bought a meth kit

I have a similar question? I am most likely going to be running a Vortech V1 kit. In the future if I plan on adding a meth kit is it safe to run it before getting re tuned? Will you see any gains without the meth tune?

That kit will work fine, what size nozzle did it come with? You will see gains but to truly take advantage of what the meth can do you'll need a tune so they can play with the timing.

Ok maybe I've seen to many episodes of Breaking Bad but the first thing I thought when I saw the title was don't blow up the RV.

been doin research but i want to hear from people that are running it. what do you guys think about the meth kits

To know what the gains will be, you have to know where the power gains of methanol come from. It doesn't exactly come from "cooler" air. It comes from the fact that you can run more TIMING with cooler air. The methanol-cooled air itself adds exactly 0 horsepower. But the gains from 10+ more degrees of timing.....well....that can be a lot.

Therefore, the gains will depend on the location of your IAT sensor and your current tune. If your IAT sensor is located before the blower, the tune will not/can not add any timing because it isn't seeing a noticeable difference in the IAT temperatures, and you will see little or no gains. As for the tune, if it's a VERY conservative tune that doesn't add much timing even with MUCH cooler temps, you won't see much difference either.

To be effective, the IAT sensor MUST be located on the boost side of the blower and well after the methanol injection point. I honestly am not sure what you'd do on a FMIC car. If you had the IAT sensor after the intercooler, there wouldn't be a large delta temperature with and without meth for the tune to base timing on; but if it was pre-intercooler, the computer wouldn't know that the car was intercooled, and you'd lose a lot of power when not spraying meth. I suppose the ideal situation is to have a IAT sensor before and after the intercooler, but I'm not sure if that's even possible. Maybe someone with more knowledge about this can chime in.

Then, the tune must be designed in a way that is 100% safe with no methanol (i.e. maximum possible temperatures and corresponding timing curves), and add timing as the temps come down from those base-line (maximum) temperatures. The AFR should be set to a safe level (11.0-12.0 depending on the setup) without any methanol. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. ONCE THE AIR/FUEL RATIO IS CORRECT WITHOUT METHANOL, DO NOT ADJUST IT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. When you spray methanol, the AFR will show pretty rich. However, this is misleading as the stoichemetric ratio of methanol is lower than gasoline, so it actually comes down very little. If you adjust the AFR so that it shows correctly WITH methanol, then it's going to go VERY lean if the methanol doesn't spray. This is where the horror stories of methanol come in, and how I lost a motor as well. BUT, when done correctly, there is a 0% chance of things going wrong, because if there is no methanol, the tune behaves as it would with no methanol (which should be done rather conservatively).

Now this increase in timing from the methanol can be done aggressively or conservatively. For someone with a blower at 10 psi with an intercooler, you're probably around 14-16 degrees of timing currently. With the methanol, you can have it increase timing rapidly with small decreases in temperature up to a higher total timing (24-26 degrees is very possible), or you can have it increase the timing slowly with larger decreases in temperature to a more moderate max timing (18-19 degrees). Or you can go anywhere in-between.

On my car (Eaton blower, non intercooled, 8-9 psi with PI heads and blower cams), I have two tunes, a street and race. On both tunes, without any methanol, it was tuned to a safe 11.8-12.0 AFR across the board.

On the street tune, the max timing is around 18 degrees, which sounds like a lot (because it is), BUT, it will only put in that much timing if the IAT is 130 degrees or less (i.e. I'm putting the meth to it). As the temps go up, the tune pulls timing pretty quick, around 1 degree of timing per 10 degrees of temperature; at 230 degree IATs (which happens easily in the summer with no meth), the timing winds up around 11 degrees max, which is very safe.

On my race tune, the max timing is at 24 degrees. Similar to the street tune, it will only add this much timing if the temps are 110 or less, which really only happens at the track after a meth-saturated burnout or multiple pulls on the street. To get back to a safe level, it REALLY pulls timing as the temps go up over 140. As with the street tune, it's back to very safe timing levels by 180 degrees or so.

