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- Newsgroups: alt.hotrod,wiz.hotrod
- Path: sparky!uunet!europa.asd.contel.com!emory!rsiatl!hotrod
- From: hotrod@dixie.com (The Hotrod List)
- Subject: Methanol difficulties
- Message-ID: <b6=sr5k@dixie.com>
- Date: Sun, 24 Jan 93 08:33:35 GMT
- Organization: Dixie Communications Public Access. The Mouth of the South.
- To: hotrod@dixie.com
- Reply-To: hotrod@dixie.com
- Posted-Date: Sunday, Jan 24 03:33:24
- X-Sequence: 3604
- X-Gifs-To: met@sunset.cse.nau.edu
- X-Gifs-From: ftp.nau.edu
- Approved: jgd@dixie.com
- Lines: 28
-
- After getting the M85 Fourmula SAE car cranked up and running last night
- (kinda rough, but the fuel curves were kinda off), I was looking forward
- to a nice day of map development. However, couldn't get the car to
- start today... replaced the fuel, cleaned the injectors, checked spark
- (was a nice white spark), checked timing, cleaned injectors again,
- changed plugs, etc. An ocassional sputter, but no start. Tonite we
- noticed the fuel in the drum was just starting to turn yellowish.
- Is M85 totally shot by the time it absorbs this much water?
- We were getting fuel, as sometimes the plugs were coming out wet (and
- we pulled the injectors and verified they were squirting). Haven't
- done a compression test yet, and the engine has run several times
- before with the same fuel map. Is it possible that the water in the
- fuel is the problem, or am I definately looking at a blown headgasket
- or such?
-
- [John, I've not done much with M85 but I have a lot of experience
- with pure methanol. I've used it when it had so much water in it
- oil would not stay mixed and would drop out in a cloud of oil
- emulsion. Assuming the moisture is not corroding the fuel injectors,
- it should run. I tried washing an injector in an aqueous cleaning
- solution in the ultrasonic cleaner once. The pintle stuck from
- corrosion before I could get air blown through it. You might want
- to check that. It might be that the vapor pressure is just too low
- to crank with a significant portion of water in the mix. I always
- started my engines on gas and turned the alky on after it warmed up.
- JGD]
- ----------
- Posted by: emory!ccwf.cc.utexas.edu!lusky (Jonathan R. Lusky)
-