I have a question that I ask some of our local drivers about the type fuel used for their Sprint cars? I was told that they use a Methanol Gas mixture never did get out of them the ratio of Methanol to gas. But I see the Iceman runs Ethanol? I guess my question is other than the products and the distilling what is the real difference between Ethanol & Methanol? Also does the Iceman run 100% Ethanol or is his a mixture as well? And is their any real advantage to which you use? Thanks!

P.S. Which is cheaper for the driver to use or is it a matter of convience? If so why not just get E85 from the local station?

One is for drinking and the other one is for racing. Sorry but that is the best I can do.

try http;//www.drivingethanol.org/motorsports/racing-fuel-characteristics

i've never heard series allowing a race gas /methanol mix,so I to would be interested as to the whys and wheres..anyone have any information?

It is my understanding that methanol is often made from wood and ethanol is made from corn, and other crops.

The links on Randys web page will lead you to the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council.

I would follow their links to ask them the question or email [email protected]

www.iceman24racing.com

I believe that Randy runs 70% ethanol 30% methanol, but don't quote me on it.

I know of NO sprint car tracks that allow gasoline in any % .

Thank you for the question.

Duane Davis,

www.iceman24racing.com

Save your butt, get a colon screening TODAY

For complete line of Sponsor Awards check out 
MarshallTownLaser.com

Duane Davis

Laser Engraving 
641-751-7777
101 N Center
Marshalltown, Iowa 

duane, i believe methanol is made from natural gas.

One of the pluses of methanol is that it's a cool running fuel.When you go to a sprint car race,and see the cars push off and start up in the pits,they are doing this to get heat in the motor.They start the car up,get to thier pit stall,and then lean the fuel mixture by closing off the shutoff valve until the engine starts to pick up rpm's,letting them know it's running leaner,which will make the engine warm up alot quicker.On the downside,if you let methanol dry out in the fuel system,it leaves a white chalky residue and will stick moving parts and clog injecter nozzles.The whole system really needs to be taken apart and cleaned after every weekends racing,a real pain.But what smells better than a sprint car burning methanol!

Yes I believe it is a by-product of natural gas production.

I believe you are thinking of ethyl alcohol. I wouldn't drink ethanol.

i do not know the difference between useing ethanol and methanol in racing fuel applications. i do not know of any sprint teams useing a gas/methanol fuel blend. when i raced go karts, i used a fuel blend of gas/methanol to gain a performance edge. i used light weight racing gas and added about 16oz of methanol to 1 gallon of gas and a couple oz of toulene (sp?) as a mixing agent. it worked great. it passed a hydrometer test as we were not sopposed to use any exotic fuels, but they checked specific gravity and the mixture was a way to beat the test. when i raced in the winter indoors i could use 100% methanol. i chose to use the same formula only in reverse. meaning 16oz of gas to 1 gal methanol. you see methanol does not like cold or damp conditions and the blend helped in the winter.

now, in my opinion the current ethanol fuel deal is one of the biggest farces being perpetuated on the american people. it takes almost as much fossil fuel to create an equal amount of ethanol fuel. in racing you have to use about twice as much methanol or ethanol as you would gas so your mileage is around half. i would say the same would be true for street use. here is a link to E85 vehicle info that show the difference in fuel mileage. that is something they don't tell you in those E85 commercials.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/the-consumer-guide-to-e85-vehicles2.htm

a little bit from that link

Fuel Efficiency

In the expense category, E85 ethanol users need to buy more fuel and fill up more often than they would using 100 percent gasoline. That's because E85 ethanol fuel contains less combustible energy as gasoline per unit of volume.

Overall, using E85 reduces fuel economy by about 20 percent. In other words, a tank of E85 ethanol will take you only about 80 percent as far as a tank of conventional gasoline. Running on conventional gas, the V6 Chevy Impala, for example, is rated at 21 mpg city/31 highway. Running on E85, the same Impala is rated at 15 mpg city/22 highway.

remenber, that is useing 85% ethanol. it gets worse if you use 100%.

while it is true teams lean out the engines by closing the fuel valve, they do it for another reason besides just heating the motor quicker. the fuel mixture on methanol has to be twice as rich as with gas. there is so much fuel being dumped into a sprint motor on idle that it can actually get past the rings and into the crankcase. if you let the motor idle too long full rich, you will load the oil with methanol, and that is not good!

There are much more efficient sources of ethanol than corn. Switchgrass and sugarcane are just two of them. The reason I would support ethanol is the fact that it is a renewable resource. Producing ethanol from corn doesn't make a lot of sense, but there are better options available.

no matter what you produce it from, it will still give you less mpg. also you will have to give up land that is used for food production to grow whatever you decide to make your ethanol from. me thinks, as well as others more educated than i, that we do not posess enough land to grow enough stuff to make ethanol to make a significant percentage of an impact on our fuel use. i am not against other fuels or ways to save on oil use or whatever. just pointing out to beware of the ethanol hype. it is not what some would have you believe. fossil fuel is a renewable source too. it is made from decomposing carbon forms. the thing is will it decompose fast enough for it to be used as fuel? same thing with the ethanol deal. can we grow enough stuff to make fuel faster than we can use it?

If you drink ethyl only, then I'm sorry you have just drank ethanol.

