Methanol injection: cure-all, or cancer?

[powertrip]

Most people also run 50% meth/50% water which decreases the corrosional properties of straight meth .

Originally Posted by tazam3

Its not like the meth is going to be sitting in your motor and it also depends on how much you spray. The motor burns up gas very quickly (especially a high performance motor), it will also use up the meth quite quickly.

[tazam3]

Originally Posted by powertrip

Most people also run 50% meth/50% water which decreases the corrosional properties of straight meth .

True, that works too if someone is really worried about corrosion.

[tightie]

Originally Posted by tazam3

Its not like the meth is going to be sitting in your motor and it also depends on how much you spray. The motor burns up gas very quickly (especially a high performance motor), it will also use up the meth quite quickly.

Exactly, when you use the smallest nozzle, it evaporates before it gets into the motor.

[e.n335]

So Meth is a good thing thus we minimize the known downsides ? Discussable and to be discussed. Back to the drawing table with our SC kit .

The S65 engine has a distance of 0.98cm between the cylinders, the block is flow-formed aluminium ( Nikasil ). Here boost up to 7.5 PSI is applied. A 335i block ( aluminium as well ) has iron sleeves and the stock boost is 8 PSI. Thus the compression ratio is higher on the S65 as well, I wonder why the cylinder walls don't break in case of major detonations. Meth is a great band-aid here. Only applying 3-4 PSI boost could also be an approach until we know how good the engines last.

More data about oil- and coolant temps to be considered.

[tazam3]

I should be receiving some VERY good information from extremely professional sources about this topic shortly.

[MspiredM3]

There are hundreds of thousands of cars that run meth without issue. EVO's, WRX's, SRT-4's, ect. ect.; they all love meth! There are HPF kits running meth with nearly 40k miles on them, and these kits are running 100% pure meth and for the stage 2.5 cars, the meth is even being used as a fuel source! (If I recall correctly, somewhere around 20% of the fuel is coming from meth!) If a motor is going to corrode or have any issues from the use of meth like it is being claimed here, a HPF stage 2.5 car would be more likely than any other car that I know of, and we have yet to see of ANY such thing!

I agree that a car that is tuned to rely on meth can be dangerous, unless there are fail safes in place. But, if the correct fail safes are in place, there is nothing to worry about. There are fail safes that can open wastegates or blow off valves in order to reduce boost levels in the case that meth flows under a certain threshold. Some can retard timing as well.

Adding meth to a car that isn't tuned for it, can only help (unless too much meth is being injected, causing the car to run too rich). It will reduce IAT's immensely and can increase octane; (octane increase can vary greatly depending on mixture and the amount of meth being used) both of these things are key items that produce more power and consistency.

The only thing I can not comment on are the claims about the meth interfering with the new generation ion knock sensing technology. However, by the looks of what has been done so far by Sticky and DLSJ5, it doesn't look that there is anything to worry about. I am waiting and hoping to see some concrete info and data about this subject.

[Sales@Evolve]

Hi Guys,

seems like everyone has now finished posting and scrutizing so I think it's now a good time to post.

Most people can quite clearly see where I am coming from on this one.

I have already explained that methanol has an effect on the ion knock control system. Member 'Lemans M Blue' has posted information already from which you should be able to understand why the problem is caused. If you cannot understand from that post then there is nothing I can post up to make you understand.

Now, I am going to make my statement again and this time I am not going to assume that anyone has read anything else I've written.

- Using Methanol on an engine which is not tuned to use methanol will cause the knock detection system to not work properly and therefore will lead to problems with the S65 engine. Not the S54, the S65.

Again.... the keywords used are NOT TUNED FOR METHANOL.

And I'll say something else again - those of you who are planning to use methanol on the S65 (not the S54 or S50...the S65) with supercharger kits WITHOUT it first having the ECU tuned to take this into account - your motors will most likely encounter major issues.

