Water in methanol

I believe that when water gets into methanol alcohol that the water molecules join/mix/combine totally with the alcohol molecules. This is why you pour methanol into a gasoline tank to get rid of water that is sitting in the bottom of the gasoline tank. It combines with the water so the water no longer sits separate on the bottom of the tank and can now be burned in the motor. Also the mixing and combining allows the specific gravity of the alcohol to change and be detected at the race track fuel check. If the water remained separate then it would stay at the bottom of the tank and not be found at a fuel check. So with all that mixing and combining I don't believe you can pour the alcohol through a chamois and suck up just the water and that is just a myth. It ain't going to work. It will work with water and gasoline because they don't combine.

I believe that once the alcohol is contaminated with water then there is nothing that we can do at our level to separate it again.

Because of this contamination problem and the ability of alcohol to suck the water out of the air you should never pour unused alcohol at the end of the day back into the alcohol you are going to race with. Any unused alcohol taken out of a tank should be kept separate and used for warmups only. Also, all alcohol containers should always be capped airtight to avoid contamination.

Never combine different storage drums together in the same container. In otherwords if you have a drum with 5 or 10 gallons in the bottom do not pour it into a drum with 40 gallons into it. You risk contamination.

 

My guess would be yes but I don't think that one normally gets enough water in the alcohol to really notice it running lean. The real probelem with water contamination is not passing a fuel check. NHRA/IHRA can't tell that it is water or nitro or something else they just know that the specific gravity of the alcohol is wrong and you are DQ'd