Track Tac

fuel

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newjack

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Is there an alternative to alky, heard of denatured alcohol from hardware store being used mixed with gas 3:1
 
cant seem to find it, saw it for 10 bucks a gallon at hardware store, heard can be used as is or mixed 3:1 with reg gas
 
Dont run anything but alcohol in an alcohol racing engine... You can run gas through it, it wont hurt anything just run poorly. Only reason why people do that is after racing it helps keep the motor lubed from the natural oils in the gas but many people dont do that anymore because of contamination issues with fuel tests and its much easier to spray some wd40 down the carb while its running and achieve the same effect. I dont know why youd want a cheap alternative to alcohol.
 
When we raced our 2 cycles with alcohol, and it had oil in it, the reason we rinsed our engines with gasoline was to get the alcohol out of the engine. Alcohol is very hard on aluminum. Over time it can corroded it quite a bit. As far as I know, there is no other reason for running gasoline through your engine.

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If the data does not support the theory, get a new theory. (Al Nunley)
 
Just looking for an alternative fuel similar to alky sold at tracks. I don't race just for cruising around so the fuel doesn't have to be a perfect match.
 
i wouldn't mix anything when it comes to fuel...it's bad enough mixing homemade tire prep...but your talking about a liquid that can explode on you, create deadly fumes, flash ignite instantly.....and the list can go on....you say that you saw a gallon for $10 at a hardware store....methanol around here goes for about $5 a gallon. before i would ever consider using something that isn't designed to be used in any engine, i'd get with the local speedway/racetrack guys (the car guys), find out who they get thier fuel from and call and find out if this company can get or carries methanol for racing.
 
newjack said:
Just looking for an alternative fuel similar to alky sold at tracks. I don't race just for cruising around so the fuel doesn't have to be a perfect match.
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Unless your a chemist you will never get denatured alcohol to mix with gas. I did it years ago, you have to use a certain chem. as a binder after you first remove all the water in the alcohol as it contains a very high percentage. It's a pain in the a$$ and the cost is very very high. It's not like the ethanol that the gas producers use. Forget it, rejet for gas, or buy methanol.
 
Not sure why you don't want to run alky, but then are considering mixing denatured alcohol with your gas... meaning that you would be running an alky mixture. It might work, but you'd have to re-jet your carburetor and maybe change your ignition timing. To get any real benefit from the alcohol you’d want to raise compression, although the amount of gasoline in your mixture might not allow much of that so not much overall gain.

Realize that alcohol contains only about half the energy that gasoline has, so to benefit you need to change your engine to suit it. Racers like it because it will tolerate a lot of compression, and compression yields horsepower. It also burns cooler, which helps air-cooled engines.

We run gasoline through an alcohol-fired engine in order to wash out as much alcohol as we can. Alcohol attacks aluminum and rubber and many plastics. If you don’t run a fuel pump or plastic fuel lines (such as the “stock” Briggs flathead classes) then just spraying WD-40 or carb cleaner etc. will probably help, although it won’t clean your plastic pickup tubes inside your tank. You can tell when the alcohol is burned off and you’re running on gasoline because the engine will bog / you’ll have to play with the throttle to keep it running. That’s because the alcohol jet is too big for gasoline and you’re running very rich. Don’t do this for more than a few minutes because that washes down your cylinder and can allow scuffing. You should change your oil afterwards because alcohol got into your crankcase while racing. Also, we found that sometimes gasoline would do odd things to our racing sparkplug – some wouldn’t race as well after they’d fired on gasoline. So before running gasoline we’d switch to a gasoline plug, or an old plug we didn’t race anymore. Don’t forget to switch back!

BM is right that running gas through your fuel system can cause you to fail some fuel tests. But we never had a problem – we didn’t run a lot of gas through, we made sure to pump the gasoline back out, and we made sure to run the engine for several minutes on alcohol before submitting to a test.
 
Someone ... said:
Not sure why you don't want to run alky, but then are considering mixing denatured alcohol with your gas... meaning that you would be running an alky mixture. It might work, but you'd have to re-jet your carburetor and maybe change your ignition timing. To get any real benefit from the alcohol you’d want to raise compression, although the amount of gasoline in your mixture might not allow much of that so not much overall gain.