Some members would like to know why methanol has this effect on the ion knock detection system.
Ok, when you understand what Lemans has written about then I will.
To be honest, I would have had the attitude of some members been a little more positive. I sense some members will go blue in the face to prove something wrong no matter how much logic or proof I am prepared to give. Therefore, I do not see the point of posting such an explanation if it's just going to create a scenario of going round and round in circles. The more evidence I give, the less people may understand, the more likely it is that statements will be taken out of context and the whole thing is a waste of time for me to write and for people to read.

Moving on.

If you are using methanol and the tune has been calibrated to do so then you should be fine.

So, the key area is the TUNE.

I do not take what anyone here has said out of context or just picked up on a single line and based my responses on that. I would appreciate if that is not done to me. I don't think that's too much to ask from a group of adults is it?

[tazam3]

Still waiting on some information that is very knowledgeable about this topic, much more so then all of us.

One thing i want to add again is that since meth effects the KD due to different burn characteristics, wouldn't any other gasoline do so as well? If other gas octanes and gas companies have different burn rated gasoline wouldnt that also adversely effect the KD? So in essence, if you use a different fuel (different then the one the factory used to tune) your motor will blow up?

[tazam3]

Originally Posted by Sal@Evolve

Hi Guys,

seems like everyone has now finished posting and scrutizing so I think it's now a good time to post.

Most people can quite clearly see where I am coming from on this one.

I have already explained that methanol has an effect on the ion knock control system. Member 'Lemans M Blue' has posted information already from which you should be able to understand why the problem is caused. If you cannot understand from that post then there is nothing I can post up to make you understand.

Now, I am going to make my statement again and this time I am not going to assume that anyone has read anything else I've written.

- Using Methanol on an engine which is not tuned to use methanol will cause the knock detection system to not work properly and therefore will lead to problems with the S65 engine. Not the S54, the S65.

Again.... the keywords used are NOT TUNED FOR METHANOL.

And I'll say something else again - those of you who are planning to use methanol on the S65 (not the S54 or S50...the S65) with supercharger kits WITHOUT it first having the ECU tuned to take this into account - your motors will most likely encounter major issues.

Some members would like to know why methanol has this effect on the ion knock detection system.
Ok, when you understand what Lemans has written about then I will.
To be honest, I would have had the attitude of some members been a little more positive. I sense some members will go blue in the face to prove something wrong no matter how much logic or proof I am prepared to give. Therefore, I do not see the point of posting such an explanation if it's just going to create a scenario of going round and round in circles. The more evidence I give, the less people may understand, the more likely it is that statements will be taken out of context and the whole thing is a waste of time for me to write and for people to read.

Moving on.

If you are using methanol and the tune has been calibrated to do so then you should be fine.

So, the key area is the TUNE.

I do not take what anyone here has said out of context or just picked up on a single line and based my responses on that. I would appreciate if that is not done to me. I don't think that's too much to ask from a group of adults is it?

Although i think your are quite intelligent, you speak as if you are better then everyone else (just like 'Lemans Blue'). That type of stuff is bothersome. Some people are also knowledgeable here as well.

Although i disagree with this subject, i am waiting to hear some official information. I still do not see ANY TYPE of facts or proof of methanol causing a S65 to blow up. You stated your theories but nothing more. Where is the data for your theory?

Ive also heard from the owners of the Gpower cars who themselves don't agree with your theory...

[MspiredM3]

Originally Posted by Sal@Evolve

Hi Guys,

seems like everyone has now finished posting and scrutizing so I think it's now a good time to post.

Most people can quite clearly see where I am coming from on this one.

I have already explained that methanol has an effect on the ion knock control system. Member 'Lemans M Blue' has posted information already from which you should be able to understand why the problem is caused. If you cannot understand from that post then there is nothing I can post up to make you understand.

Now, I am going to make my statement again and this time I am not going to assume that anyone has read anything else I've written.

- Using Methanol on an engine which is not tuned to use methanol will cause the knock detection system to not work properly and therefore will lead to problems with the S65 engine. Not the S54, the S65.

Again.... the keywords used are NOT TUNED FOR METHANOL.

