how much trouble it is to convert over to alky for a street strip vehicle? I have been mixing 100 octane av gas 50/50 with 92 pump and the car runs great, but I have moved to another town and my $2/gal av gas buddy is to far away to justify driving for gas. The VP guy in town can sell me VP110 for $5.50/gal or 54 gal drum of alky for $139. what if I mix my pump gas with the alky, how would that change my tuning settings? But if I went with the 110 I could just mix 2-3 gal in maybe? thanks for your advice in advance.
Later
Rassan
p.s. My 950 proform runs great for those of you who remember my tuning whoes thanks for the advice graemlins/beers.gif

I think it takes twice as much alcohol as it does gasoline. So you're not really saving that much by switching...at 5.50 thats 302.50 for a drum of 110 or maybe less if bought in a drum, vs. 278.00 for alcohol,if in fact it does take twice as much alcohol to make the same power as gas. I can get 110 Sunoco at the track here for 3.95 per gallon.

I believe Robert is correct, Alky has about 1/2 the btu potential as gasoline, in addition alcohol can be corossive requiring special fuel lines if used straight. you could try a 50-50 mix remember "gasohol"?

Rasssan,
Like Rrobert and smitty have stated, you will need to run about twice the volume of alcohol as gasoline, therefore there are no real savings to justify the change.
In addition to that you will need to change all of your fuel lines and get a carburetor that is set up to run alchohol. An alcohol carburetor has many internal modifications including passageways and jets to enable it to flow enough fuel to operate effectively. Many, many years ago I set up a 409" Chevrolet drag car to run on alchohol and the only way we could get it to run decently was to remove all the primary jets completely and drill the secondaries as large as possible in both of the Carter AFB carbs. :D

ok, so switching to alcohol is a no go, but what about mixing with my gas like 25/75 or even 50/50 I know I would have to change my carb settings but that's nota big deal.

Rassan

What is your compression ratio now?

I ask b/c there are several ways to increase pump gas's octane if you want to fool around.

1. Add Kemco Lead supreme 130 real lead gas treatment! It is real Tetra ethyl Lead! It will up octane by numbers not tenth's of points!!

Do a web search for the stuff..

2. Homebrew the stuff using this formula.

A gallon of Toluene
A quart of Diesel fuel
A pint of ATF.

Three gallons of this stuff in ten gallons of pump gas should put 92 octane unleaded up about what SONOCO 260 used to be years ago.

Note, Toluene is an aromatic VOC and is a very good octane increaser!! But it is also a suspected carcinogen and so the EPA has pretty much spec'ed it out of fuel blends nowadays as have they Benzene and the other two "BTEX" compounds..

3. Run E85 IF you can even buy the stuff in your area?? It is an 85 percent ethanol, 15 percent unleaded gas blend... We have several pumps in central Missouri that sell the stuff for "FFV", (i.e., flexible fuel vehicle), use..

I figure E85 should be good to for least 12 to 1 CR. (maybe even 13 to 1?), but you had better be able to buy it locally b/c your motor will definately be dedicated for high octane fuel usage..

pdq67

Bad70ss;

Try 20% ethanol/80% gasoline. Jet up 3 sizes, and you should see a noticable increase in performance. I picked up .30 et at the track. You will NOT need to do anything to run gasoline/ethanol blend. Ethanol will not corrode anything, and the smell is somewhat pleasant. Methanol will diffinately run your girl friend out of the car about 5 seconds after you start it. Ethanol is about $2.00 a gallon, and should be available in Kansas.

Ken Gasbarri

Thanks for the information guys, I'll try running the 80/20 and see what happens.

Rassan

graemlins/beers.gif

Well Draginrat, I think my girlfriend will be a trooper considering when we put the h-pipe on her car she did all of the wrench turning and I held the drop light. Also another advantage to having a car nut for a girlfriend is when you are dropping your motor back into your chevelle, her hands are small enough to start those bolts that you just cant reach with big hands. graemlins/thumbsup.gif although I did find an ethonal plant close by.

E85 in my area is about .15-.20 cents a gallon cheaper. In wifes van she can get 18-20 mpg on regular 87 octane and 15-16 on E85.

That's b/c ethanol doesn't pack the same energy per pound or gallon or however you want to ratio them..

Plain old 90/10 gasohol will drop your mpg by about 3, maybe 4 percent regardless due to this fact..

Here I go again with one of my rants!!

Funny thing is that gasohol was formulated for use in Carbon Monoxide (CO) nonattainment areas but since the corn growers ethanol colision(Sp?) got in the picture, it has turned into a great big transfer of tax payer funds to a small group of people!!

AND there aren't all that many CO nonattainment areas around.. Figure that ethanol added to gasoline raises the blend evaporation rate (RVP) which does DIRECTLY affect Ozone nonattainment areas which there are several of nowadays!!

MIssouri created a waiver so that gasohol could be sold in the Ozone (O3) nonattainment areas b/c regular unleaded's evaporating number (RVP) can be formuled down around 7.0 or so but adding ethanol to the mix raises it to 8.0!! (Past St. Louis O3 NAA case point)..

So gasohol IMHO doesn't help the OZONE situation much at all but it does make my back pocket lighter so now my car will burn less fuel b/c it will be lighter and more fuel eff. with me and my now lighter billfold in it!!

I'm into this stuff up to my neck sorta deal at work....

AND the only thing WRONG with MTBE is that it just doesn't taste as good as "Bourbon and Branch"!! I searched the web for over an hour AND never did find anyplace that showed in Scientific terms where MTBE is as harmful as Ethanol!! Stuff tastes something like turpentine if not mistaken?? Not tasty like Jack Daniels or Evan Williams...

I bet if the refineries and coal companies started turning out ethanol that it would be deemed "BAD ETHANOL" b/c it doesn't come from corn which the corn growers/ethanol producers profit from...

OR what would happen if somebody decided to import several great big tankers of ethanol from Brazil, I bet it too would be deemed BAD ETHANOL!!

I will get off my Soapbox... Sorry, carry-on....

pdq67