Someone asked about the power gains. I can tell ya, going from 11 degrees of timing to 24 on a blown car is a lot like a slow-occuring shot of nitrous. When I spray it on a really hot, heat-soaked motor, my car feels like a turbo car as it starts adding in the timing. When I spray on a cool motor that will already have the timing added in....well.... there's normally black marks left on the road. As far as an actual documented gain, I showed very little gains on the dyno, around 20 horsepower. BUT, I have recorded a 7+ mph gain in the 1/4 multiple times now, which equates to at least 70 rwhp. (Keep in mind this is a non-intercooled blower).

Oh, one last thing. Don't be afraid to hit it with a LOT of methanol. I was told by Snow, Devil's Own, several 'knowledgeable' tuners in my area, and several others on various forums that I needed a 3-5 gallon per hour nozzle for my setup. Well, a few guys on the TCCoA and a rep from AIS stood me down that I needed MUCH more than that. Well...after taking the long way around and being stubborn, I found they the TCCoA guys were all spot on the money. I'm spraying mine with 14 GPH all the time, which looks like a metric crap ton (and it is), but I have documented that that's what runs the best at the track.


Wow, that reply was longer than I anticipated. I hope I haven't confused anyone, and feel free to ask any questions about it.

Will great reply!

You are using a ton of Meth!

sneaky98gt said:

To be effective, the IAT sensor MUST be located on the boost side of the blower and well after the methanol injection point.

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Great post. My only question is regarding the statement above. In terms of using the tune as a safety net, wouldn't a person want the IAT sensor right after the injection point? This way, as soon as the methanol stops injecting, the sensor immediately sees the spike in air temperature and the computer can being to curtail timing. I've typically read that most methanol injection companies suggest moving the IAT sensor from the lower intake runner to just before the throttle body where the methanol is injected.

Rick 91GT said:

Will great reply!

You are using a ton of Meth!

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Thanks! I've certainly learned a LOT about methanol over the last 6 months, especially about how to tune it correctly. Hopefully my experiences with it can help others avoid some of the headaches I've had along the way with it.

And yes, it is a TON of meth, haha. Like I said, I simply did not agree with AIS and the TCCoA guys when they said to hit it with 14+ GPH. So I bought 3 extra nozzles (the used kit I bought had 2 7 GPH nozzles) because I thought the 7 GPHs were way too much. Well....anything less than 5 GPH barely even reduced the IATs on my ole' Heaton (<25 degrees). 7 GPH just does begin to bring it down some (~50 degrees). 14 GPH is what it took to get it down to the near ambient temps. 14 will get it down to just a few degrees over ambient on my setup. The added advantage to the extra meth is that that's that much more octane that you can take advantage of. So far, all the tuning we've done really only accounts for the decrease in temps. The extra octane is just an added safety benefit.

Oh, and because of the way my tunes are setup, I do 95% of my driving with the meth kit completely off. The car is still plenty fast. When I'm reasonable, I use less than 4 gallons of 25/75 meth/water a month.

RacEoHolic330 said:

Great post. My only question is regarding the statement above. In terms of using the tune as a safety net, wouldn't a person want the IAT sensor right after the injection point? This way, as soon as the methanol stops injecting, the sensor immediately sees the spike in air temperature and the computer can being to curtail timing. I've typically read that most methanol injection companies suggest moving the IAT sensor from the lower intake runner to just before the throttle body where the methanol is injected.

Click to expand...

I see your point, and I agree. I wasn't completely clear with that statement. I said "well after the meth injection point". What I was getting at was that you didn't want the meth spraying so close to the sensor that it didn't accurately read the drop in the temps. You want at least some distance for the meth to spread over the entire intake manifold/tube and absorb as much heat as possible so that the temperature that the sensor reads is relatively uniform throughout. I would think that 6ish inches between the sensor and nozzle would be sufficient.

Yeah the key is keeping it far enough away to not cause any spray pattern issues and let atomize correctly....roots type blowers are also different then a centrifugal or turbo setup.

I've never had to spray that much Meth to see the temp drops, but most of the time these setups are intercooled. People get scared off when they read the horror stories about it spraying too much or not at all, one reason I like the Snow Safeinjection...piece of mind.

Good stuff. Thanks for the clarification.

You want the IAT on the boost side with or without meth. I know the 03-04 cobras have one before and after the eaton. I dont know why before tho.