Any of you Trilogy guys using Alky injection?

[Phil @ FLP]

I was just wondering if any of you guys with the trilogy kits have looked at using Alky injection kits? At our shop we dont really recommend using them but its a popular item in the C5 market with a magnacharger. We have seen about a 20 hp difference on the dyno(480 rwhp no alky vs 500 rwhp with alky), as the alky injection helps keep the IATs down some what. Ideally nitrous will do alot more for cooling but can only really be used at WOT. While the alky kits can be boost referenced so say your car sees 8 pounds of boost it will turn on the alky kit.

[blackf0rk]

Sounds interesting. Sounds expensive.. :)

[Phil @ FLP]

Depending on the vehicle a alky kit is $350 to $500. You can either use the windshield resevoir for the alky or put a metal tank under the hood. You can either used VP racing methenol which works the best or denatured alcohol that can be found in the paint section of most hardware stores for $15 a gallon. Im not sure how long the alky injection last though as I havent tried one for a extended period of time before you need to refill.

[txmarauder]

Unless you are running alot of boost 15+ i would not do it. You can make a diy kit for about 150 like i did for my non intercooled grand national. But the trilogy already has an i/c so i dont think it would be worth the trouble for such a little gain unless like i said you are running 15 psi or more and then you have to make sure you dont run out of alky in the middle of a run or you will grenade your motor. If you do alky you will have to figure out how to inject it after the s/c. Running alky or water or a combination does not really make hp but it does allow you to run more boost which makes more hp. If you just run alky it will help your octane level and knock retard. JMO

[Phil @ FLP]

Alky doesnt act as a octane booster it mearly cools the intake charge. So its really not intended to let you run more boost but more so to cool your intake charge more and allow the motor to make more horsepower. If you were to run out of alky the car wouldnt grenade it would simply be down on power because of the higher IATs. The last car we tested it on was a 9 psi non intercooled so I do agree a intercooled setup probably wont benefit from it as much.

[txmarauder]

Sorry to dispute you but you are wrong. Running alky will raise your octane a certian amount depending on which alky you run ie: denatured, iso, or alky water mix, or even meth. As far as alky lowering your iat you are right but the reason people run alky is to lower the iat which if you know about cool air it is denser than a hotter air which means cooler air takes up less space which in turn allows you to run more boost which makes more power. It has been proven in articles that there is no benifit to just lowering the iat from alky or water inj. alone because when you inject water or alky to cool the air it does so by cooling the air and creating a vapor in the process which itself takes up space and results in less cfm of cool air to enter the combustion chamber. I am not saying that cooler air does not make hp i am saying that cooler air from alky or water inj which creates a vapor to cool the air cancels out the gains in power. Do a search of alky and water inj and you will find that the people that do the injection now run a higher boost psi. And when you do run a higher psi with the cooling effects of alky or water inj and run out of alky or water while under boost your iat will skyrocket and the HEAT WILL cause detonation which will kill your motor. Running 9 psi you will not have to worry about that but anything above 15psi you will. Know i have not done alky on a vehicle with such low psi as 9 so i cant speek on the performance gains for that on the trilogy but i dont think that it would be worth doing on a trilogy just for 20 more hp, if it will do that much. Does anyone have the iat for a trilogy car under full stock pulley boost?

[txmarauder]

Give this a read. http://www.vortexbuicks-etc.com/ once on the site go to combinations then alcohol injection.

[Phil @ FLP]

Unless you are running straight methonal the largest added benefit of it from what I have seen here at our shop is lower IATS and hence more horsepower. While some people confuse it for raising the octane of the gas its really because they are combating IATs the car is less likely to have detonation.

If you read in the link you posted the writer says "Alcohol Injection works by reducing temperatures in the combustion chamber so that detonation risk is lowered and more boost may consequently be run. The cooler charge is also denser and denser is always better." No where in the article specifically does it say that it raises the octane rating. The writer does comment that the octane rating of alcohol is probably 101-103 but in the extremely small quantities used compared to gasoline in a engine I doubt it does much to raise the octane rating and the benefits people see is from the lower IATs.

As far as when to use and not to use Alky injection that isnt so much in relation to boost or PSI but rather what IATs the car is seeing we have had cars here at our shop that have run 4 psi with a 240+ degree IAT(powerdyne) and cars that make 22 psi and only have 90 degree IATs(custom F1 kit). Obviously the car with the 240+ degree IATs would benefit more even though it is making less boost.

[txmarauder]

This one is good to. http://www.bnecustoms.com/alcohol_injection.htm

[txmarauder]

That is why i posted the second one.

[txmarauder]

Dont get me wrong, i am not trying to have a pissing contest with you. I am just stating facts of alky on a high boost car. Until someone can give the iat of a trilogy car we wont know if alky would be any benefit at all. You must be in heaven being 22 and working at a shop that does work like that. That 4 psi with over 200 degrees sound kind of scary, my gn non intercooled running 12 psi only had 240 degrees without alky and the turbo is mounted right on top of the intake.