And I'll say something else again - those of you who are planning to use methanol on the S65 (not the S54 or S50...the S65) with supercharger kits WITHOUT it first having the ECU tuned to take this into account - your motors will most likely encounter major issues.

Some members would like to know why methanol has this effect on the ion knock detection system.
Ok, when you understand what Lemans has written about then I will.
To be honest, I would have had the attitude of some members been a little more positive. I sense some members will go blue in the face to prove something wrong no matter how much logic or proof I am prepared to give. Therefore, I do not see the point of posting such an explanation if it's just going to create a scenario of going round and round in circles. The more evidence I give, the less people may understand, the more likely it is that statements will be taken out of context and the whole thing is a waste of time for me to write and for people to read.

Moving on.

If you are using methanol and the tune has been calibrated to do so then you should be fine.

So, the key area is the TUNE.

I do not take what anyone here has said out of context or just picked up on a single line and based my responses on that. I would appreciate if that is not done to me. I don't think that's too much to ask from a group of adults is it?

You see Sal, that is what a lot of us are having an issue with; you guys are making extremely bold claims, yet are providing us with absolutely no proof or data.

Have you or LBM ever used meth on ANY car? Ever tested it on the s65? No someone that has tested it on the s65?

Please provide some proof, you even say you have it above...

Originally Posted by PencilGeek

Like Sal, now that the emotion has cooled down in this thread, I feel like it might be time to add a few of my own contributions. There's some things I strongly agree with Mike (below) and some things I disagree.



+1 I agree. From a design point of view, let me explain what such a fail safe would look like.

Some type of external ECU would need to communicate with the meth unit and the waste gate. If the meth runs out, or if the voltage is removed from the meth unit, then the external ECU would open the waste gate. But what if the external ECU has power disconnected? Then the waste gate needs to have its own independent ECU on a separate power source as the meth ECU. The meth ECU would need to send a heartbeat to the wastegate ECU. A heartbeat is something we call it in the computer industry -- a signal that is sent on a periodic basis. If the heartbeat is lost, then the wastegate ECU will know the meth ECU has been disconnected. At that point, the wastegate ECU would open the wastegate valve on its own.

The above design is the only real failsafe that you could have for a meth system on a motor like ours -- that is unless there were wastegates whose natural state is "always-open" and use the electronic signal to close them. That would be an alternate design that would be just as safe.



Mike, I've got to strongly disagree with you on that. If the meth DOES interfere with the ION knock sensor, then obvious adverse effects can occur if the car isn't tuned for it.



"Success" can be measured in many different ways. I don't think success can be measured by one car which has virtually no miles or time on it. Building the kit may be a success, but true success can only be measured by putting tens of thousands of miles on scores if not hundreds of cars.

Robert, I wouldn't really use the term ECU do describe a meth fail safe kit, that makes it sound much more complicated than it really is. An ECU is an ENGINE management system lol

There can be 'what if's' with nearly anything in the world. If you want to live and worry about all the 'what if's' out there, well then, you shouldn't be messing with FI in the first place. I mean, what it the the blow off valve malfunctions and doesn't relieve boost? Or what if a part of the power to the pump on the FI cooling system fails?

The meth fail safes are pretty simple, it's a little box that measures the flow of meth running threw it, if that flow falls below X amount, it can open your blow off valve, reducing boost, hence putting your car into "limp mode". This system can also illuminate a LED in the cabin to let the owner know of the issue.

There are fail safes that are much more intricate than the above as well, such that HPF uses, but that requires a standalone or piggy back type of ECU. These are able to completely switch the tune map to one that is either uses less boosts (turbo cars), cuts timing, injects more fuel, or all of the above.

Yes, both cars (Drew's and Sticky's) haven't been driven thousands and thousands of miles yet, but from the claims that are being made about meth, they don't need to in order to prove it wrong.

LBM and Sal are claiming that if you run meth on a car that is not tuned for it, the motor will blow. Well, if the motor was going to blow from the use of meth, that would happen within a very very short period of time, not over the course of long term use.

