nitro in the tank

[flybird]

Hey all,
this may seem dumb
but its has lurked in my mind for along time,
I have other toys besides cars AKA RC Cars
and I have always wondered what would happen if i mixed
some 110 with some Rc Nitro methane ??
I know top fuel mixes nitro with alcohol.

anyone ever try this to see how there car would run?

[ILLTA77]

In my youth, I would mix the Cox car fuel with 93 octane fuel, it just acts like an octane booster, 1 qt per 20 gallons.  Did it do anything ?  Heck I cant recall, but it made the exhaust smell different, and I'm sure it messed up the cat convertor.  Racing gas is more available now, so I can buy that if I need..

[magius231]

old topic but in case anyone else is thinking of this...

RC fuel is mostly methanol with anywhere from 10% to 40%(or more) nitromethane added in.  Nitro has this wonderful quality about it - it burns really hot and requires a lot less oxygen to do so.  this makes it great for funny cars with parts, cooling, and fuel mixes specifically designed to handle it, but can turn a normal engine into a puddle of molten piston goo...

Methanol can have an octane rating of 115 so could act as an octane booster, but would really only be effective in larger amounts (10%+ by volume)  some people do use this however...

           http://www.gnttype.org/techarea/misc/octanebooster.html

likely what would happen is if you got the wrong fuel mix or air mix, your combustion chambers would heat up dramatically and you would start pre-ignition and possibly crumble a piston ring land.  Also our fuel systems aren't really designed to handle Methanol so you would be replacing seals and o-rings soon as well.

[Turbo Steve]

I blend in E85 in my TA.  (Run straight E85 in my turbo Buicks)

The TA loves the E85.  It runs a bit rich on straight gas, so a little E85 tends to lean it out a bit and wake her up.  Still plenty rich though, don't want to run lean and cause problems.

The nitro scares me though.

[er455]

I run meth injection in my  buick gn as well

[ericwy]

I run meth injection in my  buick gn as well

I run H2O + Methanol injection in my TA for the intercooler effect and effective octane boost.
By injecting only when needed there is no need to fill the entire gas tank with booster or race gas.

[79T/Aman]

I blend in E85 in my TA.  (Run straight E85 in my turbo Buicks)

The TA loves the E85.  It runs a bit rich on straight gas, so a little E85 tends to lean it out a bit and wake her up.  Still plenty rich though, don't want to run lean and cause problems.

The nitro scares me though.

My point is that your T/A is a 8:1 CR or less you would have to increase the jetting by 15-20% with E85 but you still will not get the same power as straight gasoline or E10 because Ethanol has 1/3 less BTUs than gasoline, you should have at least 10:1 compression just to make up the difference !

op. Nitro will cause blown head gaskets, broken pistons, melted pistons, you could get away with it in very small amount in low compression engines.

[Turbo Steve]

Ya I'm not running the E85 straight, just a blending it in a bit.  It only "picks up" because of the leaning out effect (it's just a bit too rich on straight gas the way the carb is set up now).

Definitely agreed that it needs a lot more motor to make genuine use of the octane of an alcohol fuel.

But the Buick is another story altogether.....