[Phil @ FLP]

This one is good to. http://www.bnecustoms.com/alcohol_injection.htmThat guy just posts that it raises the octane rating he doesnt back it up with any info so I find it hard to believe. I am baseing my point of view from what I have seen.


Dont get me wrong, i am not trying to have a pissing contest with you. I am just stating facts of alky on a high boost car. Until someone can give the iat of a trilogy car we wont know if alky would be any benefit at all. You must be in heaven being 22 and working at a shop that does work like that. That 4 psi with over 200 degrees sound kind of scary, my gn non intercooled running 12 psi only had 240 degrees without alky and the turbo is mounted right on top of the intake.No need to worry this isnt a pissing match we are sharing ideas that is what this and every car board is for. If I am wrong I am happy to be corrected nothing is worse than thinking you are right when you arent. I enjoy sharing my real world data to hopefully help others and help myself in the process.

With any OBDII scan tool you should be able to see what the IAT temperatures are on a Trilogy car, maybe Lidio can post up as he is the Trilogy expert.

The car with the 4 psi and 240 degree IATs had a garbage Powerdyne kit horribly ineffecient, on a 30 hp shot the car picked up 100 hp and the IATs dropped 100 degrees just goes to show how important IATs are. Our shop car is a low 7 second mustang , it uses a Air to water intercooler with ice water, if the IATs get over 60 degrees the car just doesnt perform. When your car is making nearly 2000 rwhp ever degree counts.

[mpearce]

my gn non intercooled running 12 psi only had 240 degrees without alky and the turbo is mounted right on top of the intake.
I find this topic interesting because ive heard about the GN/TType folks using Alcohol injection. I'd be curious to see what it would to with our MM's. Do you have an 84/85 hot air? We've got an 87 intercooled TType in the family. No alcohol though, just C16.

-Mat

[King Fubar]

:popcorn: I got to sit back and watch this

[QWK SVT]

Unless you are running alot of boost 15+ i would not do it. You can make a diy kit for about 150 like i did for my non intercooled grand national. But the trilogy already has an i/c so i dont think it would be worth the trouble for such a little gain unless like i said you are running 15 psi or more and then you have to make sure you dont run out of alky in the middle of a run or you will grenade your motor. If you do alky you will have to figure out how to inject it after the s/c. Running alky or water or a combination does not really make hp but it does allow you to run more boost which makes more hp. If you just run alky it will help your octane level and knock retard. JMO
Meaning race tunes, on pump gas... Safely adding more timing to your tune (provided you have enough alky to keep safe). I know a local Lightning owner that's going to try out Snow Performance's water/methanol injection kit, and see what it does... Should be interesting.:popcorn:

[Tallboy]

There's a guy who hangs out at the Bradenton Motorsports Park with a GN that has one of these systems. Guy runs 11.0 IIRC.

He got his here... www.alkycontrol.com (http://www.alkycontrol.com)

[SergntMac]

Sorry, gentlemen(hick), but the only "alky" I'm thinking about right now, is the 30 year old single(hick) malt Haggis is bringing to Barry's back yard this coming Saturday. WhooWhee, bay bee...

Carry(hick) on...

[txmarauder]

Yeah Julio, he is the alky control guy. His system is progressive in that he controls the output of his pump so it gradually increases the alky or water as boost climbs. His kit is the most popular seller on the buick forums.

Yeah i have a hot air 85 ttype wh1, i have about 85% of the diy alky kit installed, and about 90% of a front mount intercooler setup. But since i bought the trilogy i cant afford to finish the gn right now. But i will get it done sooner or later.

The hard part about alky injecting a roots blower is you need to inject after the s/c because you dont want to feed water or alky into the s/c because you will have problems compressing liquids and corroding metal parts. It would be real easy to do on a centrif. setup because you can tap into the t/b inlet tube as long as it is after the intercooler if you have one.

I just dont think alky inj. will do enough to the stock trilogy setup to bother with it.

Your shop has a car with 2000hp. and runs 7s you guys have waaaaaay toooooo much money anything faster than 10s usually requires 500-750 bucks to shave off and additional tenth of a sec.

I think our best bet would be to somehow get cooler air into the supercharger than trying to get cooler air out of it. I think the $ to hp ratio would be better.
Now the centrif guys running 13 plus psi would be better of doing the inj. than us trilogy guys, it will be an easier ,cheaper, and a better hp gain for them.

[stevengerard]

ooh, now you really got my attention. Any Web site you can recommend where us centrifugal folks can get some info on these kits

[merc406]

One of these would look good on the trilogy cars--http://www.ronsfuel.com/crower_hat.cfm Don't know about the other S/C applications theses people have. Their toilets work great tho, this 64 of Ed's uses one, check him out--http://mysite.verizon.net/res7gf4c/index.html

[Phil @ FLP]

The hard part about alky injecting a roots blower is you need to inject after the s/c because you dont want to feed water or alky into the s/c because you will have problems compressing liquids and corroding metal parts. It would be real easy to do on a centrif. setup because you can tap into the t/b inlet tube as long as it is after the intercooler if you have one.