[DLSJ5]

Originally Posted by PencilGeek

Mike, I've got to strongly disagree with you on that. If the meth DOES interfere with the ION knock sensor, then obvious adverse effects can occur if the car isn't tuned for it.

Like what "obvious" effects? All Meth does is increase the octane level, which SLOWS the burn. It is a knock suppressant, even if it disrupts the KD, what exactly will it do to cause "adverse" effects? Will it magically make the car go lean? Does it increase the timing so much that the motor will blow?

Originally Posted by PencilGeek

"Success" can be measured in many different ways. I don't think success can be measured by one car which has virtually no miles or time on it. Building the kit may be a success, but true success can only be measured by putting tens of thousands of miles on scores if not hundreds of cars.

Right, and "failures" can be measured by the same standards, not just by one car.

[DLSJ5]

Originally Posted by PencilGeek

Drew...COME ON! Please look at the comments I was referring to -- because that's the context of my response. It's really annoying to have to spell this stuff out in such an elementary manner. But in case I do: ADVERSE EFFECTS == altering the way the ION knock sensor system works.

Robert, my apologies if my question came off sharply, judging by your response here it did, lol, I only asked for specifics about what would blow the motor if the KD failed and Meth was still being used.

Originally Posted by PencilGeek

Look up "MTBF" and if you understand it, you'll know why what you say is completely wrong. By your standard, then 499 blown motors on 500 cars is a success.

Let me clarify what I meant, IMHO one car running meth that failed does not mean that Meth caused it and that the inevitable will happen on other cars, and no amount of semantics can change that Sal claimed it did and will happen again if you run Meth.

Another thing as far as I know the Meth went on that car the same time the bigger blower did and he only ran it for a few days,
IMHO they are placing the blame in the wrong direction, HOWEVER they did man up and pay for the rebuild costs, I have a lot of respect for them for doing that, and the hardware on the kit is fantastic and it looks like the tuning from Sal and others is dialed in, from what I've seen they are very fast as well.

[DLSJ5]

Originally Posted by PencilGeek

In a PM to me, Southlight brought up a question to me that hasn't been discussed in this thread. I believe many mid-west US gasolines have up to 10% ethanol additives. I'm not sure if the mid west gases still do this...but if they do, then what happens to a supercharger kit on it? I'm sure BMW tested on these mid-west gasolines with the ion knock sensors.

South also asked me if I believed Tightie's motor was blown by the meth -- and Drew asked me the same thing in a text message (and asked me to post my opinion). No, I don't believe the meth injection played a role in Josh's motor blowing -- I personally believe it blew for other reasons -- whether it was the ECU tuning or the bigger compressor Josh installed -- or both.

Excellent points about ethanol, and I concur with you that the motor blew for other reasons.

[Kyoshi71]

Originally Posted by PencilGeek

South also asked me if I believed Tightie's motor was blown by the meth -- and Drew asked me the same thing in a text message (and asked me to post my opinion). No, I don't believe the meth injection played a role in Josh's motor blowing -- I personally believe it blew for other reasons -- whether it was the ECU tuning or the bigger compressor Josh installed -- or both.

If I may opine...in such a specific discussion, it would be important to outline exactly how the motor blew. A blown motor is too general a statement. What actually happened? If you know that, then you can better pinpoint whether meth may have played a role or not.

[tightie]

Originally Posted by PencilGeek

South also asked me if I believed Tightie's motor was blown by the meth -- and Drew asked me the same thing in a text message (and asked me to post my opinion). No, I don't believe the meth injection played a role in Josh's motor blowing -- I personally believe it blew for other reasons -- whether it was the ECU tuning or the bigger compressor Josh installed -- or both.

+ 1

I would love to tell my full side of the story but I think way too many people would be upset and I'm sure some people wouldn't be too happy if I posted up some emails on how the situation was handled.

[shaunt]

mo money mo problems

[King Tut]

Very interesting thread. I enjoyed reading the majority of it.