Realize that alcohol contains only about half the energy that gasoline has, so to benefit you need to change your engine to suit it. Racers like it because it will tolerate a lot of compression, and compression yields horsepower. It also burns cooler, which helps air-cooled engines.

We run gasoline through an alcohol-fired engine in order to wash out as much alcohol as we can. Alcohol attacks aluminum and rubber and many plastics. If you don’t run a fuel pump or plastic fuel lines (such as the “stock” Briggs flathead classes) then just spraying WD-40 or carb cleaner etc. will probably help, although it won’t clean your plastic pickup tubes inside your tank. You can tell when the alcohol is burned off and you’re running on gasoline because the engine will bog / you’ll have to play with the throttle to keep it running. That’s because the alcohol jet is too big for gasoline and you’re running very rich. Don’t do this for more than a few minutes because that washes down your cylinder and can allow scuffing. You should change your oil afterwards because alcohol got into your crankcase while racing. Also, we found that sometimes gasoline would do odd things to our racing sparkplug – some wouldn’t race as well after they’d fired on gasoline. So before running gasoline we’d switch to a gasoline plug, or an old plug we didn’t race anymore. Don’t forget to switch back!

BM is right that running gas through your fuel system can cause you to fail some fuel tests. But we never had a problem – we didn’t run a lot of gas through, we made sure to pump the gasoline back out, and we made sure to run the engine for several minutes on alcohol before submitting to a test.
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Autolite 411s or equivalent plugs that are used on flatheads for meth are not the best plug for gas. For gas you want a J19LM (NGK) or equivalent.

Regarding the original poster. I'm not so sure having an alky powered kart to put put around the streets and yard is such a good idea. Unlike gasoline, alcohol requires more maintenance and is way more susceptible to "going bad". Alcohol is hydroscopic, meaning it attracts moisture. So to fill your tank and drive it around maybe a few times isnt so good because it will draw moisture through the cap and any other open area. Racekarts can get away with this because we burn it way too fast for any moisture to have an effect. Anyone who doesnt completely drain their fuel tank after race day is hurting themselves greatly. Also note that the "contaminant forgiveness" parameters between gas and alcohol are much different. Contaminants in gas in a gas engine will have less of an effect than contaminants in alcohol in an alcohol engine. Alcohol is also more effected by ambient temperature and barometric pressure.

I'm not telling you what to do but it would be much easier for you to convert it to gas and run gasoline. Alcohol is also gunna be way more expensive than gas and gasoline is much more convenient to purchase. They've talked about methanol being a consumer everyday fuel alternative to gasoline in automobiles and the potential for manufacturers to make methanol engines for tomorrow's cars but for the exact same reasons why gas is more practical for your situation, it's more practical for the modern transportation system.
 
mikey56 said:
i wouldn't mix anything when it comes to fuel...it's bad enough mixing homemade tire prep...but your talking about a liquid that can explode on you, create deadly fumes, flash ignite instantly.....and the list can go on....you say that you saw a gallon for $10 at a hardware store....methanol around here goes for about $5 a gallon. before i would ever consider using something that isn't designed to be used in any engine, i'd get with the local speedway/racetrack guys (the car guys), find out who they get thier fuel from and call and find out if this company can get or carries methanol for racing.
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Throw some goat pee in the fuel tank and see what happens. Lol...
Or better yet! Black Sand!
 
BM Racing said:
Dont run anything but alcohol in an alcohol racing engine... You can run gas through it, it wont hurt anything just run poorly. Only reason why people do that is after racing it helps keep the motor lubed from the natural oils in the gas but many people dont do that anymore because of contamination issues with fuel tests and its much easier to spray some wd40 down the carb while its running and achieve the same effect. I dont know why youd want a cheap alternative to alcohol.
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How would u turn my 5hp gocart motor over to alcohol motor n wanna add turbo n nos wat thins would cost
 
Lazyboi187 said:
How would u turn my 5hp gocart motor over to alcohol motor n wanna add turbo n nos wat thins would cost
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Welcome to the forum! Typically on a thread this old you would just want to start a new thread. I will give you some help. Mainly just jetting and maybe mess with timing depending on where it is at right now. I have seen a few people do turbos on these small motors but trust me I think it is a waste of time. You dont benefit from a turbo on a small engine like you would a turbo on a car.
 
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