Ethyl Alcohol

All the sugarcane producers in the south are being subsidized by our government because they can't compete with foreign plantations. Hmmm, maybe instead of making us pay their salaries through taxes they could start producing ethanol, an industry they COULD be competitive. I don't really care how many mpg it gets, as long as it comes from a growable source. This could also potentially be cheaper than oil in the future as oil prices rise. I don't think ethanol is a permanent solution. But it would be a good way to relieve some of the burden on fossil fuels until hydrogen fuel cells really become viable.

Hemp

Hemp as fuel

Hemp produces 4 times as much biomass per acre as the nearest competitor. 1 acre of hemp can produce 1000 gallons of methanol. That is enough to drive 20,000 miles on a 20mpg small SUV or 50,000 miles using a hybrid car. The average household consumes 3.6 gallons of crude oil per day (import and domestic, all uses); this does not count coal but it does include most cars, trucks, buses, trains, portable generators, lawn mowers, fuel oil heaters, petroleum fired power plants. That number appears to include liquid natural gas as well as oil that becomes gasoline, diesel, fuel oil, motor oil, and plastic (yes, hemp can be converted into plastic). It does not include a billion tons/year of coal (which would be equivalent to about 1/3 more crude oil). So, approximately 1.3 acres per household would eliminate the need for petroleum products or 2.6 acres if you rotate with a nitrogen fixing crop which is then plowed under. There are around 100 million households. The US government pays farmers to not grow crops on 90 million acres of farmland. Another 500 million acres of marginal farmland is available. Hemp does not deplete the soil (except for a little nitrogen) and generally improves soil conditions. To avoid fertilizer use and qualify as organic, though, hemp should be rotated with a nitrogen fixing crop. Hemp does not require pesticides or herbicides. And unlike crop land that lies unused, in the event of a food shortage you can eat the hemp seeds. And hemp is fast growing so it can not only be planted after another crop is harvested, it may even increase next years yield of that crop. There is a lot of additional farm land, timber land, or ranch land (cows can eat hemp) that could be used. Not to mention back yards, railroad and utility right of ways, highway medians, etc. Biomass fuels do not contribute to global warming. The carbon dioxide produced by burning biomass comes from plants which in turn get their carbon out of the atmosphere. Hemp is said to grow in all 50 US states. About 40% of our oil use is produced domestically. Surprisingly, less than 15% seems to come from the Persian Gulf. Taken to the extreme, the US has a total land area of 3537438 square miles or 2.27 billion acres which, if you could devote it all to hemp could produce 2.27 trillion gallons of fuel every other year or 1.13 trillion gallons per year; that is about 8.6 times our annual consumption. So, about 12% of land area would be needed to replace petroleum. Since hemp grows at 4 times the rate of trees (assume it is probably 4 times as effective against greenhouse gases), it would presumably be OK from a greenhouse perspective to replace trees with hemp if you didn't burn it. For every 4 acres of trees you replaced with hemp, about 1 acre would presumably need to be set aside to offset the original anti-greenhouse effect of the trees. Of course, in the interest of biodiversity you may not want one species of plant dominating that much of the ecosystem. One of the cool things about biomass is that you can grow hemp and make it into paper (hemp is 5 times more productive per acre than trees when it comes to paper production), use the paper, and then recycle it into fuel. So timberland used for paper could be used for hemp. Wildlife would have to adapt a bit. And, of course, there are "negawatts"; Amory Lovins pointed out a while back that if the US replaced all light bulbs with compact fluorescents, we would go from a net energy importing nation to a net energy exporting nation. Hemp car........http://www.hempcar.org/

Kenny

Half the lies they tell about me aren't true. 

Fossil Fuel IS NOT a renewable source of energy. It is a fossil. It's really really old. Millions of years old. Renewable means it grows from sunlight or is like the wind or waves or water in a reservoir, it replaces itself. Once fossil fuels, such as crude oil and natural gas are taken from the ground and used, they are gone. Not renewable. Sorry, you're not smarter than a fifth grader.

How Was Oil Formed?

Oil was formed from the remains of animals and plants that lived millions of years ago in a marine (water) environment before the dinosaurs. Over the years, the remains were covered by layers of mud. Heat and pressure from these layers helped the remains turn into what we today call crude oil . The word "petroleum" means "rock oil" or "oil from the earth."

Half the lies they tell about me aren't true. 

Brazil gets 3/4 of it's transportation fuel from ethanol made from sugarcane They don't import foreign oil. Sugar is be a much better source of ethanol than corn because the sugar is concentrated much more. The refining process is much faster.

If hemp was a good source of anything then why doesn't't anyone grow it? I've heard people say miraculous things about hemp for years. None of the claims seem to have any truth to them. The only hemp of any value is Marijuana. But that's not an energy source.

Maybe because ignorance and misinformation and the powers that be have been a hinderance. SEE..

http://www.hemptrade.ca/index.php?lang=en and http://www.canhempco.com/canadian_hempco.html

Kenny

Half the lies they tell about me aren't true. 

The Model T was a flex-fuel vehicle. It could switch from gasoline to alcohol by turning a knob. Alcohol used to be produced by a lot of farmers for heating and lighting their homes and fueling their vehicles. Prohibition put an end to that thanks to lobbying efforts by Rockefeller and what became known as Big Oil.

Phil Taylor

home-theater-systems-advice.com