I just dont think alky inj. will do enough to the stock trilogy setup to bother with it.See I would beg to differ since roots style setups are far less efficient then a centrifugal blower. Unfortunately the only way to use a alky setup is to spray it before the compressor, we havent done enough extensive testing to determine what the limit is what can be sprayed on a roots blower. With nitrous we have been successful in spraying up to 150 wet shot through a roots style blower on a C5 but havent done any testing on Cobras or Marauders.


Your shop has a car with 2000hp. and runs 7s you guys have waaaaaay toooooo much money anything faster than 10s usually requires 500-750 bucks to shave off and additional tenth of a sec.
Its a expensive car to operate its raced in the NMRA's Outlaw 10.5 class, 01 Mustang body, 388 ci small block ford, 101 mm turbo, 3100 pounds, 10.5" wide tire. All of it built, tested and tuned in house. At this level parts are extremely expensive and most are custom and take months to get. Click here for a video of last year we made a shake down pass. (http://66.98.247.186/shop/templates/information/flpracing/bradenton.mpg)

[BillyGman]

I can't help but to think that it would cause tuning issues, and for 20 extra HP, it just wouldn't be worth it to me. And if it will be used for street driving, then you would alwys have to be concerned if the tank is empty, because if it empties out on you, and you have the ignition timing advanced to take full advantage of it, and you hammer down on the go pedal, your engine might be history if it starts to ping bad enough. Detonation is the number one destroyer of supercharged engines.

I don't want to have to worry about keeping anything filled up ecept the gas tank. It's for that same reason why Nitrous oxide never appealed to me ( having to re-fill the bottle I mean). just my opinion.

[txmarauder]

I agree Billy.
I will post some sights tonight about diy kits with part#s and how to build them.

[Phil @ FLP]

I can't help but to think that it would cause tuning issues, and for 20 extra HP, it just wouldn't be worth it to me. And if it will be used for street driving, then you would alwys have to be concerned if the tank is empty, because if it empties out on you, and you have the ignition timing advanced to take full advantage of it, and you hammer down on the go pedal, your engine might be history if it starts to ping bad enough. Detonation is the number one destroyer of supercharged engines.

I don't want to have to worry about keeping anything filled up ecept the gas tank. It's for that same reason why Nitrous oxide never appealed to me ( having to re-fill the bottle I mean). just my opinion.Yes but your missing the point the 20 hp gain was seen with no timing or fueling changes to the PCM. Only using the alky injection, if it were to run out it would not cause any damage to the engine but rather the car would be down on power, so there is no chance of detonation. Also the 20 hp gain was done after we let the car cool down for a 1/2 hour before doing a dyno run. Imagine how effective it could be street driving or on a road course where there is no cool down time, this was also tested on a low 60 degree day, you would probably see even a greater advantage when it was in the 80s or 90s.

[BillyGman]

Yes but your missing the point the 20 hp gain was seen with no timing or fueling changes to the PCM. Only using the alky injection, if it were to run out it would not cause any damage to the engine but rather the car would be down on power, so there is no chance of detonation. Also the 20 hp gain was done after we let the car cool down for a 1/2 hour before doing a dyno run. Imagine how effective it could be street driving or on a road course where there is no cool down time, this was also tested on a low 60 degree day, you would probably see even a greater advantage when it was in the 80s or 90s.Okay, I see what you're saying. Thanks for the explanation. I guess it's worth investigating as long as you're going to use it w/out changing the timing settings IF it's going to net more than 20HP. But if 20 HP is all it would yield, then personaly I wouldn't bother. that isn't to say that it would be wrong to get that set-up though. I'm simply talking about my own preference. I guess my veiwpoint has something to do with the fact that even after my Marauder being supercharged for a little over one year now, I'm still completely satisfied with the acceleration and the power, and I
m not looking to change anything else on the car. Again, just my own opinion here.

But I still would suggest that people use caution about using such a set-up like what you're talking about IF it will be on a street driven car, and IF they're going to have the Air/fuel ratio changed, and/or the ignition timing setting changed to suit it (especially if they have a supercharged engine!). detonation ("pinging", "knocking") is an engine KILLER!!!

[txmarauder]

I personally would rather do a cold air intake or ram air for 15-20 hp then to spend 300 on a diy alky kit that will require removing the lower intake to plumb the alky nozzle. For you centrif. guys who run more boost the install would be easier and cheaper, here is the kit i put on my GN and it will work for you also. http://members.cox.net/stevemonroe/AlcoholInjMod.html You can get the pump from northern tool for 70 bucks or less.