Air/Water Vs Methanol Injection - Which is better? Data Deep Dive!

I just happen to have data from two different power adders making the same amount of power, running the same times on the same engine and car, but one had air/water intercooling and one has methanol injection - I share my data logs with you and tell you which I prefer and for what application!

[@krakhedd]

"Dad, YOU IDIOT!" :D thank you for sharing that gem!

[@acruzp]

When kids can talk to their dad like that he did his job right

[@CallofDoobie585]

You cut a trick flow upper plenum and made it just trick 😂. I just seen that. Soo dope how you got that bad boy runnin. Sounds absolutely fkng insane

[@AlexLTDLX]

Lol - you're the first person to notice that. I cut over 11 lbs out of that manifold so it could turn the rpm it needs to on that size engine.

[@chadb1144]

Dude that setup is ABSOLUTELY insane love it and the ingenuity. I'm now fan!

[@davidresar8256]

As I recall the guy at snow performance told me most of the gains come from adding timing to the engine. If you have strong parts and you have enough detonation resistance meaning good fuel. Start cranking in 3 degrees at a time. It'll really come to life. Mine was only on 17 degrees total. Because it is a stock block 8.2 deck.

[@BentSpanner]

Great data and proof of concepts. I run a air/water Intercooler 12x12x10 core on my turbo diesel 4x4 with extra car radiator/twin thermos under the tray and 15L coolant reservoir. Running 30 psi on a 35-40c day AIT after the cooler are at best 10-20c above ambient temperature.

[@mattmorrison6958]

So glad to have found this channel! Great stuff, well explained

[@Albinosnake1997]

I run a non intercooler kenne bell two screw with 2 nozzles one pre rotors and one post 50/50 water methanol and now been trying 50/50 water isopropyl

[@futten3230]

very interesting stuff i love frankenstein style innovative solutions that works well

[@kelzthedude1]

Single father with 2 daughters myself and that's how I ended up with a rotary swapped subaru forester 😅because my rx7 didn't have backseat its also got a air to water intercooler and a aem water/meth system on it now we are ls swapping my 84 datsun 720

[@okumakamizu3030]

You is the guy. First of all - rx-8 😂 Secondly - what's your setup like?

[@kelzthedude1]

@okumakamizu3030 its posted on here but it's a 91 t2 s5 street ported motor t2 trans thrown in a bagged sg5 forester so it's rwd

[@kelzthedude1]

@okumakamizu3030 but I'm actually about to pull the rotary out and put a k24 in the forester because I just picked up a 88 fc rx7 so the rotary will be in the rx7

[@atheplummer]

This is a really cool video. Can I challenge you to try a bit of a different setup with the whipple, since you're already 90% there? Try putting a AC compressor on the engine, with the evaporator coil inside the air/water tank. Also put a fuel loop inside the tank. I think you can forget the ice altogether, as you'll needing to run antifreeze in the water tank. Cold intake air makes power, if you add enough fuel to meet the oxygen content of the cold fuel. Colder air, from a air/water intercooler will stabilize compared to ambient air temp running conditions, and make it easier to tune the engine. Not to mention the fact that radically cold air/water intercoolers create massive amounts of condensation inside the air chamber. That's lots of potential fuel, if you know how to convert water vapor into a combustible fuel source. If this interests you, respond here and I'll explain in further detail.

[@AlexLTDLX]

I won't be able to test that anytime soon. I'm building a new place, and the electric supercharger has taken the place of the Whipple. But who knows, once the new place is functional (hopefully soon - as in, this fall), then maybe I can try that out. Thanks for watching and commenting!

[@tababobi]

Actually, if anyone knows how to convert water vapor into a combustible fuel source there are a lot of fusion power physicists and engineers that would like to talk to you...

[@atheplummer]

@@tababobi You got it. Cold fusion requires converting HxO into H3O2 (Hydronium, said to not exist in nature, bur I can convert it in a temporary state).

[@mcjok88]

Excellent. Really appreciate the side by side comparison. Great general baseline data. NOW YOU MUST GET A PRODUCT AVAILABLE!!!

[@918sonicsupra]

This is a great vid full of great info! Thanks!

