can you mix nitromethane with race gas

i was talking to a guy and he asked me if this is possible .i have no idea i`m sure someone on here knows.the stuff he was talking about is for model airplanes and is it the real deal

 

Gasoline and nitro= Oil and water. Thay dont mix.

 

You tipacal only mix Nitromethane with Menthanol. Here is some good info to read on it. Nitromethane is a fuel that is used in racing, particularly in drag racing, to provide more power. When you hear the term "nitro-burning funny car" or "top-fuel dragster", that means that the engine burns nitromethane. Model aircraft fuel contains from 0% to 65% nitromethane.

Nitromethane's chemical formula is CH3NO2. For comparison, gasoline is typically C8H18. The oxygen in nitromethane's molecular structure means that nitromethane does not need as much atmospheric oxygen to burn -- part of the oxygen needed to burn nitromethane is carried in the fuel itself.

You need 14.6 kilograms of air to burn a kilogram of gasoline, and only 1.7 kilograms of air for the same amount of nitromethane to burn. A cylinder can only hold so much air on each stroke, and with that amount of air you can burn 8.7 times more nitromethane than gasoline. By pumping in 8.7 times as much nitromethane per stroke, you get about 2.4 times more power per stroke. Gasoline provides 18,000 BTU/pound (42 MJ/kg). Nitromethane provides 5,000 BTU/pound (12 MJ/kg). [1] The amount of nitromethane also provides some cooling, making the charge a bit denser and increasing power.

The flamefront does not move as quickly in nitromethane as it does in gasoline, meaning that there is not enough time to burn all the nitromethane in the cylinder when the engine is running at high RPM. When the exhaust valve opens, burning nitromethane flows out through the exhaust pipe. That is why Funny Cars and dragsters "spit fire" from their exhaust pipes.

 

Thats a good bit of info. thanks.

 

Good info !

 

Do a search on the " Surfers " .. I think they used Benzine ???? .... not something I would suggest a novice try

 

Well, not really, unless you are cheating at drag racing.
We use to put a few ounce's of nitro in to the oil pan Back in the early 70s, before they started checking the oil in the sump. During your burnout the nitro in the oil would start to gas, and would be pulled in to the carb's by engine vacuum, from the valve covers.
It was worth a ten or two!

 

What? Explain this please.

 

A couple years ago we used to try to get into some quick 8 races and where always where getting bumped out. We mixed about 10 percent nitro with menthanol and few orther little adjustments, man you can feel it in the seat of you pants. It pick the car up a whole tenth and added about 50 horsepower. The down side is it's a quick fix to go quick and you start blowing out head gaskets, cranks,etc. The stuff not cheap...back in the mid 90's I think I was paying 40 to 50 gallon for the cheap stuff.

 

TF & T/FC cars are started on gasoline (that's what is typically used in the squirt cans that are sprayed into the ejector). You can hear the engine tone change after the gasoline burns and the engine begins running on nitro.

 

Since fuel and blending are the question,below is a link you might find useful.
Acetone,if anything,is prolly what is needed to blend gasoline and Nitro.
http://www.turbofast.com.au/racefuel.html

 

You are right that is because the Nitro is hard to start on and does not burn as fast, so you can have high cylinder pressure with out predetonation. That is what the hole game is about with HP.

Same as using 110 or 114 octane or Alcohol so you can run high comp with no predetonation.

 

Nitromethane will not mix with gasoline, dont ask me me about the chemistry on this, I am a mechanic not a chemist. If you are running gasoline and want that extra kick from a nitro product add some nitropropane #2, 25% max otherwise nasty things happen in a very short amount of time. When adding nitropropane #2 you will need to increase the main jet size and retard the ignition timing a few degrees. You DO NOT want to run a gas/nitropropane#2 mix lean or into pre-ignition/detonation, EVER, ring lands, piston skirts and tops, valve heads and seats. wrist pins and rod bearings, head gaskets, as well as head and block castings all disappear in short order if you dont get the mixture and tuning right.
Also notice that I said nitropropane #2, you dont want to use nitropropane #1 because it is not a fuel, it is a cleaner used for cleaning guns, a**** other things.

 

not exactly true. Go ask ANY crew chief on an injected Nitro car and they will tell you that racing with nitro is nothing but controlled detonation.

 

If you're serious about a power additive for gasoline, you might Google Propylene Oxide. BUT, I think it is illegal for all forms of drag racing and is real nasty stuff.
Larry T

 

WRONG!!!! They are started on Methanol then switched to nitro. If you pour nitro into a gl*** jar with gasoline, you will watch it sink to the bottom. We used to spike our rented golf carts at the track with a couple of quarts of nitro to get that oh so yummy smell coming out of the tail pipe. Generally nitro is cut down with methanol, hence using it for start up.

