gm maf, can it take the heat???

[91-gsx]

hi, i have an idea to remove my intercooler, that is why this question is here. if i put the gm maf in the tubing right after the air leaves the turbo, where the air is very hot, do you think the maf can handle this heat?
thanks for the help

 

[GVR4592]

Why would you want to remove your intercooler? Unless you have some way to cool the intake charge then you are going to have some serious detonation problems.

 

[91-gsx]

it will be cooled through the injection of either water or methanol, preferably methanol if i can find the damn stuff... so anybody know if it can take the heat or not? please do not go off topic, i asked a straight forward question.

 

[91-gsx]

anybody at all know if it can or cannot take the heat from a turbo???

 

[95blackGsTurbo]

It probably can take it but why? You would want it as close the to throttle body after the BOV as possible to get the most accurate reading possible. Putting it right after the turbo might be ok until you get a boost leak somewhere after it and it runs like crap. And I would not recommend using injection unless you are Shep. and making like 1000+ hp. There would be very little use on the street and you would have to use the injection almost nonstop to keep the air cool. I can't justify doing that unless it's stricktly a strip car.

 

[91-gsx]

why would i eliminate the intercooler? well lets see, longer tubing, pressure drop even if it is a efficient intercooler and properly matched(there will always be a pressure drop), really fast spool not for my 14b but a really big turbo that you could normally not run. the methanol also cools the air a whole lot better then the intercooler. you can have a progressive controller that kicks in at lets say 6psi, and carries through until you need it to. think about it this way, our small turbos give off a lot of heat when pushed hard(higher psi), we can all agree with this... now remember that Shepherd and a lot of fast drag cars, (yes i said drag cars but if done right it can be used on the street), use methanol as there only intercooler and as we all know they run insane amounts of boost. its obvious that if you have a reliable and properly setup system you could run without an intercooler and all that tubing, extra weight... true it will take more work, but i might find something that nobody else has found out, like maybe i can run a really big turbo that would usually lag too much to enjoy. maybe, either way i like to try new things, i do have a front mount and will keep it until i figure out what i want to do. another thing might be that i would not have to launch at as high of an rpm, so maybe i can get my drivetrain to last longer, there are a lot of advantages and only one disadvantage, not everybody does it.
later

 

[talonkev]

I have methanol injection and it works really well, but i will agree with most other people that methanol injection is not a replacement for an intercooler.

 

[1stGenRocks]

regardless of whether it can take the heat or whether you can run without an intercooler you should mount the maf near the throttle body so the air is slightly cooler and you get a more accurate reading. i think you need to put it before the meth sprayer though since the meth/alcohol will probably corrode the sensor

 

[91-gsx]

i would prefer to leave the maf where i have it but it will not matter where i put it in the piping because the methanol injection has to be after it. i do not want methanol to touch the sensor, because that will definitely not give the right readings. either way the maf will read very hot air and then right after it the methanol injection will cool the air. my question is not about the methanol injection and whether or not people agree with what i am doing, i just wanted to know if the maf would melt or anything due to the extreme conditions of straight hot air, really hot air. and actually methanol injection is great to use with the an intercooler, but you could replace it with methanol injection and i will tell you why, but answer this question for me:

alonkev I have methanol injection and it works really well, but i will agree with most other people that methanol injection is not a replacement for an intercooler.

ok, what size fuel injectors are you using, what size methanol injector are you using, and what mix do you use, or is it just straight methanol? i can show you what you can do to really get a lot out of your just straight methanol if it is straight.

talk to you guys later

 

[91-gsx]

here is a little something i found, he has the same idea that i do. might be of some interest to you all and it is only 2 pages long.
http://www.syty.net/forums/showthread.php?t=8368
later

 

[larsrya8]

You have many threads on this subject (as well as why your car doesn't run right, but I'll ignore that) so I don't really want to read them all. My question is if you plan to run this on the street. The reason I ask is because the reason Shep and the others use methanol is because there probably isn't a large enough intercooler to cool their setup, or at least as much as they'd like. Also, eliminating the intercooler probably helps them save weight.

