[Tom Vaught]

Agree, Water Injection takes up "Air Molecule Space".

You basically reduce the chamber volume for air (which is needed to make the power when the right amount of fuel is added) so you possibly reduce the knock tendency but give up power doing it. Crappy fuel or the cost of fuel causes people to do lots of weird band-aids.

Tom Vaught

[6TEE8GTO]

Originally Posted by Tom Vaught

Agree, Water Injection takes up "Air Molecule Space".

You basically reduce the chamber volume for air (which is needed to make the power when the right amount of fuel is added) so you possibly reduce the knock tendency but give up power doing it. Crappy fuel or the cost of fuel causes people to do lots of weird band-aids.

Tom Vaught

Water/Meth injection isn't a band-aid. It DOES raise effective octane rating. This is a proven fact. These systems are very popular with supercharged/turbo setups. The knock on them (pun intended) is that if the delivery vehicle (pump or nozzle or controller) fails, you can have a motor meltdown. In other words, when they work, they work as advertised- You can run more boost, more compression and more timing and make huge power with them. Several of the systems have fail-safe systems like sensors, low fluid interlocks, etc. But some guys opt for C16 for the peace of mind.

You can wire a retard system where, if the system fail-safes are triggered (for example if the fluid level in the tank runs low) then timing is pulled way back to prevent meltdown. These can be incorporated into a non-boosted app as well.

There's pros and cons for sure guys, but it's not really correct to refer to meth injection as a band air or to say it does not raise octane rating of the fuel it's mixed with in the intake system, because it most certainly does.

[Goat-Racer]

No doubt that in a boosted application. the WM system can be a huge benefit. The basis of this discussion though is use in a naturally aspirated engine. I think thats where things can differ a bit. Every combination will respond different.

[6TEE8GTO]

Originally Posted by Goat-Racer

No doubt that in a boosted application. the WM system can be a huge benefit. The basis of this discussion though is use in a naturally aspirated engine. I think thats where things can differ a bit. Every combination will respond different.

Agreed, and the thing I should clarify is Tom said "water injection" and I should have read closer. The methanol and water mix however will work on an NA motor also for raising effective octane rating.

In your case, I think you are right; your mixture was probably not of benefit to your application and any benefit of reduced detonation was offset by the the fact that higher octane fuel burns slower and makes LESS power if you don't need it. You obviously know what you're doing, so I assume you tried to run more timing with the meth and it didn't matter. You were in competition and didn't have time to start experimenting with the mixture, you wanted to WIN. (Congrats by the way!)

But we shouldn't discount the possibilities here. If you have a high compression N/A motor combo that needs 110 or 116 to be able to run aggressive timing advance, you could opt for a meth kit and properly setup it could cost less than race gas in the long run and be a lot more convenient.

I think most guys haven't looked at this for an NA setup because the kits have been marketed to the blower/turbo crowd.

Snow's 20020 kit is for N/A combos. And another guy mentioned AIS, I know Rodney, he sold me a kit several years back for one of my Mustangs. I had a Novi 2000 on a big-bore 347 and it was a very comprehensive kit. AIS also makes an NA kit with a pump in the tank.

Not trying to cause trouble here, hope I'm not being seen that way. Just trying to add to the discussion is all..

[Goat-Racer]

No hurt feelings here. I'm sure that is some potential on a higher compression NA engine as well. I'm totally sold on the boosted applications!