Zenoah methanol conversion

[David vanmaris]

I am going to build a pair of inline rcmks with modded zenoah heads and mod wyk 33 carbys ,I want to build to suit methanol fuel has anyone converted gas engines to methanol ,any advice would be good.

David.

 

[moparbarn]

2 stroke, never done it....but on a four stroke, lots more compression & lots more fuel.

 

[David vanmaris]

The cylinders will be decked ,i not sure what gasket to use i am aiming for 20:1 compression.

 

[Bob Blazer]

Why???

 

[David vanmaris]

Just want to do something different ,i run primarly gas now but still .

 

[RonShaw]

No class for this to run in, correct?

 

[bermudadude]

the carbs would have to EXTENSIVELY modified. compaired to gas u would have to use twice ,almost 3 times as much fuel ,QUICKDRAW has experience with modding carbs and thier engines to run on meth. you would prob benefit from talking to them.

i tried it a looong time ago with a walbro meth carb (wt499 from warehouse hobbies) there maybe more ,larger bore carbs available today.i had to bore to 5/8" to make it produce power.

also i did this on a quickdraw wich had the flat top piston. i tried it a little with a regular zenoah but it really didnt do much ,i dont think the setup works well rpm wise with the zen setup=theres far more intake/transfer area than exhaust which is totaly not whats in a nitro engine.the reason i stopped my experiments with these motors.

the best running gas engine i built had an exhaust port that went 1mm short from transfer to transfer. it lasted about 2mins. lol

hope u have fun

 

[Dick Loeb]

Open classes

 

[Don Ferrette]

Open classes

Not true, at least in IMPBA. Open classes are for mixing legal boats of differing powerplants and/or hulls. Boats that run in open classes must still be legal in the class they would normally run in. Open does not mean anything goes............

 

[David vanmaris]

Thanks fellas not racing these engines for a 84"cat twin inlines.

 

[dwilfong]

WT-499 already to go.

16:1 should get it.

 

[Tom Foley]

Crank will not tolerate it and how do you compensate for lower port bottom physics . Try it , I'd love to see the threads !! The question remains ..do you want to run your boat or theorize it to death and work on it constantly , buying crank after crank . ??

 

[MXNERD]

I have done this conversion on 2 stroke motor bikes and works out to 2.3 times the volume of meth compared to petrol so that does not mean you drill the holes 2.3 times the size it that will be to much.

You have to work out the area of the hole and calculate form there if you are using wyk carbs I will try and post the calc for you.

 

[wayne middlemiss]

why not go to local airdrome and buy some avgas no mods realy need to be done and would be as good without the hassles of working the engine over.

 

[MXNERD]

No way Wayne av is to dry to run in these motors meth would be much better

 

[MXNERD]

The cylinders will be decked ,i not sure what gasket to use i am aiming for 20:1 compression.

Is that a corrected comp ratio

 

[Bob Blazer]

The reason I said "why" do you want to is the fact that I think even if you get all of the ratios correct it will run slower. Methanol is a slow burning fuel. We turn these engines 18k. I do not think that there is enough time for the max explosion. That is the reason a lot of people use camp fuel, it makes for a fast uncontrolled explosion.

I am no expert on this for sure but I think that a lot of people have tried this before. I wouldn't want you to spend a lot of time on something that has proven not to work.

I am sure some of the gas guru's will chime in, those being the ones with dynos.

The Dad

 

[lohring]

We tested a lot of fuels on a modified Zenoah, including methanol added to gasoline, all with the same 257 carb. You need to richen it up the more alcohol the fuel contains, but it works. The gas carb diaphragms won't hold up, but there are diaphragms that are alcohol resistant. Don't expect a power increase over gasoline unless you know a way to seriously reduce the head volume. The graph marked 87 Otto is straight 87 octane gasoline.

Lohring Miller

 

[Greg Hahn]

guys,

Not enough bang for the buck or effort. Without going into a two hour dissertation...............Zenoah engines are piston port and therefore don't convert to alky with results worth the trouble. Port timing is too critical and flow is a huge issue without being able to seal the induction cycle. You'd need to fashon a rotor disk or reed cup into the case to seal the induction to make it work. Doesn't matter how hard you squeeze it if there's nothing up there to squeeze.

put gas in it and go to the pond!

gh

 

[MXNERD]

If one sheep follows another off the cliff what does the next sheep learn !

Here is what you can do with an old 1980 Suzuki rm100 against the new bikes ranging from 250 to 450cc the only mob done was to convert it to Methanol and take 20 thou off the head, this engine runs piston port with a lower case reed only in its standard form.



Just my thoughts, nothing ventured nothing gained.