Alky fuel ?

[Steve Johnson]

Anyone still use Nitro? anyone willing to educate a mod guy on the finer points?

[David Weaver]

Nitro

....my only suggestion is to have plenty of spare pistons while you are on the "learning curve" .

Is Nitro on APBA's list of banned ingredients or ingredients to be banned from racing fuel? I know that UIM does not allow Nitro in the "O" classes.

[Bill Huson]

Nitro . . .

is a liquid at atmospheric pressure. Therefore Nitro should be legal for PRO engines.

Mix ratio? DO NOT use model airplane fuel nitro mix ratios! Way to much smoke for a PRO engine. I'm sure some alky person can give you a hint, and David's hint is an excellent one - have plenty of spare pistons

[T Chance]

I tried "Nitro X" (20%) brand racing fuel in the '60's. Set up engine as advised by fuel maker and then after blowing up 3 A Konig's in a row I used it up in my lawnmower. I will have to say that the little Briggs and Stratton was then able to mow down small trees.

Bill Tenney used to use up to 60% in his Anzani's.

[Dave M]

Ask Harrison

Kay used to use it...... smoking fast for the first two heats, but seemed like they kept adding more nitro each heat and you could almost count on seeing him not finishing the final heat.

Some advice I got recently from a pro engine builder, the engines of yester year are no where close to the modern marvels of today. The engines are already so far advanced that adding Nitro does little to improve performance and dramaticall decreases reliability. My advice, if you do try it, try it in very small percentages until you smoke a piston, then back up two notches. I would work in 2% - 5% ratios to begin with to find that smoke point.

I think it might be on the ban list for APBA now though, so you would be testing for no reason if indeed it is.

[Steve Johnson]

Thanks

Thanks, I'll get myself back to chem 101 over the winter.
I'm using this season to do as much homework/ Research as possible.

Now I'm sure this is a dumb ? But.... can you do your testing without and still add to suit on race day and expect your Prop work to be valid?( I fully expect to jet on race day) where on the race course does nitro deliver it's performance gain?

[hydroplay]

Tim will probably agree with this. I used to drive Bill Collins A Quincy stuff- almost two seasons before I got drafted. He ran a mixture of alky, nitro, propylene oxide and some water and maybe something to add blending. In all those heats, I never made it back to the pits with the motor running as good as when they released me at the begining. And more often than not, I'd get towed in. We were really good at changing pistons with only one heat in between- and that was with point ignition that had to be reset because of the mounting plate needed to be removed. I can't tell you how many trips I made down to the Quincy trailer for a 2.160 piston and ring. Gene East yelled at me once that we should get 6 at a time instead of just one or two. Ross Gibson's B stuff ran plain alky/castor and usually ran fine.

Nitro is sensitive to heat and temperature. Two cycles have more residual exhaust than 4 cycles. I was just the driver but we ruined lots of parts.

[bh/]

We used to call nitro methane 'liquid supercharging', because it carries along its own oxygen to burn with, unlike gas which requires air,.. lots of it, to burn.
You need about 15 pounds of air to burn 1 pound of gasoline, whereas you need only 2 pounds of air to burn 1 pound of nitromethane. This means that, compared to gasoline,[C8H18] you can pump about 8 times more nitromethane[CH3NO2] into a cylinder of a given volume and still get complete combustion. Most alkys of the '60s would tolerate 5-10% of nitro added to the methanol, IF the timing were retarded, and the carb richened. How much was the trick. 15% or more requires specially built motors with much less cc's than we run with gas, [lower CR], the same as if u supercharged a four cycle.
The power increase comes right across the curve,
so if one was really 'tipping the can', ie; 10% or more, a bigger prop would work best. Cooling becomes a big issue, as does corrosion. I do not think it is a legal APBA fuel,
today, for many good environmental and health issues, and why bother, if we can all use it, then we are all back at the same point, but with more headaches.

[Jeff Lytle]

I used to run 20% in a B Konig. This engine did not have sliding pipes, and the notro got me out of the corners just as fast as an engine w/pipes that could slide. I eventually blew that engine to smithereenes! I had called Scott Smith to get prices on a sliding pipe system the month before, but decided to keep burning the nitro anyways.

In later years, with newer engine designs, I found that a simple alky / castor (or Klotz) mix was as fast as I had to be to be competitive (Unless running against Dan Kirts )

Nitro fueled engines had to be flushed after racing with a regular fuel mix too, as leaving it in was hard on bearings and crank journals.

In hindsight, I sure wish I still had that B, and I'm sure the nitromethane fuel mix had alot to do with its demise.

I used to run.......Per 5 imperial gallons:

40oz. benzine
44 oz. castor oil
160 oz nitromethane
balance methanol.

[T Chance]

There is also nitrobenzine. You can tell when someone is running it because it smells like shoepolish. And Sam, yeah wasn't it a trip running for Ross and Bill. Going out of town but in a day or two I'll put a post about an experience with Bill and fuel at Alex.

[fred tyson]

nitro

we tried in years ago in our konigs, but after tretarding timing, richening jets, loosening cc;s in the heads it was a wash, found out easiest thing was to run the normal setup, besides it lasted longer.