Correct me if I'm wrong as I'm no chemist, but I believe methanol has a pretty high heat absorption rate. So, if one could take advantage of that cooling effect and put it to use, particularly in the intake tract. For example, instead of using the rather common spraybar we use now in the carburetor, change to something similar to the Carl Brey annular discharge type to break the fuel into smaller droplets which are dispersed more evenly through the intake bore. This could possibly, just theorizing here, cool the entire intake tract more than available with conventional spraybars allowing a more dense charge into the motor. I would think then that the carburetor bore size would have to be altered (larger) to keep a somewhat stoichiometric ratio in range to take full advantage of this. A side benefit here might also be that a larger denser charge contains more oil for lubrication, as that was a concern mentioned in earlier posts due to the leaner needle required when just switching fuel types from nitro bearing to no nitro with minimal other changes. The next step then is how to efficiently burn this larger charge. Perhaps we really wouldn't need very much water going through the jacket, or a longer pipe. Just a couple of thoughts, not necessarily right or wrong.
Good points!
My work with the MAC buggy engines is what got me interested in the idea of Straight Methanol.
In our short 2 minute boating racing we could care less about fuel milege. Just burn more for more power and if we run out....just build a BIGGER tank!
However in car racing power and milege are important.
I'm pulling some numbers off the top of my head, but this will give you the idea.
A 4oz tank of 50% has about 1800 BTU's of energy. A 4 oz. tank of Methanol has 2300 BTU's of energy.
Let say we have an engine set up for 50% and it will use up the 4 oz tank in
two minutes.
If we run the Methanol in this same engine set up for 50% nitro it would probably run for six minutes and not go as fast.
But look at the potential if we could build an engine that would burn up the full tank of Methanol in
two minutes.
We could have
25% more power for a
two minute race.
I just use this to illustrate a point. That is to attempt to burn up a lot of fuel as quickly as possible.
This means maximun compression and maximum mass flow through the engine.
Certainly this is the goal in every racing engine, but it's important to understand that the 4 oz tank of Methanol is going to need about twice as much air to burn it all up compared to the tank of 50%.