[@overbuiltautomotive1299]

never like super charger i am a turbo man my self very cool build on the electric rig my man love it

[@XxMusclecarsxX]

whipple sounds so good

[@camscustombuilds]

Love this setup. Are there any wall wetting or manifolding issues with the methanol distribution? In the past, I had issues with cylinder trim with single point meth injection. Especially in large quantities. Maybe the location in the volute helps atomize the meth better? A fun test would be to just use water.

[@baby-sharkgto4902]

Awesome video! Also I’m sure a lot of the loss of the Whipple is parasitic loss from driving the supercharger, my guess would be at least 150 HP loss. No parasitic loss for the electric supercharger.

[@baby-sharkgto4902]

7:01

[@okumakamizu3030]

Awesome vid. Got questions.

[@802Garage]

This is really cool testing and comparison. No pun intended. And OMG Roger is so cute!

[@FirstLast-tx3yj]

will you ever install an interchiller? would be a good DIY addition

[@AlexLTDLX]

You mean like the setup that runs off AC? I certainly would, except the LTD has no AC - but I might add an electric setup at some point.

[@dennisford2000]

@@AlexLTDLX there are some sweet electric ac compressors not much weight either. Back in the doid, it is hotter than where you are now it Tx . The old 911 Porsche had miserable ac , except for a couple. One had a regenerative drier , and another had a large almost side to side and the inside of the suspension mounted to the bottom of the car, adding only one inch to the clearance. It had collected debris and dents but it was Cold . Would never work with front engines though too much heat. Unless you’re running zoomies. Lake pipe?

[@FirstLast-tx3yj]

@@AlexLTDLX I would say installing a stock compressor to your block would be easier given that it does not interfere with other auxiliaries. the hassle is in fitting the condenser and evaporator with your current water cooling setup

[@michaelwelsh5159]

Great video! Curious point you highlighted regarding the cyclic oscillations in the boost curve when the meth is on. Just know how my pump in my setup runs, have you compared the frequency of those oscillations with the frequency at which the pump is driven? Assuming it is PWM same as my setup you might be seeing cyclic pressure oscillations in the manifold based on the meth pump injection frequency, not sure what sort of resolution you have in the logging setup. Keep up the good work.

[@AlexLTDLX]

I really am not sure. I'm not driving the pump with a controller - just full power all the time. It's possible that the oscillations are from the pump itself. The megasquirt doesn't do much smoothing to its datalogs, so it shows stuff that one might not see on a different EFI setup - which has its pros and cons. I'm used to it now, but at some point I'm sure I'll switch EFI systems again. I'm not thrilled with the megasquirt's tach signal input circuitry.

[@michaelwelsh5159]

I had a snow v2 controller initially (when I was still using the stock ECU in the car) I don't think I ever measures at what Hz it drove the pump but it would increase with boost. Since then I've got for a full Haltech ecu and wired the pump into it via a solid state relay. It just gave me additional integrated datalogs being able to see exactly when the meth was on, level was low etc as well as the tunability to map it vs whatever condition you like. Keep up the good work!

[@mbalunovic]

Te huge benefit of E-SC comes down to it can provide increased MAF without draining power from engine like Turbo or any other type of SC.. this can only work while there is stored energy. an alternative for "street" car would be to use a regenerative braking to charge tat "battery" (of what ever sort it is)

[@FirstLast-tx3yj]

Your dad created the first DIY legit electric supercharger that made his car go 3 seconds faster... Don't you dare call him idiot😂

[@AlexLTDLX]

Lol...

[@ThePaulv12]

I wonder what would happen if you ran both?

[@Absuurd_Hooman]

what about combineing air/water intercooler with methanol injection? i mean you already have both setup why not tho

[@AlexLTDLX]

You could, but at the low boost levels we're seeing with the electric supercharger, the A/W intercooler would be more of a restriction (there has to be some boost loss, otherwise it wouldn't cool the charge); if you saw gains, they would be minimal and I'm certain not worth the effort of building and packaging it. Now if we ran several of these units and raised the boost levels significantly, then it would be worth it.

[@timwatterson8060]

How practical would it be to up the eturbo to the wipples' boost levels... What number would that entail eturbo hp/watts, rpm, mass flow etc, motor hp, wheel hp etc....

