I am building a 302 stroked to a 302, with aluminum Heads, and roller lifters and rockers. It will have a pritty lobby cam and 5000v distribitor. Also 750 cfm carb, 10.5:1 compreshion, and headers. So i was wanting to know a couple of things??? 1. whould it be good to run Alcohol in it and if so how much? I was told buy the guy doing my engine that it will have to run atleast the highest octan at the pumps. 2. what type of horse power do you think it would have before and after the alcohol. and is it worth it for the differance. 3. Is there any other type of mods you would do to inprove the HP output???
positives: slightly more bottom end power. less et variation with weather. flow twice the fuel, ingest 1/2 the air. car runs cooler. opponent cant "cook"you on the starting line. safer, less volatile to work around. if shut off on line, can run right away: if a little warmer, usually runs quicker which is easier to adjust for. costs less than race fuel. i pay 2.30/gal= 4.60 gal if gas. how much is vp these days? 6-9 dollars depending? minuses: uses twice as much fuel per round. must warm up more. usually must change oil more often. cant see flame if have a carb fire. dont backfire the carb! hard starting in cool/cold weather. hard on fuel lines. use stainless steel or braided lines. must protect against water absorption. should use fuel cell. must carry twice as much fuel with you. the fumes are horrible. must seal car and run exhaust out from under chassis. they're like tear gas, unless using scent additive. requires specially modified carb. obviously i'm assuming a carb. injection may be different. i switched to it in '91. never seriously considered going back to gas.
maybe worth .2 in et. maybe more or less depending on engine setup. a 302 stroked to 302??? please give more specs on engine & car setup.
I always thought alcohol boiled in the fuel lines when you shut down and was hard to start again? Maybe that's just for injected cars.
Dave pretty much covered it all. My advice is to stick with gas for now, alky likes compression too. Is a great improvement for racing, but not real adaptive to street driving. Cost is high for initial set-up and then oil changes every other race meet, can get high especially when running Mobil 1 as I do. Adding a vacuum pump to clear the crankcase etc. will help too.
never had that problem with starting. 1st start of the day may need help, especially if cold out. once there is some heat in the engine, no problem. once went to a make-up of a nat open in nov. 40 deg with a nasty wind. used most of a can of ether to get it to start and stay running. after that, fired it about every 45 min with no problems and ran it for about 5 min to keep heat in the heads.what do you mean by how much alcohol should u run? if you're talking about just adding it to gas, i'd say not more than 10%, but i doubt u would see any benefits. boiling in the lines? i dont think so. has different thermal properties. tends to cool things off. on very humid nights ive actually seen a car come back from a run with a light coat of frost/condensation on the intake. sometimes injected cars have starting problems if no priming system.
The IRL cars have problems getting fired back up sometimes after a stall in the pits. Alcohol cools so well because of the low vapor pressure, which also means it boils at a much lower temp than gas too. All the cooling effect of alcohol comes from it turning from a liquid to a gas. I would think that a carb would be able to burp itself and thus, no real problems with the fuel boiling. Especially not in a drag car.
you didn't say what your plans are for the car. if your using it on the street, you just can't pull in to a gas station and ask for alcahol. also the carb has to be set up for alcahol. are you changing to an electric fuel pump? stock won't handle it. if it's a street car i'd stick with gas.
Excellent reply. I learned a lot too - enough to know that I will stay with gasoline (a lot less hassle - and I'm all about 'less hassle').
