Track Results with Water/Methanol

Just got back from the track tonight. This was probably the last time I'll have the opportunity go in the car's current configuration, and I wanted to see exactly what kind of gain I'd get from the AIS Meth kit I installed a few weeks ago.

The setup:
-COMPLETELY full street trim. Left the street tires on, and didn't take anything out of the car. Still had my books and lunchbox from school today in the trunk, haha.
-AIS meth kit with single 7 GPH (440 ml/min) nozzle (way too big). I was using windshield washer fluid, which is 30% methanol and 70% water.
-I adjusted the tune the best I could with my SCT programmer. I was able to add 4 degrees of timing before I heard any detonation. I also leaned out the WOT AFR as much as I could with the programmer. With the meth, it was still 10.2-10.5.
-1500 feet DA at a VERY slow track. New 5.0s were only trapping 105-106, and everyone I talked to said their trap speeds and ETs were down 4-5 mph and .3-.4 seconds from what they normally run. The track had problems with the timing system early in the night, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if it wasn't calibrated correctly. I know that my speedo indicated over 110 on every one of my runs, but my best trap was only 106.

I randomly picked if I ran the meth or not on a particular run, but I made sure that I had at least a couple of runs of each type with a good cool-down, and a couple of hot-lap runs.

The best run without the meth was a 13.44 @ 103.2 mph. The best run with the meth was a 13.21 @ 106.1 mph. Both runs had a 60' of 2.01. On average, I trapped 2.4 mph faster with the methanol! Considering the weight of my car (probably 3700+ tonight), I'd estimate that that's at least 25 rwhp, which I think is very impressive with no dyno tune.

To say that I'm happy is an understatement!

Winters98GT said:

Congrats, Will! That is good to hear and about what I expected. I picked up 5mph with 100% M1 in a good DA, so with that mix and a bad DA, it should be right on. The HP is nice, but the torque curve on meth setups is awesome on blower cars.

I apologize for not getting back to you on that PM. I will figure out the details you asked, talk to my tuner and see what he says.

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Yea, the torque is what I really notice the most! I actually gained less than 1 mph in the 1/8. The torque increase with the converter locked in 3rd gear is where I really notice the gain. I'm pretty sure tuning/excessively rich AFRs with the converter unlocked is the main reason for that on my setup.

It's all good about the PM. I had actually forgotten about it till you mentioned it. And the day after I sent it, I called the AIS guy and talked to him about it for a while. After that conversation, I sided with my tuner. The AIS guy said that with one 7 GPH nozzle (what I currently have): my car would run fine with no tuning changes, there would be less than a .5 drop in the AFR, I wouldn't notice anything in the way of cooler IATs. (His argument was that 7 GPH was nowhere near enough; he insisted that I needed 14 GPH at the least. ) Meanwhile, I've experienced the exact opposite: my car will not run at WOT unless I pull some fuel out, my AFR is dropping nearly a point even after I pull all the fuel out I can with the SCT programmer, and I recorded via a laser temperature finder a 100 degree drop in the surface temp of the blower.

Like I said, I sided with my tuner and bought one 2 GPH and one 3 GPH nozzle. They are supposed to be here next week. I'll be contacting AIS when it's all said and done about returning my two 7 GPH nozzles.

d98gt said:

That is a nice improvement for not accounting for it in the tune!

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Definitely. I knew that it was a measureable amount because I could DEFINITELY feel the difference when playing around in the street. I didn't really expect that much, though.

Dark04GT said:

Nice gains. I can't wait for things to cool down a little more here in NC and hopefully you run on a quicker night so you can really experience a difference in times.

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Oh, I LOVE some cool October/November nights at the track. That, in combination with some college football and the fall peanut/cotton harvest, makes for my favorite time of the year by far.

I suspect that the next time I go to the track, there will be a REALLY big difference in my times, regardless of the weather.

What part of NC are you from? If you are from the area and interested in going, I'll include you on the PM list that I send out sometimes when we head down to the track.