[@AlexLTDLX]

It would only be practical by using multiple units. That's why I've built the cheaper/easier setup. you'd need less electrical power because the compressors would be more in their sweet spots. If you could get the boost up to 15 psi, like the whipple, you'd be at or over 1,000 hp; the Whipple made 850 on it's best day in mineshaft air; on a similar air day, you'd see at least 1,100 hp out of the electric powered setups.

[@yosta3826]

Nice video! you mentioned injecting methanol pre will shift the compressor map. How much do you believe in hp you were able to shift the map and keep the same efficiency?

[@brian03cobra]

Good video with good data. Where did you find the intercooler tank that was used inside the car?

[@AlexLTDLX]

It's a tank from an RV tank company. I don't recall which one (that was several years ago now).

[@toycompound]

I've been following your progress and it's very interesting. I'm installing a p-2 on a 2009 5.7 charger using an 80 tooth crank pulley to 20 tooth pulley on a 5/8 bar that drives a 40 tooth pulley to the 18 tooth p-2 supercharger to get it up to 53000 rpm. I'm switching to ceramic bearings to handle the rpm. I had an idea, could couple a tesla motor to the crankshaft directly or via pulley for a very tunable extra horsepower adder? Thanks for all the helpfull info!

[@toycompound]

I've been researching the tesla motor idea. Dodge charger trunks are huge, so I'm going to put a tesla motor setup in there and add a 1:1 transfer case in front of the fixed rear diff with hp supported mods to handle the extra power. There are awd Chargers out there, also thinking of converting the nag1 to an srt8 awd setup. 1000 awd combined power would be fun!

[@GiuseppeBusso7]

Well, very nice video. I have installed Snow Performance stage1 wmi kit and i want to add fuel at my setup. What is the proper mixture for maximum power gain? 50/50 meth/water, 80/20 or 100/0 methanol? Thank you in advance

[@qkurd9141]

You've some awesome stuff here!

[@boilshifter1350]

Have you tried the electric turbo with intercooler.. and I would actually like to see an intercooler used as a intercooler not after lol

[@williamzoom]

Do you still have the copper cooler?

[@AlexLTDLX]

Yes.

[@williamzoom]

@@AlexLTDLX Are you going to mount it on the wall like a deer head at the new world headquarters?

[@dennisford2000]

@@williamzoom if the price of copper goes up he can keep his money in inflation.

[@matthewf1979]

Methanol/Water is great for the track. I would rather depend on aftercooling on a street car because it's not a consumable. To each their own. Air density is KING! That's the whole point of forced induction.

[@denisohbrien]

I haven't watched the video yet but let me chime in, ive a 1.4L rover k-series, with awesome intercooling she was det limited at 19psi of boost.. woth water meth on the exact same engine i could go to 30psi of boost and never found the boost/det limit as the turbo was becoming inneficient. Water meth is under-rated

[@AlexLTDLX]

I have to agree with you - I was always poo-pooing it until I tried it. It's pretty amazing stuff, especially for a street car.

[@austinmaxi]

30psi...on a K series...😆 a built N series i could see it lasting, K series... not so much

[@addictedtobeaters2897]

Truth be told you only really need the water . Unless you need more fuel that injectors can't provide.

[@denisohbrien]

Small bore early k with the old style block and thicker liners. Went 11.9 at Shakespeare county in a classic mini. Later style k block big bore cracked likers at 19 psi .and drove from Glasgow and back.

[@austinmaxi]

@@denisohbrien yeah now you mention it they have 75mm bore, so you'd have a bigger contact area between the liner and the head. I have a 1.8vvc 160 I just did the gasket on and noticed the thin sealing fire ring on the elastomer gasket. I used the N series after, did you have to O ring the head?

[@dennisford2000]

Thanks in advance

[@AlexLTDLX]

You're welcome, Dennis. Just one question - for what?

[@dennisford2000]

@@AlexLTDLX you are a great raconteur and accurate. Would be a great engineer. I enjoy the data log and it makes all the sense . Just wish I could have the same equipment and do it a bit differently.

[@interst8erj968]

Hi...I noticed you said you run mufflers What mufflers do you run... with boost?

[@AlexLTDLX]

Jones Maxflows for now.

[@interst8erj968]

Thankss.. what size inlet/outlet?

[@sixteenornumber]

how did you get the electric motor aligned with the impeller shaft?

