[chev4by]

hey, how are you all doing, im new here and got a few questions. I got an 81 chev short box lowered and im running a vortec 350 with a 268 cam bored with flat tops, it dynos at 375hp on gas, im running it on propane right now and it still moves pretty good, i was wondering how much more power would alcohol give me and how it works with propane? does alcohal give you better gas mileage? is it worth putting it on a street truck? does alcohol boost the octane up if you run gas? i guess i really just want a bit more power with better gas mileage so hopefully alcohal is what im looking for, but anyways thanks for help

[hotrodf1]

Hey,

Interesting combo there. The water/alcohol injection systems are usually most beneficial when at or near WOT. Just cruising around, it is not necessary (or probably desireable) to have water / alcohol spraying into your intake. It would cool the charge I suppose, but the mount of air going into the engine woudl be much less than at WOT. That being said, the ratio of water/alcohol to air/fuel would be such that the motor may not run very well. Moreover, you didn't say that your motor was boosted at all, so the incoming air would already be at ambient temp, so I'm not sure that trying to cool the air would be much benefit to you.

The only NA applications that benefit from water/alcohol injection to my knowledge are those with static compression ratios that are too great for WOT on pump gas (and then they have detonation problems from extremely high cylinder pressures). In that case, you could probably inject water / alcohol and get away with running pump gas on a 12:1 or better motor, that would normally be run on race gas. You didn't say what the compression ratio of your motor is.

As far as getting more mileage, I don't believe that water/alcohol injection is going to get you there by itself.

Working together with propane - I dunno what that would do. But, water/alcohol injection is not known for creating power by itself - what it allows is higher boost pressures, more timing (less retard anyway), to make more power under safer conditions (usually on a boosted motor, though the high compression motor could be an example as well).

The octane rating of the fuel overall would go up using gas plus the alcohol injection, especially if you injected straight methanol - but that's not really recommended due to extreme flammability, plus its a little harder to get a hold of. Just having higher octane fuel does not necessarily get you more power or more mileage - it just allows you to tune things perhaps more aggresively, which may yield some improvements depending on the engine combination.

Your motor sounds like it makes real good power already, maybe go forced induction if you want more. It really is the stuff. Throw a turbo or a centrifugal SC and have some fun - then you can definetely make use of water/alcohol injection.

The only way I know to get more power AND more gas mileage is with a turbocharged 4 or 6 cylinder, like you see in some of the newer cars. You get the gas mileage of the 4 cyl, plus the snort of a v-6 (or v-8 in some cases) when the boost hits.

[chev4by]

hey, thanks for the answers, by the way my compression ratio is 10.5:1 and i dont have any boost, the truck does make really good power even on propane and about the supercharger i was planning on getting one for my big block. I was just wondering about alcohol and water injection because its new to me, doesnt really sound like it is what i want at the moment but maybe sometime in the future. either way the trucks gonna burn fuel so i guess i have to live with that lol. Im going to look more into forced induction thou and see how that goes, i got a 400sb in the shop so im leaning on building a vortec 400 so we'll see how things go, thanks for help

[chevy1500z71]

why not get a blower? you can get a good deal on ebay on whipples and kene bells all the time. centrifigul blowers are cheep too but dont build the boost real quick like a screw or roots blower. screw is the best. so to answer your question i dont think methanol injection would do much for you because your not making any boost... get a blower and methanol injection.

you may want to check out Full-Size Chevy - Main Index if your looking for a good place to get some ideas on a few more performance items, there alot of information to be had on that website.

[chev4by]

hmm... well maybe one day i'll spend the money to get a blower and methonal injection for this small block, I am going to get a blower for sure on my 4x4 and try methonal injection on that, if i like the system i'll probably get one for my 2wd