[FC] Alcoholic Corvairs?

[Williams, Rickie]

So, is racing fuel a joke?

The summer the CORSA convention was at St Louis, I ran my 65 Corsa w/ 4
barrell carb at the Gateway Race Track event.  I bought 5 gallons of 110
octane fuel and added it to the approximately half full tank of 93/94 octane
fuel already in the car.  The car ran like a house a fire!  At the end of
the day, I noticed the exhaust pipes were a light gray on the inside.  They
had not been that way before nor have they been that way since.  Was it lead
content in the racing fuel or something else?


Rickie Williams
Columbia, KY


> ----------
> From: 	Rad Davis[SMTP:rad.davis at mindspring.com]
> Reply To: 	The Corvanatics list
> Sent: 	Tuesday, May 03, 2005 10:00 PM
> To: 	The Corvanatics list
> Subject: 	Re: [FC] Alcoholic Corvairs?
> 
> This is true if and only if you have varnish buildup in your fuel system.
> 
> Acetone has an OK octane rating, though nothing exceptional.  It is very 
> volatile.  It's also an excellent solvent.  If you have a grungy fuel 
> system and you add acetone to the fuel it will dissolve the grunge.  This 
> is theoretically a good thing, but there is the minor problem that all the
> 
> grunge (rust held in place by varnish, in my case) floats into the fuel 
> filters, plugs them, and then the engine stops running.
> 
> If you want a good commonly-available octane booster, look for toluene.
> It 
> has an acceptable volatility and a good octane number (RON=121).  It also 
> has no oxygen in the molecule, which makes it a better fuel (more energy 
> density) than Acetone.
> 
> If the fuel system is in good tune, I can't imagine why acetone would 
> improve fuel economy.  It has a low yield of energy and a high 
> volatility.  For that matter, adding *any* octane booster is not usually 
> going to improve your fuel economy.  Octane rating is related only to
> knock 
> resistance.  If your engine is set to design specifications and isn't 
> knocking under load on the unmodified fuel, then changing to a higher 
> octane number won't help anything, and might hurt, as many octane boosters
> 
> are oxygenate compounds with lower energy densities than the gasoline to 
> which they're added.
> 
> It's true that you can get some additional fuel economy if the pump fuel 
> you're using isn't up to design specs on the engine (say on a 140 or 180
> HP 
> corvair when you can't get fuel above 87 PON and it pings on 87) then 
> spiking the fuel will allow you to run stock specs for ignition timing and
> 
> compression ratio.
> 
> So the short answer is that adding acetone doesn't magically do anything, 
> unless there's something wrong with your engine beforehand.  Save your
> money.
> 
> Fuel chemistry has been pretty well documented over the last 100+ 
> years.  Trust me,  if there were a way to magically increase fuel economy 
> by x percent by dumping a little industrial waste in the fuel tank, the 
> auto manufacturers would have jumped at it decades ago.
> 
> --Rad Davis
> (former vehicle emissions chemist)
> '65 Greenbrier Deluxe #968
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> At 08:34 AM 4/29/2005 -0700, you wrote:
> >I've heard that adding an oz of pure acetone for every five gallons of
> gas 
> >raises your octane level more purely than does buying premium fuel. 
> >Supposed to get you up to 20% more power and milage.   Has anyone else 
> >tried this or even heard this?
> >Mike
> >----- Original Message ----- From: <CorvairEd at aol.com>
> >To: <corvanatics at corvair.org>
> >Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2005 10:35 PM
> >Subject: Re: [FC] Alcoholic Corvairs?
> >
> >
> >>krupross at sunwave.net writes:
> >>Hey CE.... how much does methyl alcohol cost these days?
> >>Any difference between methyl and ethyl alcohol?
> >>thanx
> >>Merv Krull
> >>
> >>Merv,
> >>Methyl alcohol costs about the same as gasoline right now and gets less
> mpg.
> >>Not a good choice for economy.  But if you want raw power and a clean
> running
> >>engine it may be your thing.  If gasoline goes much higher in the future
> it
> >>could become the fuel of choice.  Ethyl alcohol has less power in it
> than
> >>methyl but costs less so could be an even exchange economy wise.  The 
> >>price of both
> >>forms of alcohol would cost less if they were to be made with serious
> mass
> >>production.  In order for alcohol to produce maximum power in an engine
> the
> >>compression must be raised to at least 14 to 1 or better yet 16 to 1.
> >>
> >>Ed Corson (CORSA member)
> >>Inland Empire Corvair Club
> >>_______________________________________________
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