|
Arndt,
This is one of those open ended, never
ending discussions, but I will throw in
my 2 bucks worth of opinion.
Cooling? No question that it helps, and
if your engines are air-cooled I would
think that would be a benefit.
Sometimes it is hard with alcohol to
get the engine warmed up and that is where
a lot of alcohol gets wasted and also
contaminates the oil. Some racers will
warm up with gasoline and then switch
over to alcohol for the race.
Horsepower? Alcohol creates more torque
and horsepower naturally follows. How
much? This depends on too many factors,
but as a crude rule of thumb the average
racer could reduce their lap time by at
least a tenth of a second. In my world
that would be a huge gain!
It will be argued that an alcohol system
will not see much of a gain, if any, over
a really, really, fine-tuned gasoline
system, BUT if you get anything at all,
is it not a gain?
ADVERTISEMENT
 |
|
Besides,
how many of us can take an engine that
close to the perfection tuned point lap
after lap without computers doing the
tuning decisions? I suspect in all of
motor sports, only a F1 car has this capability.
Longer life via the cooling factor? Perhaps,
but I doubt it. It takes X amount of cylinder
pressure to make X amount of torque and
HP. Therefore, you could tune the alcohol
to exactly where you are now using gasoline
and the cylinder wear would be the same.
Most racers use alcohol in the quest for
more torque/hosepower (cyl psi) so the
wear rate, although small, should increase.
Personally, I have not seen any changes
in wear rates between gas and alcohol.
I just do not see this as a concern in
a racing engine anyway. The harder you
tune/run it and the longer you run it,
the more wear will show up regardless
of fuel. It is the price one pays for
horsepower and winning. Alcohol will certainly
help contain overheating and it is very
forgiving, tune-up wise, when the weather
changes during the course of a race.
If I have a choice I would always go
with methanol or ethanol as a fuel, if
for no other reason than that I have found
that it is easier to come up with the
money for a barrel of the much cheaper
alcohol than it is to buy a barrel of
the over priced racing gasoline.
Have a safe race.
Dave Koehler
|