[@AlexLTDLX]

There is a whole playlist of videos on my channel devoted to how I built it.

[@scotty305]

You make some good points regarding the temperature of the sensor being affected by fluid, it should be helpful if the same fluid wetting the sensor is also cooling the intake runners and other parts of the intake tract. One of the design considerations for the AEM water/meth test rig used during the V3 injector development was adding a muffler to keep one of the temperature sensors from getting wet during the test. There are some screen captures showing the difference as 'Post Nozzle Pre-Muffler Temp' and 'Post-Nozzle Post-Muffler Temp', near the end of this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/l6DSmmaPbr6ofbM , it looks to me that the dry sensor is warmer than the wet sensor by at least a few percent.

[@AlexLTDLX]

Thanks for pointing that out. So it looks like there's about 8-9% difference in temps. Or, the other way of looking at it is over 90% of the charge cooling the sensor detects is legit.

[@mk12pickle]

Does the Methanol spray actually hit the vanes ? and at what point will it erode the vanes? Does your datalogging software allow for other external data channels like driveshaft RPM, or transmission pressures?

[@AlexLTDLX]

No, the meth doesn't spray on the impeller at all - it sprays into the volute.

[@ritchardposterior262]

Since your using the meth as a fuel supplement, are you not worried about distribution between cylinders? would a direct port kit not be more ideal?

[@ishyne22]

he is cooling the compressed charge directly at the source.

[@jagtan13]

Call it war emergency power! Used since WWII with great success. Fighters such as the P47, Corsair, and the Mustang + early turbojets and even turbofans used water methanol for a time. It's a proven technology and technique.

[@Jeremy-iv9bc]

Ok but how much horsepower does the supercharger use?

[@AlexLTDLX]

The Whipple used anywhere from 70-90 hp.

[@jaydubb71]

Another thing that folks don't understand is the parasitic loss driving the whipple. There is none with the sledgehammer.

[@ishyne22]

Any data on 50/50 water meth?? Many suggest theres better cooling over 100% meth. Pretty sure extensive research was done on jet engines during WWII.

[@AlexLTDLX]

There was more than enough data for me to go with straight meth as making more power. Maybe down the road, when I get my own dyno, we can do some more testing. Paying for dyno time gets expensive - even when it's your friend's dyno.

[@robbioe]

lmao that intro

[@robertmontalvo597]

The one thing I don't like about meth injection is you have to tune for it because the methanol is displacing fuel. Therefore you would have to have a fuel map to account for the additional methanol fuel in order to take advantage of it. Maybe I would consider just water injection instead

[@dennisford2000]

At 114 /116 octane what is not to like? I would have larger injectors/ two sets, one for meth / one for gas. Two motors and a twenty percent overdrive for the compressor. Running all the gear up front for the three phase and have the chassis for ground and one dc cable forward.

[@zacharymorris9917]

That's actually mostly a misconception. Methanol runs at a crazy rich AFR and also carries a significant portion of its own oxygen.

[@zacharymorris9917]

At 70/30 gas/meth 9.5-10 (or richer) will yield the most peak power. (Assuming the person is using a gasoline WB output. I strongly recommend using lambda instead.)

[@natereinhold6180]

​@@zacharymorris9917 I thought all widebands read in lambda

[@dennisford2000]

@@zacharymorris9917 cool that charge much greater efficiency on the blower, but yrmv

[@cj-wm3fi]

Great content but moment of Roger takes it!

[@AlexLTDLX]

Happiest dog in the world. 😁 Thanks!

[@NCMATT]

Both

[@AlexLTDLX]

That works too.

[@formandfunction-w5g]

Aftercooling is an afterthought. It does nothing to help the compressor struggling with hot thin air all the while losing efficiency. Pontiac tried meth injection in the 60's {super rocket juice}and it failed because people would never refill the tank. Same reason they don't use it in production cars now. I use meth because I want my system to run cool, not just the charge air, though I do use both on my turbo car.

[@jasonetter9171]

I can show you how to make a A2W system that will have the same IAT's as the meth.

