Tuning Guide

[LIGHTSPD]

I am sorry I disagree with most of what you have said about tuning for watermeth. Water meth is not no matter how much companies like snow advertise even close to running race fuel. You always want to retune for watermeth or you are loosing major torque and hp. The average car with a good tune turn on the meth and you drop at least 40 whp maybe even more. Tuned for W/M will usually pick up a minimum of 30 plus ft/lbs or your pump gas tune.

The purpose of running 50/50 mixture is 2 fold first the only reason we run our engines below 13.5 at boost is to cool the combustion chamber. Essentially we are flooding the chamber with fuel to cool it actually quenching the flame front. Water has a heat latency 6 times that of fuel and Methanol 3 times. In otherwords what ever volume of W/M you are injecting you can safely remove 4 times that in fuel. The true purpose of watermeth is it actually allows you to lean the AFR to make more power while cooling the combustion chamber stopping "preignition" with the water. By adding the meth to the mixture you are adding octane which will help even more with preignition. Getting this factor undercontrol will allow you to add more timing getting closer to MBT.

I think the exact opposite in tuning I want to sneak up on my timing and AFR at the street boost and pump gas I want to run. This means that I am coming up to it testing as I go watching my torque making sure I am not going MBT. You will always loose torque if you start to det so that is a very safe way to come up to the max. After I have my base on pump I tune for my Meth. Slowly sneaking up on it in the same way. The idea of maxing out on race fuel and tuning backwards means you are actually having to guess how far back you go just seems backwards to me as well leaving no quantified means of being safe. Race fuel is a completely different animal anyone can tune on race fuel as you can usually go so far past MBT but still not be detonating. I see so many cars that make massive power by retarding the timing even though it hasn't detonated. I have seen 2 degrees make 60 whp difference on these engines by slowly going forward you avoid the serious issues that can occur yet find all your power. As for safeties on watermeth not working buy a good kit that watches flow too much or too little and it kicks to low boost or if you have a good ecu only goes into the meth tune when the flow sensor says everything is ok.

As for being too rich I am of the same op but you leave major power on the table flooding an engine with water without retuning. Yup only use coppers. Ethanol in small percentages won't case any issues but you run 65 or more and you will find all kinds of issues that need to be looked at.

Always remember no matter how stupid or dumb anyone does anything always blame the tuner cause it is always their fault.

Of course this is just my op

Cheers Cam

[NismoS-tune]

Your failsafe could fail, Murphy's Law rules.

You're Boost controller could fail= overboost= possible engine death
You could somehow bust an oil cooler line and lose pressure fast at a track
the list goes on. Everything can fail. You're running how fast on a stock gearbox that meant for maybe 500hp? Guys rip 3rd gear on stock power at timeS, That could fail.

Anyways, I totally agree with Cam on this one. I'm not car guru or have much experience which is why I went to him for tuning and water meth kit selection/install.

[Dragon Humper]

If you re-read my post you will see that I was talking about EXACTLY what the Water/Meth companies are talking about. Running a race gas tune with pump fuel and W/M.

I hear you about morons blaming the tuner for their stupidity, I repeat, YOU CAN'T BE A BOOB!!!!

I don't want to get into a huge tuning debate as everyone likes to do their own thing, I just want to put a diff. point of view out there to give people as much info as poss. to get a good handle on things if they are newbs.

IMO though, tuning on race fuel PROPERLY is manditory if you want to figure out what your package is capable of and what your ideal AFRs and timing curve is. Don't use a race fuel that is too diff. in nature to what you are going to run on the street (ie: don't use a leaded fuel or an oxygenated fuel if that's not what you run on the street). Tuned to deal with crap fuel is not properly tuned, only tuned to deal with non-ideal conditions. On that note though, if a tuner is going WAY past the point of MBT with ign. timing just because he can on race fuel, he should not be tuning anything, that's idiotic. Working backwards from there is quite simple, don't mess with the ign. timing, just reduce the boost to the lowest level that the controler can command. Crank up the boost 'till you get det. on pump, back off a bit. There's your street tune without meth. Have the Meth turn on .1 bar under your street tune boost limit then let her go to the max boost on race fuel. I would fatten up the fuel curve a touch to give you a safety factor if the W/M fails. Will you leave power on the table? Yes. Will you survive a W/M screwup in summer heat? A better chance of it for sure.

Would I be not so timid if I was tuning for the track (dragstrip), you bet your bippy. I would run her right to the ragged edge on Meth. Why? Because before every run you check EVERYTHING to make sure you have your sh!t together. Would you do that in a street car everytime you drive it? Most people would not.

The more aggressive ign. timing from race fuel will make the car much more fun to drive on the street, that's what I did and it made a HUGE diff. in drivability on a 2.2L Dodge motor, stock turbo. Got even more aggressive with the Japanese tune off boost in my GTR and it also made a world of diff. What I think is giong on though is people are bringing in the Water/Meth too early and with too much flow and drowning out the motor before it has a chance to "get up on the tune". You don't need it untill you need it, follow me.

I ran the 2.2L Dodge motor at 20psi with 24 deg. of timing at 11.5afr with NO intercooler, just W/M. I fattened that up to 10.5afr to run 18psi without W/M but didn't like the black smoke and crap. I could, however, run 20psi with Q16 fuel at 11.5afr. Would I lean that out a bit more with the W/M to get more power, hell no. The W/M EFFed up on me a couple of times and I rattled the sh!t out of the motor, the cast Mahle factory pistons held up just fine. Would it have survived if I had leaned it out a bit more? Most likely not.

Honestly though, if you burn a motor down you had some serious stuff going wrong. I have hammered the hell out of alot of diff. engine designs in 20 years and have only had one fatal failure (and no, it wasn't the Dodge 2.2). I am running my RB26 with a 12.0 AFR, 32 deg. of timing and 22psi on only pump 94, granted it was -3deg. C outside at the time, would I do that in the 30deg. heat of the summer? Not a freaking chance, not without W/M, and even then I would fatten it up a touch to make sure the motor would survive a W/M system malfunction. For now I'll stick with my witches brew of Toulene and Methanol in the gas tank.




Jon.