methanol based screen wash can you still get it

[Davezj]

Can you still get methanol based screen wash?

If so can you use this as an injection fluid as a sort of meth/water injection.
it would be very conveniant to be able to use the standard washer bottle as a resovoir to inject into the manifold.

the screen wash will have water, methanol and some detergent in it can you use this as a air charge cooler.

[swinks]

Why???
If you can easily buy cheap 98% methanol from any bio-fuel manufacturer. It did cost me 19 GBP per 30 litre tank from Lincolnshire farmer.

[Adam.Findlay]

plus putting any detergent will leave a residue in the engine or could disolve the oil on the cylinder walls causing washing of the bores.
bad idea is bad.
as Swinks said just use the propper stuff as its cheaper

And wont kill your engine!

[SEAN-NZ]

just use it without detergent, dont even need detergent, well thats my opinion here but might be different there if you get other crap on your windscreen

[Davezj]

i am just asking could you.

so the answers i am getting are no due to the detergents in the screen wash, is that correct.
so if i had a screen wash with just water and methanol then it would be possible. if you could, you have all the pluming required to do it in the car already, tank, pump, pipework, all you would need it the injector nozzel. for a cruid system.
admitedly you would want to make the screen wash up for youself to make sure the ratio was correct as most methanol based screen wash is i think 45% water 45% methaol and the rest is detergents.
i am presuming the water needs to be pure deionised water as used in battery top up water.

one other think, doesn't the water in the combustion chamber turn to steam and creates a cleaning situation in the cylinder.

oh and onother thing, how much water methanol wix is injected when using it, what sort of flow rate is used. i have heard the quantities of 2L of mix to a tank of petrol, is that about right. but i suppose it is dependant how much WOT you ar doing during the tank of fuel usage.

[Adam.Findlay]

the reason people use external pumps and reservoirs for meth injecton is so you can get decent pressure for correct atomization of the liquid upon injection as the stock washer motors don't have enough balls i think

If you want to know about water/meth injection message patron999 Carl. he gave you advice on your "propane" thread. Hes just made his own water/meth injection kit

the reason I say no to detergents Is the bores require oil on them to lubricate the pistons as they move.
Google "washed bores' and you will understand why this is important. although this is most commonly caused by running excessivly rich causing the fuel to pool in the cylinder and disolve the oil on the cylinder wall. although I dont know if the detergents will cause this. im sure it can't be good for the engine.

In fact using google to teach yourself the background theory behind alot of the questions you have asked recently will be very beneficial to you as instead of getting a Yes or no answer from someone you will have a better understanding of as to why. There are some bloody good articles on the net about alot of things. not VR4 specific stuff, but much explained and ilustrated much better than you will ever get from a forum response.
Once you have the idea how something works (water/meth inj, supercharging, compound charging, etc etc) you can apply it to almost any engine
(no disrespect meant by that, just thought for your ideas your probably best researching proper articles instead of waiting for a bunch of if's and mabys here on the forums)

[Davezj]

fair point adam, and no offence taken, it is always a good thing to remember that there is an automotive would outside of the VR4 model and this site, lots of this has already been done before.

i have been off work for a couple of weeks due to an operation on my knee and have noticed the amount of actual thread on the forum discussing proper topics are few and far between, the site has stagnated, most of the threads on here seem to be for sale or wanted threads, so i thought i would try and get some car related topics going, that has seemed to have woked as there has been some good info changing hands on the site from the threads i have started.

i have been interested in following your thread on the build and development of car, but these type of threads are few and far between.

[Adam.Findlay]

I do agree that it is good to get some technical topics on the go.
I just think there are not as many people currently intrested in heavily modifying / experimenting with the 8G VR4 and 6A13TT.
most people tend to just do some easy mods such as coilovers, FMIC, fuel pump, hard pipes, reflash and leave it at that.

although there are a few of use who are still looking for ways to improve these cars.
this is why I'm trying to document as much of my progress as possible so anyone who wants to do similar can read it and find the info they need.
hopefully shortly there will be some 6A13TT's coming together soon which can challenge Richards 612hp record...

[Davezj]

proper monsters

[swinks]