[@CGpossom]

Roger needs more boost

[@AlexLTDLX]

Lol

[@AdamOpheim]

This is a poor comparison IMO. You need to put a decent A2W on your current setup for an apples to apples comparison. They are cheap. Y pick up power over the meth, I guarantee it. A decent A2A IC would pick up over your meth inj as well. But at low boost, I don’t think it would be justified cost wise. What was the pressure drop across the core of your cooler? Regardless of the amount of ice melted, your A2W was not performing well. For a like comparison, a cheap china “boost chiller” unit would keep charge temps in the 65-75* range at 25lbs+ with ice water. That’s with ambient temps in the high 80’s and less flow than you were running. The other big caveat IMO is tuning differences, specifically with Ign lead. If meth was truly a great “charge cooler”. You’d see the same performance gains as intercooling with no timing adjustments made. Water/Meth is more like a race fuel IMO. Your gains are mainly from its ability to allow more timing and/or boost. The IAT data is bunk, period. Logically the air has no TIME to allow heat to be pulled from it. Its in and out of the cyl in a millisecond. The sensor that’s sitting in the stream of fluid is having heat constantly pulled form it over A LOT of time.

[@lacboiatl]

15:43 use both.

[@TheMrDarius]

Run both meth and air to water

[@davidcoupalbergeron2]

By my calculation you would gain a lot . The water will be use as a link in heat transfer .

[@davidcoupalbergeron2]

I imagine a scenario tell me your opinion . The water get compress and absorb the heat . It became gaz . The gaz condense on the air to water cooler and transfer the heat . The heat transfer is more effective because the water contact is smaller for the exchange and water create a material link to cool down even more efficiently. So it's not the avantage of the 2 adding together. It's like x3 better or something . With microtubing like indi car and a power chiller like the dodge demon , all that system would maybe freeze and clogged the intake in hope 😆

[@rockets4kids]

That's when you start breaking things inside the engine.

[@TheMrDarius]

@@rockets4kids be fun to watch but not fun to pay for lol

[@NotAffiliated]

11:00 Welp! It can carry a tire!

[@B0RN2RACE100]

All in favor of breaking bad habits and start calling aftercoolers what they all

[@terryfonz4603]

You need to retune because meth injection makes fuel air way too rich!

[@rolfjensen6117]

your dog likes water cooling more than meth..

[@AlexLTDLX]

lol

[@dylandesmond]

Now use meth and nos... and hydrogen peroxide...

[@zacharymorris9917]

At 30% methanol 11.3:1 is very lean. Methanol works excellent at 40-60 psi boost with no intercooler, but you better be ready to buy injectors. 16 minimum on a V8. Better damn well have a flawless ignition system too. At WOT if it misfires once it will hydrolock that cylinder and destroy everything.

[@lightblade543]

Making a blanket statement that an afr range is lean solely due to fuel type or fuel mixture ratio is a misnomer. The bsfc of the setup ie. engine displacement and ve, static compression, power adder type and final compression with boost will determine bsfc and thus the final target afr. Knowing a little bit about his setup from previous vids I would wager he is a tad rich at that target afr on pump gas and meth injection. (low compression mild displacement v8 motor with a centri blower at 6psi) without doing any data calculation I would wager stoich to be around 11.5-11.6:1 for his setup on that fuel and 11.8-11.9:1 on soley pump gas with no meth.

[@patonbike]

To my understanding. If you're using an gasoline calibrated AFR gauge like an AEM UEGO... You can just look at it in terms of gasoline (14.7 stoich) and it will work itself out. Meaning.. 11.3 would be on the slightly rich side of just right. Even if you were running 100% methanol... if the gauge is calibrated for gasoline, you use gasoline numbers (14.7 stoich).

[@zacharymorris9917]

@patonbike your understanding is (half) wrong. That extremely common misunderstanding is exactly why I strongly recommended using the lambda scale. Methanol and gasoline do NOT run at the same WOT lambda. In the above example of stoich for both fuels, or ANY mixture of those two fuels, would display 1.00 lambda. At stoich, on a 70/30 mix, a modern gasoline AFR guage would display 14.1 AFR and the ACTUAL AFR would be 11.95. The real problem comes when you're mixing fuels that run at significantly different max-power-rich AFRs. Forced induction on a asoline/methanol mix is a great example of this. Methanol will easily run 10% richer than Gasoline.

[@zacharymorris9917]

@@patonbike to clarify my original comment: Since his gasoline target was 11.3, the same AFR target after switching to 70/30 gas/meth is very lean by comparison.