[biglare]

Originally Posted by King Tut

Very interesting thread. I enjoyed reading the majority of it.

+1

[DLSJ5]

Originally Posted by spdu4ea

To the BMW tuners -- does the S65 knock detection system work by calculating the peak pressure point, or does it just compare the knock current/voltage against tabulated values?

Anyone?

[southlight]

Originally Posted by PencilGeek

In a PM to me, Southlight brought up a question to me that hasn't been discussed in this thread. I believe many mid-west US gasolines have up to 10% ethanol additives. I'm not sure if the mid west gases still do this...but if they do, then what happens to a supercharger kit on it? I'm sure BMW tested on these mid-west gasolines with the ion knock sensors.

South also asked me if I believed Tightie's motor was blown by the meth -- and Drew asked me the same thing in a text message (and asked me to post my opinion). No, I don't believe the meth injection played a role in Josh's motor blowing -- I personally believe it blew for other reasons -- whether it was the ECU tuning or the bigger compressor Josh installed -- or both.

I got curious about this because I remembered the following BMW press release back from 2008. The background to this was an EU regulation planning to introduce a mandatory 10% ethanol addition to all gasoline fuel with a RON of less than 98. After some more consideration BMW came up with this:

Even wider range of BMW Group cars eligible to use biogenic fuel.
29.01.2008 | Press Release

Munich. BMW models built as of 1998 have recently been announced as E10 compatible. Now further considerations have confirmed that E10 can be used even in all earlier BMW, as long as Premium Plus fuel is not required as mandatory by the owners manual. Furthermore, E10 can be used in all MINI models since the relaunch of the brand in 2000 and all Rolls-Royce motor cars as of 2003, the year the current Phantom model was launched.

E10 is the name for a new fuel mixture of 10% ethanol and 90% gasoline that is expected to be legalised by the German Government in 2008 for regular and premium fuel.

Also the new B7 diesel fuel (diesel with 7 per cent rape methyl ester) can be used in all BMW diesels ever built - with or without a particulates filter
fitted as standard - as well as with a retrofitted BMW filter. The same applies to all MINI Diesel models produced since 2000.

Given this, the vast majority of all BMW Group customers will not experience any changes when the new fuels are introduced. Rather E10 and B7 lead to another welcome reduction of CO2 emissions. This is because the biogenic share in fuels bound CO2 when they grew up as a plant.

"The use of fuels with a sensibly limited share of biogenic substances in our cars is very important to us. This is indeed a substantial element of our global BMW EfficientDynamics development strategy to reduce CO2 emissions without forefeiting that dynamic performance so typical of BMW. Which means, quite simply, that we are able to offer the best of both worlds. states Dr. Klaus Draeger, BMW Board Member for Development.

Fuels with an even larger share of biogenic substances such as E85 or pure bio-diesel would limit usability in practice to very few cars.

Furthermore, a larger shares of biogenic substances in these first generation alternative fuels would further tension the existing global competition between the production of food and fuels. Only second generation bio-fuels - which are currently not available in large quantities - will offer further opportunities here. Hence, the use of E85 or pure bio-diesel in BMW engines is not planned and the current engines would not be able to run on such fuels.

BMW advocates the use of alternative fuels since they help to reduce the general dependence of mankind on carbon-based sources of energy such as oil and gas.

These enable BMW to continue producing its cars as environmentally as possible until CO2-free vehicles, such as BMW Hydrogen cars, become available on a broader scale.

Best regards,
south

[DLSJ5]

Originally Posted by Kyoshi71

If I may opine...in such a specific discussion, it wold be important to outline exactly how the motor blew. A blown motor is too general a statement. What actually happened. If you know that, then you can better pinpoint whether meth may have played a role or not.

+1, well said.

[mikewads]

Originally Posted by tightie

+ 1

I would love to tell my full side of the story but I think way too many people would be upset and I'm sure some people wouldn't be too happy if I posted up some emails on how the situation was handled.

I'm interested in knowing why your motor blew.
I can't see things getting much worse than it already is.