I did run methanol injection for 3= years, so let me point out few things:
1. Methanol.
The purest the better. But in real life it's only 98% from bio-fuel suppliers. Those 2% are leftovers from rafination, mostly oil or petrol based contaminations. Well, for meth injection purposes it's used 50/50 mixture of water/methanol. Why no more of methanol in mixture? Because it becomes too flammable, with high risk of self ignition etc. Very danger stuff escecially in hot engine bay. Why not less? Well you can do less methanol in water mixture, but this time you extend time of vapourization of mixture. Time when mixture changes from liquid to gas. So, the best is 50/50 mixture.
Now, why I did mention 2% of contamination? With water mixture those nasty things become solid mini and micro particles, wax like. Hence it's not recommended to store ready mixture for long periods in tanks. Also, for that reason methanol pump, and lines and injectors are fitted with several micro-filters, depends on location and purpose usually they are 20 to 60 microns. Also for that reason filters are to replace with new one every year or two.
2. Injection.
Basic idea is to get following things right: amount of liquid, atomisation. For this purposes there are several different pumps, for single injection pump with 150 psi output is very good, but if you have more injection points then 250 psi is better.
Injectors, also depends on vehicle demands (power output, engine capacity, numbers of injectors) there are many variants from 150cc to 560cc. Most common for vehicle like ours vr4 are 360cc injectors. But as I said by selecting of capacity of injectors we can also set up flow of our system, i.e in 2+1 setup (1 main injectors prior to throttle body and 2 auxilliary one prior to cold side of turbo compressor wheels), we can choose main injector as 360cc and two as 150cc, plus 200 psi pump. Etc.
3. Control.
Basic systems are just based on manifold obsolete pressure. It's controlled simply by map sensor and 0-5v output. Usually they are simple progressing system with defined by user points of beginning injection cycle and end of cycle. Pump rising pressure progressively. I.e. with set up start at 5 psi and end at 15 psi, we get 50% of potential injection capacity at 10 psi, once 15 psi reached, then we get full blast onwards.
These systems are the cheapest one, also the simplest one, but you won't get full control of meth injections. In many situations to get full potential you would need to get methanol at 2k-3k revs, then nothing and then again at 50% within 5.5k - 7k. With this system forget it. And many situations vehicle won't benefit from this system.
There also more advanced system, where you can monitor volume of injected mixture by flow meter (accuracy up to 10cc), multi dimensional control by signals from map sensor, throttle position, flow meter, revs, and MAF sensor. Well, it gives you opportunity to build up 3D maps of methanol injections. Very accurate. This system requires a good few days on dyno to get things right, but it's real piece of kit.
4. AFR
Methanol systems are known for disrupting AFR reading by wideband sensors. Sensors use to read tad richer than actual mixture is. For that reason all fuelling (petrol) setting in tables are to be done with methanol injection disabled.
Important thing. Methanol injection is not to cure or change fuel tables! It won't cure running lean on boost etc.
5. Benefits.
Cooling charge. Example, in July 2013 whilst ambient temp. was 27C, after 3 hrs driving (Stansted Airport) I've read intake temperature at air filter 34C and in manifold 57C. As soon I enabled meth injection, after every burst of meth I got 24C to 29C in manifold.
Timing, ignition timing.
Every advanced degree gives us power, but increase deadly risk of knocking and detonation. Hence above.

Hope it helps a bit.

[Davezj]

cheers thomasz that is very helpful.

[Davezj]

i just had a thought,

if you meth/water mix pressure is less than the boost pressure in the maifold would that stop the meth/water mix being injected into the manifold?
this is just from the rule that flow occur due to a pressure difference, if the pressure difference is in the wrong direction flow does not occur.
is this why the weth/water has to be so higly pressureised, i presume so.

[swinks]

Yes, you never run less pressure than manifold. Methanol pumps have so-called bypass, hence once system is pressurized, i.e. 150 psi, then bypass opens. To prevent unwanted injections whilst vacuum conditions in manifold then is used checkvalve just prior to injector itself

[Davezj]

makes sense.

[Louis]

Water meth inj is to cool the compressed air.
If quantities and pressure are correct , No water or steam!, will be present in the combustion chamber.
The idea is to create a cold dense air charge, even when you have upped the turbos, higher boost etc.

[Adam.Findlay]

If quantities and pressure are correct , No water or steam!, will be present in the combustion chamber.

if you inject water into the system it doesn't just magically dissapear.

the injected water mist continues past the valves into the cylinder, although I cannot say if it will be water or steam without knowing what the combustion pressures and temperatures are. as water will not flash to steam at 100 degrees under higher pressures. so depending where you are on the temperature-pressure scale will determine if it is water or steam during combustion.
during exhaust however when the pressures drop back to atmospheric the water will most definatly flash to steam.

the methanol is added to raise the octane rating of the fuel to guard against knock/pre-ignition. this is simply burnt along with the petrol with oxygen inside the cylinder

[swinks]

if you inject water into the system it doesn't just magically dissapear.

Nope, but does change state of matter from liquid to gas!
And you do burn in cylinders gas, not mist, steam or other nonsense. The same is happening with petrol innit? You do inject liquid mist, but it's vapours (gas) which is burning itself, not mist or liquids.
And change of state of matter (from liquid to gas) requires energy, in our case whilst process energy is taken from hot air charge, hence drop in temperature of mentioned air charge. If anyone used in a past co2 cartriges to produce soda water, then principle is the same.
And.. no, in methanol injection methanol is not added to rise octane rating. It's simply component used to lower vapouration temperature of mixture.

You mistaken this with mixture of methanol (or any other alcohol) with petrol, i.e. E85 or other bio-fuels.

