIL W/D
1 gallon- $48.00 $25.44
5 gallon- $194.00 $115.70
15 gallon- $454.65 $344.10
30 gallon- $881.70 $667.20


This was a year ago..its probably up like the rest of the fuel.



compared to most of VP exoctic fuels the price is very reasonable considering you would mix 50%.....


look at this price tag on c-44
54 gallon drum- retail $2,400

[slowman]

the only time i ever used it was to flip a vw micro bus. boy does it work :lol: :lol:

[nofear57]

I don't know much about nitro,what(compression,cam,timing,jetting,etc.)the engine should have but I'm set up with methanol already so I was just thinking about it. But I would like to know more about it.

My engine is a 434sbc,enderle bugcatcher injected,brodix11x heads,lunati .630 lift cam #50140 and 1.6 int. and 1.5 ex. rockers,13.5:1 JE pistons,oliver H beam rods,lunati crank #A0211.

My 1700lb altered runs 8.24 at 157mph and would love to hit the high 7's.

Any advise or changes on adding 20 or 30% nitro?

[bjuice]

to my knowledge there is nothing you could change now without having to go into the motor..its always good to have o-oringed block to help hold in the newer cylinder pressure that will be introduced...Cometic head gaskets with STUD next best thing..

if i were you i would call ENDERLE INJECTION out in California and ask to speak with Jim...he can get you really close on where your jetting should be running 20% Nitro...very nice guy that doesn't mind taking a few minutes to speak with you...
i cannot help to think that you would have to change the jetting to run FUEL...and i would say it would be going toward the fatter side..

other than this..i would just start small and work up....i know it was said 10% was no difference in another set up..this doesn't mean it will NOT make a difference in your set up..

So i would start at 10% and work up very slowly...YOU CANNOT afford to overdo this ...its not forgiving if you over do it...



i DO see you being able to pick up 3 tenths easy with FUEL....JUST BE PREPARED for whatever happens to your internals *( which is good stuff by the way)..its going to take a hit like its never taken in the past.

just rememeber the fuel funny cars...they are changing out motors almost between every other pass...FUEL is the main reason for.....if you do not mind breaking something..YOU WILL GO FAST WITH FUEL..


Good Luck



thanks Brian

[mcracecars]

I seem to remember you need a lot less compression for nitro. Probably depends on the % you want to run.
Lots of good info here www.hre.com
or an excellent injection manual with a chapter on nitro here www.kenlowe.com/au

[nofear57]

Thanks for the comments and info guys! My engine is o-ringed and studded through out so I'll say it should be good :roll:
I have talked to Jim at Enderle Injection in the past about a different matter but ya I'll give him a call.
I'm always open to more comments,thanks!

[dart441]

At 13.5:1 I wouldn't want to see you run much more than 30%. And was said by more than just me, start at 10% and work your way up. I have the conversion formulas for jetting enrichment w/ various percentages but due to the differences in specific gravity between methanol and nitromethane you really need to invest in a decent hydrometer. Kinsler has a good one and for the 0-50% model, it'll set you back about $130 +. Don't try to mix the stuff by volume. 3 gal nitro and 7 gal methanol doesn't compute to 30% w/ a hydrometer. Even temperature will change the percentage. Single batch (per run) mixing is recommended

[bjuice]

Very Good advise dart 441..sounds like you have dabbled in this stuff before.... 8) 8) 8)

Brian

[dcarr511]

something to point is that the % is figured by weight not by volume

[Bubstr]

Dart 441 gave you good information. to run much of this you need the compression ratio to come way down.

Some other things to think about is when engine temps go up, the air/fuel ratio demands change. You need to fatten it up a bit to cool your combustion area. Also not only the cost of fuel the overall cost per run goes way up. you must take into account tires bottom ends and drive train stress. Back in the 60s the cost per run went up by about 200 dollars a run, and fuel was just small part of it then. It must be astronomical price now.

[lmchevy]

Can you run a % of nitromethane with gas.

