Dry Ice in Methanol

Thanks Will I went out and bought a freezer big enough to hold 3 - 5 gallon jugs only paid $195 for it. I will be trying it out in a week, I have some jugs in it now to see how cold it gets them.

 

Cooling Methanol

All this reminds me of way back in the late 80's - early 90's, a certain TAD team from central CA & a TAFC team from WA that worked very closely together, they were doing the same thing sorta, kinda, secretly. If I remember correctly, if done "correctly" they saw temps below freezing....

Cheers!

 

great thread! I have been discussing this latley and found this!! Awesome!

 

This thread stopped suddenly.
Maybe it didn't go so well?????

 

Meth on ICE

As usual I end up in a mad thrash to get to the track and have not had time to test this theory. As soon as I test it out Ill post the results. (If Im still around)....lol

 

Getting Meth Too Cold ???

I began to wonder about something today and I went back & dug up this old thread to re-read. Here's a question that I have......... Is there a lower temperature threshold after which it becomes very hard to get the fuel (methanol) vaporized for decent combustion and performance? So, restated, is there a point at which the meth can be too cool? Not talking frosty October nights but rather assuming warm summer racing weather. Thanks.

 

When I first read the post I thought that the dry ice would freeze the methanol, so I looked it up. To my supprise the temperature of dry ice at 1 atm. is ~ -109*F and methanol freezes at ~ -144*F. It looks like great idea as long as you keep it away from your tank outlet and the tank vent can handle the extra gas. Joe

 

Dry Ice in Mehanol

For anybodies information.
I was the fuel guy on a IHRA ProFuel Dragster. 2010

The owner got a medical grade freezer to chill the fuel, IHRA has/had NO restrictions on fuel temperature and we were running 100% Nitro, like directly from the drum.

I made 4, 5.5 gallon fuel containers that we put two at a time in the freezer.
We could regulate how cold we got the fuel, often times I put 100% nitro at -20* F. directly into the fuel tank, 15 minutes before a run. Yes it was steaming from the -20* F and ambient at 90*F. I had to wear gloves to put the fuel in the tank, they were SO COLD.

The whole fuel system was VERY insulated. Upon return from a run, I would drain the fuel to get ready for the next pass, the temperature was often around +40-50* F.
We had to remachine the fuel shutoff, It FROZE OPEN once.
At the end of the year we ran ambient temperature fuel, it did NOT seem to make a difference in our car.
It should have but in our particular case it did not.

We were running 5.40-5.70's

Your Pal, Gary

 

We're far away from this kind of stuff, but I would think that you can change the ratio between top and port injection if the fuel is cold enough (= more air into engine). That could surely make a difference. Maybe some extra overlap on the cam to cool pistons and heads and you may be able to run it much hotter than ever.

Certainly a 'don't try this at home' if only because of cost if it goes wrong but a nice thought experiment.