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Nitro Methane

Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 2:04 pm
by Ian Anderson
Anyone on here use it?

What mods did you have to do to get it to run?
Perhaps time to fight against Perry but take a different route!


Cheers
Ian

Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 12:36 pm
by ian.stewart
Top Fuel, last time I heard it was £72 per galon!!!! I think its only one stage from being NitroGlycirin?? it will produce stupendeous amounts of power in the right situation, TF cars are quite capable of running 8000hp from 8 litre?? engines and if you take the parasitic drag from the supercharger out of the equation its somthing like 10500hp!!!

Yes you can run it on the street mixed with petrol, but the jetting / fueling would have to be changed every time you ran the stuff,
Alcohol [as in drag racing alcohol] can be used as a fuel addative, that works well in smal doses, but has the disadvantage that its corrosive and tends to destroy fuel systems and carbs if left in the system,

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2009 1:57 pm
by kiwicar
Hi
I have used it in model aircraft engines! and as a fuel adative to a two stroke villiers lawn mower engine in a go cart I had as a kid (big blue flames and a big gain in power what fun). It is interesting stuff! It is basically methanol base fuel so it wants an isostatic ratio of about 8.5 to 1 as opposed to 14.7 to 1 for petrol, so you have to jet it way up on a carb. Secondly it has a huge specific latent heat capacity of evaporation, this means it will give a big charge cooling effect. thirdly it is very resistant to detonation (effective octane around 120 ish) so you can compress the hell out of it, finally it is slow burning so you will need a BIG spark (or two).
The nitromethanol is usually added so as to give a mix up to 25% ish (sometimes 50%) to the methanol. Now the nitro part of it is an N2O group added to replace one of the Hydrogens on the methanol (I think) any way what it does is, when compressed and heated in the cylinder prior to ignition it splits off the N2O and provides more oxygen for combustion (bear in mind it will be thoroughly mixed in with the fuel) this means you have more oxygen in the cylinger to burn the fuel so you can add even more fuel (bit like nitrous injection without the fuss).
It works best in supercharged engines where you are not allowed intercooling, you really need twin plug heads as it is slow to burn, the nitro methane rots most forms of rubber very quickly and a good selection of plastice, it any unburnt mitromethanol degrades oil very very quickly. It is great stuff as an adative if injected, especially if you have a supercharged engine and it is worth it for the 3 foot blue flames!! :D
Best regards
Mike