 

I'm given to understand Fuel cars are fired on gas or alchy because Nitro will not light from a spark below 95 deg. and therefore they will not start on 100%(98%) so some preheat in the combustion chambers is required in order for them to run on can alone.
The thing about running a car on injected can being "controlled detonation" is kind of a misnomer.
A fully warmed engine on can will "Diesel" because Nitro becomes shock sensitive at over 100 psi and 100deg. (this is also why the only way to shut down a high %age fuel engine is to take away the fuel) so the idea is to control the burn by lighting the mixture before it has a chance to squeeze "fluid" into a pocket that will "Detonate". This is tantamount to fighting fire with fire LOL,like burning land in front of a forest fire to fight it.
The way this is accomplished is by using a bad *** mag that will force a spark across a wide gap in an "under pressure,wet environment" to control when it is lit as the ground electrode has usually been consumed by 1/2 track or so.
Back in the late 70's a friend of mine,who shall remain nameless,and I used to screw around with running a Pinto on NitoPropane aquired at a local paint factory. Jetting up and some timing experimentation yeilded enough grunt from the 2000 cc engine to outrun most average Camaros and the like. We got more than 1 suprised look.LOL

 

Nitropropane for gas
http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/nitropropane_power_adder_additive/index.html

 

WRONG!!!! They are started on Methanol then switched to nitro. If you pour nitro into a gl*** jar with gasoline, you will watch it sink to the bottom. We used to spike our rented golf carts at the track with a couple of quarts of nitro to get that oh so yummy smell coming out of the tail pipe. Generally nitro is cut down with methanol, hence using it for start up.

It isn't sitting in a tank with the nitro. It's squirted into the ejector and is a very small amount. Certainly there is some of each fuel going into the cylinders together but it's not enough to worry about. There may be some who uese a mix of methanol but it not an absolute for everyone.<!-- / message -->

 

Give me a brake man sure you are going to have detonation on a T/F 8000 HP engine that is way they only last one run and have to be inspected!

 

And a Methanol engine can be a bi-ch to start some time's so you dump a cap full of gas in the carb and let it roll.

 

You are correct, it is not in a tank connected to the fuel system. Methanol is squirted directly into the blower hat with a squirt bottle. I used a ketchup bottle ripped off from the local A&W when we lost ours in Topeka. It took a couple good squirts, about half the bottle to light ours off.

 

No,He was just this genius type I went to highshcool with,who worked in a paint factory.

 

The question was: can you mix nitromethane with gasoline? The answer is: No. you have to have some sort of binder to adhere one substance to the other.

 

Some expensive leasons can be learned running nitro. Some local circletrack guys running a cl*** using race gas dabbled in it. Blew up a few good race engines too.

Controlled detonation it a perfect explaination. That is the main reason for the aluminum rods.

 

Well I don't know what Top Fuel cars are started by people here on this board but every one I ever have worked on has been started on GAS! Then one pump turned on to bring in the nitro.

They can be started on chicken juice but what more of a pain in the ***.

I was baiting a little. Technically true you cannot "blend" gas and nitro together and have it stay in one true mixed blended forever state. But you can keep it mixing in the shall we say holding area and then send it down the fuel line to the injector or fuel feed system. (Don't ask me how I would know. I would have never ever done anything like this).

And yes you need to o-ring the block and heads to get a good seal and you will cause damage if you do not know what you are doing. Hell you'll cause damage even though you do know what you are doing. LOL.

 

I had a brain fart, and parked my truck in the pits at Fomosa a couple years ago. Wild Bill Alexander was in the next row with his blown pontiac, and he had a set of pipes that aimed straight out. He would clear out several pits when he started up!

Anyway, my poor truck has been shedding paint, and all I have left is splotchy primer on the right side Anyway, nitromethane is a really good solvent...

 

nitro....

With over 3,000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on overdrive ratio, the fuel is compressed to a near-solid form before ignition occurs.

Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock at full throttle

At the stoichiometric (stoichiometry: methodology and technology by which quan***ies of reactants and products in chemical reactions are determined) 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture for nitro methane, the cylinder flame front temperature reaches
7,050 deg F.

Nitro methane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above the exhaust stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, dis***ociated from atmospheric water vapor by the searing exhaust gases.

Dual magnetos supply 44 amps to each spark plug. This is the output of an arc welder in each cylinder.

Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a &#188; mile run. After the 1/8 mile, the engine is dieseling from the heat of compression, plus the glow of exhaust valves at 1,400 deg F. The engine can only be shut down by cutting off the fuel supply

If a spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds up in the affected cylinders with enough force and pressure to blow the cylinder heads off the block in pieces or split the engine block in half.

Top Fuel engines turn approximately 540 complete revolutions from light to light. Including the burnout, the engine has to survive about 900 revolutions under this intense load.

 

i really did not think it would work i just had to ask. my friend is always full of what if`s and would this work. he`s tells me he`s already done it and thinks i`m falling for it. i`m not f%&king up my race motor. thanks guys