Educate me....

Keep a fire extinguisher with contents to put out methanol fires in your trailer/garage....when it burns nearly impossible to see visually....store it in the very best air tight containers....it can contaminate easy if you don't and can be cause for it not to pass a fuel test....drain your carb and fuel lines flush with gas/marvel mystery oil after you're done racing for the night, the methanol will corrode the inside of the carb and dry out/crack seals/gaskets/fuel line if you leave it sit for any length of time without doing so...
 
Keep a fire extinguisher with contents to put out methanol fires in your trailer/garage....when it burns nearly impossible to see visually....store it in the very best air tight containers....it can contaminate easy if you don't and can be cause for it not to pass a fuel test....drain your carb and fuel lines flush with gas/marvel mystery oil after you're done racing for the night, the methanol will corrode the inside of the carb and dry out/crack seals/gaskets/fuel line if you leave it sit for any length of time without doing so...
Learned the draining tip the hard way on my micro stuff. Gotta get my carbs rebuilt now. The fire extinguisher is a good point that many karters over look.
 
I use it on one of my predators and always keep it in a good sealed container because it atracts water. Also it will corrode stuff so I always put marvel mystery in the carb and always make sure your seals are good. I cant remember what the rule is for how much more fuel you use then gas but the jets are significantly bigger than a gas jet. It will make you significantly more power and will run the motor alittle cooler, that is if you get ir running right. 1 cool thing about alcohol is that it doesnt matter if it is 115 degrees outside the fuel will always be really cold. It is crazy how it will make your hands cold if you get it on your hands.
 
The alcohol molecule has a oxygen atom connected to one hydrogen atom. I don't know the word for it but, the oxygen atom wants to connect with 2 hydrogen atoms. It then becomes H2O, "water". So you see, alcohol does not attract water, it becomes water when exposed to the hydrogen atom, the most common atom in the universe.

That's how it was explained to me by a chemist friend of mine almost 50 years ago. Go to Wikipedia, they have a picture of the hydrogen atom and you can see it's made up, in part, of one oxygen atom connected to one hydrogen atom. It kind of explains why there's so much water in the world.
 
What ever you do do not store it in empty water or milk jugs .
It is easily mistaken for water by the untrained .
Label your container's . When transferring out of the original .
For all chemicals .
 
Badrooster,

As other's have mentioned: methanol can be corrosive to aluminum, (and can also cause certain types of rubber to swell).

The way we always took care of this on a 2-cycle engine is that at the end of the day, I'd have a small bottle with gasoline/oil mix, and I would pull the fuel line off the carb and plug in the small bottle. Start the engine... it will want to go rich as soon as the gasoline gets in there, but on a 2-cycle with an adjustable jet carb that's pretty easy -- just start screwing in the jets until it's running OK. I'd typically run it for a good few minutes on the gas/oil mix, and then it's good to store.

On your engine which probably does not have an adjustable jet, you may need to get creative (maybe a petcock in-line in your fuel line from your gas bottle)... or some other way that you can restrict the fuel flow a bit so the engine won't just go dead rich when the gasoline gets in there. Should be doable though.

If you do that religiously at the end of the day when you're done running, you'll never have to deal with the crusty white powder that will appear from methanol being in contact with aluminum for a long period of time.

Oh... if there are rubber parts (in the carb, or anywhere else that touches fuel), see if you can get them out of Viton -- that is no effected by methanol. Buna-N is a common rubber material used in seals and stuff because it's cheap, but it *will* swell when exposed to methanol.

Fuel flow will need to be about double of gasoline, so just calculate the area of the jet and double it. That should get you started. The simplest way to figure that is just square your jet diameter, double that, and take the square root.

In other words... let's say the diameter of the main jet is .040" (I'm just picking a number out of thin air). So just square 40. (40 x 40 = 1600). Then double that (1600 x 2 = 3200), and then take the square root of that (square root of 3200 is about 56.5). So you need a jet around .056" or .057" to get you started.

PM
 
As others have said, you'll use roughly twice as much alcohol as you will gasoline in the same engine, and jetting will need to be increased accordingly. Alcohol burns much cooler than gas, so you might have to tape off some of the holes in the cooling shroud to get the engine up to temp, especially on cold days. I use an old-fashioned pump oil can filled with gas oil mix (I use 16/1) with a piece of fuel line connected to the spout to flush. I disconnect the fuel line going into the fuel pump, then use the oil can to pump gas/oil through the pump and carb. You'll know right away when the gas hits the carb, because your engine will barely run when it does.

I pray to God I never find out, but I use Sunoco Methanol, and I've been told by my supplier that it has an additive in it so that if it ever does catch on fire it will make a flame that can be seen. I also have a fire extinguisher permanently mounted in my trailer - just in case...
 
When used in a four stroke methanol washes the cylinder walls as well. It is common to use top end lube as an additive. I use Blendzall 501. A couple of cap fulls to 5 gallons of methanol.

DK
 
Fuel flow will need to be about double of gasoline, so just calculate the area of the jet and double it. That should get you started. The simplest way to figure that is just square your jet diameter, double that, and take the square root.

In other words... let's say the diameter of the main jet is .040" (I'm just picking a number out of thin air). So just square 40. (40 x 40 = 1600). Then double that (1600 x 2 = 3200), and then take the square root of that (square root of 3200 is about 56.5). So you need a jet around .056" or .057" to get you started.

The passageway for the fuel , If not sufficient this could be used as a method to determine size as well .
Now the question is , if the passage is bigger then the jet ? Is there a need too increase it ?
 
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The needle and seat are the biggest restriction , I've seen . Most other passages in the carb are pretty big . Still sometimes fuel supply is lacking or assumed to be .
These small engines may not need an excess of volume .
 
Keep a fire extinguisher with contents to put out methanol fires in your trailer/garage....when it burns nearly impossible to see visually....store it in the very best air tight containers....it can contaminate easy if you don't and can be cause for it not to pass a fuel test....drain your carb and fuel lines flush with gas/marvel mystery oil after you're done racing for the night, the methanol will corrode the inside of the carb and dry out/crack seals/gaskets/fuel line if you leave it sit for any length of time without doing so.

Good advice ! Methanol can be put out with water also.
Use an oil that is designed for Methanol.!
The gas you use to flush engine should be NON ethanol gas. Naturally put engine on tdc compression stroke when finished. I like to put a little WD40,. in the spark plug hole.
When you come off the grid after the last race, Immediately flush the carb and drain the oil while still hot. Allow all of it to drip out. Then take your helmet off! Ha Ha!
 
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