Yes godwin...I know that methyl-hydrate aka paint thinner is 99.9% pure methanol
I've heard a few guys panic about running too much meth in tank and degrading the lining in the fuel tank, leading to corrosion over time. I've also heard high concentrations can eat away injector seals, pump seals and fuel lines. I don't have any facts to claim otherwise. However, the people that I've
known for years...not random people on the internet...people who have owned JDM (RHD) GC8 STI's, CP9A and CT9A evos back home (Trinidad & Tobago) have been doing it for years in moderation at about a 10% or less mix per tank with no long term effects.
The RON we get there is in the 91-92 range....quite close to California's some say. Anyway, the point we have been experimenting for years with meth in tank prior to running full water/meth injection w/ fail safe setups.
As far as the concentration I mixed it is indeed much higher than an octane booster. Octane boosters are shit and a waste of $ imo. There is a misconception that octane boosters increase your octane rating by whole points (eg 91-->92) when in reality (the last I checked) you are gaining a few tenths of a point...maybe 91.2 or 91.3
The evo IX's tank is 14 Gallons which is almost 53L. I had a 3/4 tank so let's call that about 40L. I put in this:
(3.78/40)*100= 9.45% methanol mixed into the tank.
So, back to the topic at hand. I have nothing to hide and want to exchange as much information as possible so we can all benefit from each others experiences...that's the whole point of a forum.
For the purposes of establishing a baseline I took my evo to the RG dyno day a few weeks back. Although RG's dyno is a mustang they were providing customers with both the Mustang reading and DynoJet conversion figures - I assume because customers always like to hear the larger number
:
The car made 345whp and 325 ft-lb @ 25psi on Shell 91 with boost wavering a bit to redline but more or less tapering to 24 psi. I have yet to install my wb O2 so the AFRs are untouched and still a bit messy running too rich toward redline at 10.8. This was the uncorrected figure...corrected figure was 339whp/321ft-lb:
Power Graph
AFR and Boost
The boost and timing map I had on the car was tailored around Chevron 94. I had only switched to shell 91 a couple days prior and didn't have a chance to re-map the ecu. Because I road tune my car I asked the guys if I could log the car with evoscan to compare the dyno results with VirtualDyno. They were kind enough to oblige. It's kind of difficult to be objective about these results because I was running a map meant for the chevron 94 and don't know the exact occupant weight to see how VD (Virtual Dyno) lines up. Anyway, here is a video at the RG (first pull=highest figures....the timing was a bit too aggressive and car registered more knock with each pull):
log of the first pull: At 7k the car registers a knock sum of 9 and pulls timing 3* from 8 down to 5....8 is already quite low compared to some other timing maps I've seen at this boost. Nonetheless I needed to pull some timing.
At the same time...this timing map needed a lot of smoothing.You can also see around 3750rpm the timing jumps up suddenly instead of a smooth, gradual transition toward redline...car knocks...ecu pulls timing and what is supposed to be a smooth tranisiton toward redline turns into a fight between the map and the ecu. The map needed some ironing .
Here is a log of the car after I made some tweaks to the boost desired engine load and Wastegate Duty Cycle tables to smooth out the boost curve a bit more as well as pulled a little bit of timing on top but focused more on smoothing out the cells that it was map tracing. With the boost curve smoothed out the car was taking a more gradual trace of the timing map...leading to smoother cell transitions and thus a more gradual increase in timing. In the end I was able to run almost as much timing with 0-3 counts of knock on the 91. And these maps are not one offs. I do back to back to back 3rd gear pulls to make sure I have consistent results before making changes. With this mapping the car doesn't show knock counts above 3 when going WOT.
The more I look at my older 94 logs I think 1 of 2 things. Either I needed to make the timing map silky smooth (which is what I'll try again when I switch back to 94 for round 2 of testing) or it's simply inconsistent. Because I remember how frustrated I'd get pulling timing between 6.5-7k and the car would still knock...I'd get fed up and say fuck it...I'll just live with 3-5 counts of knock because you just can't tune it out.
I did some pulls tonight of the car with the 10% meth mixed in tank...I'll post those results tomorrow as it's late and I'm tired of typing. Unsurprisingly - the car loves the meth. Even the guys at RG will preach the same...meth is the way to go. From my testing VD shows some nice gains over the straight 91 pump (I use the same stretch of flat road for all my VD pulls.) I believe I can push more timing as well...I left the car on the same map and knock is non existent so we'll see what I can get away with tomorrow if I have time to log the car.