The thing is, if your nozzles clog up or melt (from the heat), your motor will not survive "huge boost" with absolutely no intercooling. The knock on pump gas would be rediculous. But if your intercooler somehow damages itself, your motor is much safer (at least from the turbo).

Another issue is cost. The cost of the injection system is rather substantial. Also, methanol is cheap in some areas and expensive in others. If you plan to run it on the street you will either have to stay off boost completely, or you'll need to fill the methanol tank whenever you fill up with gas... maybe even more often, which would get expensive fast. With the cost of the equipment and the methanol, you'd wonder why you didn't just get an intercooler and be done with it.

Intercooler pressure drop is not that bad.. 1-2 psi usually, 3 at the most. That's how the intercooler cools the air; it slows it down a tad to let it transfer more heat to the core. A short route piping setup wouldn't have much more lag over a straight setup. Besides, the lag of a big turbo is much more dependant on its size than the piping length.

...there are a lot of advantages and only one disadvantage...

There are few advantages and many disadvantages. Cost and reliability are issues. Another issue is that you must constantly fill the methanol resevior because of how much more methanol you'd need to use (compared to a person using it to supplement their IC). There are many other issues that would need to be addressed before this would be a feasible solution on a daily driver.

If you want to keep pursuing this, go ahead. I'm sure there are several people on this board that are reading with interest. I don't want to crush your dreams, just add a dose of reality. In my opinion, though, I would suggest you spend more of your effort trying to get your car running properly. But you know (as does everyone else) what they say about opinions...

Either way, Good Luck!

 

[91-gsx]

larsrya8 i am currently in the process of figuring out what the problem with my car is, it seems to be a o2 sensor problem or some sort of sensor that is causing me to dump in way to much fuel, and still read an o2 voltage of .76 at redline. but that is not the issue at hand. the reason i wanted to do this because it would really be nice have no intercooler at all, even though i do have one with short route tubing. less maintenance and way easier to detect boost leaks as well as saving weight. but that is not the main thing i want, when you run as much methanol through an injection system as you want, you are almost making the car run closer to 100% methanol, as we all know the fastest cars are the straight methanol drag cars. other then nitro... the purpose of this is to get back that extra 2-3psi of pressure drop and then some. if you run straight alcohol an no intercooler, you are basically defeating the purpose of the intercooler, you can inject so much alcohol into an engine that the temps could actually drop below ambient, this cannot be done with a intercooler. the only reason i would ever keep the intercooler on is for insurance, but there are many things that you can do to make the injection system very reliable. senors and such... i understand that the turbo is what causes most of the lag, but i have some real world experience with intercooler tubing and its length. i had the same intercooler as i do now, but with longer tubing, sure there was less lag then the stock intercooler, but after i just shortened the tubing the turbo spooled up a lot faster. if you remove the tubing and intercooler you will also get more power due to the flow, an intercooler is a wall in the intake tract no matter how high flow it is. another thing discussed is the consumption of methanol, but here is my theory. there are a lot of people running over 10psi of boost without intercoolers on less efficient turbos. so i can have the turn on point of my system be something around 10psi maybe more. 10psi is more then enough to get around for me. the thing i do not like to do is the tried and true, its just the way i am and the way i will continue to be. i highly respect it though. thanks for the good luck wish, and hopefully i can come up with something new for all of us, because that is what racing is all about, new and undiscovered things, but this has been discovered, just not implemented on dsms except john shepherd, damn his car is fast...
later

 

[larsrya8]

Just curious... what size turbo do you plan on running?

 

[JiggahMan]

How do you consider filling up a methanol tank every time you get gas, LESS maintenance than sticking an IC on, doing a boost leak test (which you still have to do with meth injection), and scraping off a few bugs every once in a while.