[dart441]

RE: GASOLINE
Doesn't mix well and requires a third agent added as well. Acetone helps quite a bit I am told but have no experience in this area. When you start mixing more than 2 or 3 different chemicals it gets hard to determine what is happening in terms of evap points, flammability, corrosiveness, etc. Very easy to get into trouble or damage things. Unless you have an alky carb you probably aren't going to be able to get enough mixture into the engine with available gas jets if you want any real percentage. That said, small percentages just don't wake up an engine like 50% and up does.

[Bubstr]

Running Nitro with gas or Alky with gas is bad idea. Back in the day they called it watermelon juice and you knew who had it because they was the guy shaking the hey out of their race car. to get it to run. You do need a third agent to keep the mix from separating, and it doesn't always do a great job. If you are planing on venturing into the nitro fuel racing, you need to optimize the engine so it can handle the big pressures and feed it enough fuel. If you run mixes other that what everyone else does, your going to have trouble getting a tune up that will keep you engine alive much less making good power. The top fuel guys are still complaining about NHRA dropping % a year ago. It threw out years of tuning data. If you do try nitro, you are almost forced to go to a good mecanical injection or a very programmable EFI to make it work. Also a lot hotter spark than the average NA car uses.
I can see the enticement to use it, it makes a big pop and smells so good. I really appreciate the guys like Austin Coil that went threw all the engines that went BANG when they couldn't afford it, to learn their craft. If this is for you jump in and get your feet wet. Playing with low %s is not going to help save engines but in fact hurt them.

[nofear57]

Well I guess nitro might be out of the question with my combo. 13.5:1 compression is to much on the plate for nitro. Only running 20 or 30% nitro and not gaining much horse power isn't worth exploding my engine over. Soooo...........adding nitrous is the next thing on the menu. My engine has a Enderle Bugcatcher Injection set up on a Edelbrock tunnel ram intake. I phoned NOS about adding nitrous tubes through the top of the intake like a plate system(drilling holes near the top of the intake and installing the tubes lenght wise). I have a cheater single carb system that I could use the solenoids from. Nos said the cheater has bigger solenoids for higher shots of nitrous and it would be ok to use but they 'don't sell' long tubes for me to use this way.
Does anyone know where I could buy tubes that I could use to set up a nitrous system this way?

[dart441]

Contact James Munroe (Killer Ron's) and see if he has any tubes for a Primer Plus for an Enderle hat that aren't already drilled.They run from left to right through the hat injector holes. With a big plenum like the t'ram hats have two should suffice for nitrous and other two for richening fuel. Don't know what size to drill them though. Maybe someone else can tell you.
Duane

[nofear57]

I think if the tubes run from the front of the engine to the back it would be better for distribution to the cylinders. Maybe they have long tube to cut down to size. Thanks I'll give them a call.
NOS gave me the correct specs to drill the right size diameter hole in the tubes and also the correct tube sizes to use.

[nofear57]

Well I was able to try a 100 shot of nitrous on my engine at the end of the racing season and it worked out less than I expected. My engine isn't set up for nitrous but I thought a 100 shot wouldn't hurt. I ran a single nitrous line the length of my tunnel ram at the top and made sure the holes shot directly to each intake port of the head. I never ran another line for extra gas or alcohol. All I did was run a smaller pill to richen up the alcohol to the engine. The first pass I hit the button 300ft out and she pulled smooth until the last 200ft and then it started poping out the exhaust,so I shut it off. For the second pass I richened up the alcohol a little more but the same results but not as hard a pop. So for the third pass I richened up the alcohol even more and the popping stopped. I never fryed anything and the spark plugs still looked perfect. The end results,I ran a 8.13secs at 163mph compared to my previous best of 8.24secs at 157mph without nitrous. Its not a 7 but it is better. The engine isn't set up for nitrous so thats about it for experiencing nitrous on my engine! Maybe I should have added another line for racing fuel and my time would have be better?

[bjuice]

Yep...U are Correct.

Brian

[nofear57]

I've talked to quite a few people about running nitrous on an alcohol engine and no one really had any advice so I was on my own. So from this I've learned that since alcohol has lots of oxygen already in it and than adding nitrous which is full of oxygen,thats why my engine never responded as well. Adding race fuel with the nitrous would have been much better.