[Davezj]

so if i use a meth/water injection system, and i use 10% injection quantity. how much water/meth will i use.
assumeing fuel flow which stock injecters is 390cc/min

max flow 390cc x 6 = 2340cc/min
use max duty cycle 80% 2340 x 0.8 = 1872cc/min
10% of flow is 1872 x 0.1 = 187.2cc/min
so at WOT you are using 187.2cc per min
187.2cc = 0.1872 litres per min so a 2 litre tank will be used in about 10min of WOT driving.
does this sound correct?

i know you are not going to be on WOT for 10 min solid driving but it does not seem like it will last very long,
paticularly if you are going to set a controller to start at 3000 rpm and switch off at 6500rpm.

then when the meth/water runs out and stops cooling the air charge the knock goes through the roof, but if you had switchable maps and when the meth/water mix runs out and activates a low fluid sensor the map switches to a more concervative map.
or just top it up every day or drive with more control once the low fluid sensor is triggered.

[Louis]

[QUOTE=Adam.Findlay;763549]if you inject water into the system it doesn't just magically dissapear.

the injected water mist continues past the valves into the cylinder,

If your set up is correct you should not get water in the combustion chamber.
If you are getting water in the chamber then you are injecting too much water for too long or the injector is too large.
It is mainly used to stop det (knock), in conjunction with other mods ( turning up the boost).
It is not used on its own to up the power.
Plus if you do it wrong you will loose all the power you have gained upping the boost!.

[Davezj]

so if you were to just inject water and no methanol then what percentage of the fuel flow would you inject, is it still 10%-15% or less if it is just water.

[swinks]

[/U]

then when the meth/water runs out and stops cooling the air charge the knock goes through the roof, but if you had switchable maps and when the meth/water mix runs out and activates a low fluid sensor the map switches to a more concervative map.
or just top it up every day or drive with more control once the low fluid sensor is triggered.
To prevent any damage you have such features like "Failsafe" in Coolingmist system. It's hooked to water tank fluid level sensor, boost controller and ecu. Once you reach too low level of fluid then it triggers either boost controller to switch to low boost map or ecu (switch map).
For other your questions go and dig there:

http://www.coolingmist.com/coolingmist/instructions/cmgsstage2.pdf

That was the kit I was selling for nuts ;)

[Davezj]

That is all well and good if you do access to switchable maps, and electronic control over your boost via an external trigger.

You kind of have to buy into the whole automated approach to the entire car, where as i have built/integrated evrything myself on my car at a fraction of what it would have cost to buy kits to install. so i would make a bespoke control box of any water/meth kit i put on my car , well i would not put a water/meth kit on my car i build one myself, as i have all the parts need to do the job. i do this sort of thing because it is doable and i am interested in this sort of stuff, i design PCB for a living.
i just need to find out if the internals of our standard petrol fuel injector are stainless steel or not, or i will have to find some other atomiser/injector to use, due to the corrosive nature of methanol/water mix.

This is why i am asking about quantity of just water or water/methanol mix you need to inject or not as the case may be.

[swinks]

Buy separate injectors purely for methanol, they not such expensive, and very simple build.

[Davezj]

yes that as my back up plan. but if i can switch on a stock injector at say 50% duty cycle, it will give me the required water or water/meth flow, and i have about 4 sets of spare injectors in the shed.So i could afford to damage a couple.

[Patryn999]

There are problems with using fuel injectors apparently (I haven't tried, so don't take this as gospel):
1) These corrode with methanol/water mix quite quickly - apparently in as little as a week for some people but stories seem to indicate about a month with 5050 mix.
2) Gasoline has different properties to these liquids, and given some quick and hacky maths - suggestions on fluid models suggest three major factors with roughly linear responses at low pressure (<=25 bar)
a) While surface tension is roughly the same, methanol has a greater viscosity (kinematic of about 0.7 vs 0.5mPa.s for gasoline) and this will affect roughly 1.4x diameter (volume = 3x larger). Water has an even greater viscosity (0.9)
b) Water has a surface tension of 72 millinewtons/meter (gasoline is about 22). This also means that the atomisation of water is much much worse so 3x dia = 27x droplet volume). This will also reduce spray angle too. Meth's about the same.
c) Density also affects fluid atomisation, so meth = 800kg/m3, gas = 700, water = 1000. 1.5x volume for meth, 2.9x for water.

So for methanol, this is about 4.5x droplet volume, while for 50/50 mix would be about 135x - suddenly losing a lot of surface area when trying to increase heat capacity (and enthalpy of vaporisation).

Also I believe the designs are different - I've pulled apart a injector but haven't cross-sectioned (only read mention in datasheet) one of the brass nozzles I have - the injector I pulled apart appeared to be a plain orifice nozzle while the methanol one is a pressure-swirl nozzle which gives much better atomisation (at the sacrifice of flow rate).

Which is why methanol/water systems run very small diameter nozzles at 150+psi, and many tuners (not users) suggest running multiple nozzles over one or two larger ones.