The dangers of methanol/water injection

While at Edenburg drag strip in southern Texas i talked to a guy running a 2011 challenger with a 5.7 hemi. He had a twin screw blower on it and an add on methanol/water injection system for keeping the engine out of detonation. After he made one pass i went over to see how he did. The injection system hadn't functioned, and the noise coming from the motor told me he had parts of a piston or two rattling around inside thier respective cylinders, after being broken off from detonation. I tried to convince this guy to get it trailered home but to no avail.
In our conversation he said he was trying straight methanol, and that may have been what caused the peoblem . Maybe a stuck valve in the injection kit. So keep in mind these injection kits aren't fool proof!
Oh, and as a side note, my 2019 Mustang GT with Mickeys on the back and an e85 tune went 11.52 at 121.45 at 200 da😀

In our conversation he said he was trying straight methanol, and that may have been what caused the peoblem . Maybe a stuck valve in the injection kit.
Hmmm .....wondering what could have cause a clog injector dirt or possible electric issue?

I would have a hard time trusting a supplemental fuel system like that.

If you have aftermarket EFI you can at least set safeties for things like AFR, Intake Temp, Fuel pressure etc. But when you are bandaging something on a stock system it doesn't know you are saving its tail with extra fuel and if that doesn't work it still goes full send and then boom, clatter, smoke.

The fact that he was running with straight methanol says a lot. I suspect the system may not have been set up correctly.

You need accessories
Green light for power to the pump
Low pressure switch at the block for fluid delivery (Harley oil pressure switch is 8 psi)
Red light for low fluid level

I don't trust them for many reasons. Even when working it's very crude and not likely to have even distrubution, some worse than others. Have had many angry customers over the years as I refuse to tune with it (alcohol/water injection systems)

I like the water on my little turbo 383, but i'm not running it on a ragged edge that if it failed the engine will blow. I do use the provided green light to know it's on.
drops 30-40* on the intake temp vs not running it. I could tune more timing in probably but I don't. The intake temp redux is enough to produce power.

I totally agree. Those 5.7 motors have very little tolerance for detonation due to high ring placement. A safety switch tied to a rev limiter would yave saved that motor. The fact that he chose to keep driving it tells me it says the whole motor is trash, if he even made it the thirty miles home.

Theres always risk but thats not that much different than running a wet nitrous system. You can add safety/fail safe switches, and your engine management can play a roll in it. But if something happens that prevents injecting the additional fuel you will have a problem.

You can pick up big power with it though on pump gas.

A few years back another guy did the same thing (and the same result) with a 392 charger that had a procharger on it. His solution? Remove the charger and trade in the car

The "fluid pressure" switch can light a 500 watt bulb on the dash, and kill the ignition.

Maybe install a stand alone knock detector/reader could be helpfull

Even if just as a back up, this is a good idea. Is there a simple detector available from the aftermarket?

I guess this could work. there some that are more Hitech

https://tunertools.com/collections/knock-detection/products/link-g4-knock-light

I have megasquirt on my 408, and it can read knock. I install 1 knock sensor on each side. It pick up before I can hear it and move automaticaly timing by a few degree in a secure zone.
Magasquirt can also tell me which cylinder is knocking.

I wonder what kind of ECM was he using? All modern engines have detonation sensors and the OEM ECM has the ability to retard the ignition timing. Something like a HP tuner should have allowed him to retard the ignition to keep the engine together. Just from my experience most companies that sell water injection recommend simple windshield washer fluid since it has a high alcohol content and will not corrode stuff like straight methanol. I have a procharged small block Chrysler and it uses a FiTech system on pump gas makes 6 lbs of boost. I use performance trends engine software, it will calculate an advance curve for different levels of boost and fuel types. I simply generated the advance curve and then when I was setting up the computer before start up inputted the calculated numbers, it worked perfect.

There is a ton of setup involved to get that right. From my understanding to read all the signals from the knock sensor you have to make it knock so you can tell what signals really are knock. Solid Valve Trains, piston slap, exhaust hitting the chassis, etc etc all that can cause false knock.

Yes knock sensors will pull timing but this is reactive for one.

So lets say you're spraying enough methanol to make a difference, first, not very likely you have even cylinder to cylinder distribution unless it's direct port (most aren't), especially on intake manifolds designed for dry flow.

Then many will lean out the main calibration so air/fuel ratio is correct when spraying meth. So in an instant of it failing not only do you not have the octane you need but now the engine is a point or 2 lean.

On something making a lot of power that is instant destruction under full load.

I saw him check his methanol tank. Not a bit was used during the run that killed his motor. He didn't say, but i figure the computor in use was a flashed stock Dodge unit

Maybe, but Megasquirt is on the nose for me.

I guess these little microphone( knock sensor detector) are set to hear a define range of frequency relate to knock. Other noise will be ignore.
Just like we do when we hear an engine knocking, pretty distinct sound.
These microphone simply hear it before it is loud enought for us to hear it, before any damage is done.

But it is another warning light, same as oil pressure, AFR, temperature, etc.

20 yrs ago AFR reader were not popular, now, most of us have one.
Technology made them affordable and reliable.
I see the same for knocking system.

My 408 is at 220PSI cold cylinder pressure, running on injected Propane. Knock is not far if propane has too much butane in it.
Another warning light to potentially save thousand $ of engine damage worth it for me.

The knock frequency in kHz can be estimated from the engine's bore size.

225,600 ÷ Bore (in inches)

225,600 ÷ 4 = 5.6 Hz, &c.

The sensor should cover your frequency (not the RPM) such as the Delphi AS10014: 5,500-6,400 Hz.