 

[jetdriven]

this is all a moot point regarding the GM MAF. it reads air by heating a wire and then measuring the amp draw required to keep the wire hot. Cooler air or warmer air but a larger volume the amp draw iis the same. thats why it measures the mass not just the volume. If you are putting 300 degree air into the gm maf it wont read properly.

 

[91-gsx]

this is all a moot point regarding the GM MAF. it reads air by heating a wire and then measuring the amp draw required to keep the wire hot. Cooler air or warmer air but a larger volume the amp draw iis the same. thats why it measures the mass not just the volume. If you are putting 300 degree air into the gm maf it wont read properly.

damn, so i would basically have to run it in the draw through position. , not what i wanted to hear, thanks for the info but anybody else have some experience with this. in a lot of ways having it read that really hot air would mean thati had to up everything even more once the air was colder, like timing and fuel mixture because the car would probably think that the car is actaully going to injest really hot air. everybody here is telling me not to do this because of the cost of methanol, and i agree, methanol is not cheap when i find it and i cannot even get it around here so far. found some sort of lab that sold it for $30 dollars a gallon.... but the idea that i first had with this method was just straight water or winshield wiper fluid, or smurf piss. water would be very cheap but i could not use as much of it. but then i started really thinking about it, when you turn up the boost and the water that you are supplying is nolonger enough what can i do? well just add more water, remember i will not be using one of the kits that has one turn on point, i have found a website that sells a progressive controller in the kit all for about $300, a really good deal when you consider the ones that just turn on do not control flow they simply are all open or all closed. anyway, i think water would also be a very nice alternative becuase it is so easy to come by.

Just curious... what size turbo do you plan on running?

14b powered for now, but i want to run something more substantial later. made a HX40 holset turbo. you are probably thinking, why dont i just run the fmic and the water injection? well if my trials fall through, meaning i cannot feel a difference or the car is near impossible to tune, i will simply switch back to my intercooler and use the water injection. this is simply a test, the way i think of it is why the hell not try, of course i must be careful not to blow the engine, but leave that worry up to me. now have one opinion on the subject of the maf not being able to run due to the high heat, anybody else?
later

 

[talon_boy69]

Well..I think that Shep and every other guy that runs straight meth is because they can't make more power out of c16...(1000 hp on c16 is a lot). Well...Meth has more energy on it(or something like that) and you can make more power out of it,but you need 2 times more fuel...

About the other link...I read it and well... I don't see that the guy is using a wideband to see if he is flooding the cylinders to keep the knock down...but well...he probably knows what he's doing...let's wait until he hit the track.

 

[MrBoxx]

This doesn't have anything to do with the MAF, but just so I (and everyone else) am clear, are you talking about injecting methanol (methyl alchohol) into the intake tract OR ethanol (ethyl alcohol)?? The two are very different. Ethanol is the type found in rubbing alcohol and washer solvent, methanol is a byproduct of many chemical production processes and is EXTREMELY dangerous to handle. There is no respirator in the world that can filter methanol fumes and it can be absorbed through the skin. We used to mix it with gas and burn it on a fire extinguisher training field I worked at at Dow Corning. Which one were you planning to inject? I know lots of people run alcohol injection, but I've never heard of anyone doing methanol injection, only running methanol as a fuel.

 

[91-gsx]

ethanol is the type that is in drinking alcohol, and denatured alcohol(but this has some methanol so it cannot be consumed). rubbing alcohol is isopropyl alcohol. the type most people use is actually methanol, but i cannot seem to find the damn stuff...
later

 

[91-gsx]

i am really considering rubbing alcohol, it is almost all isopropyl alcohol, and some water. just called costco and they carry it in 2 32oz bottles. the thing with isopropyl alcohol, the kind in rubbing alcohol, is that it cools really well and adds octane as well, but you can run even more of it then methanol. simple test to see what cools better is put some water on your hand and then some rubbing alcohol, which one feels colder and dissipates faster? the rubbing alcohol. so it is just another option that works very well.
anybody that has experience using injection or anything please feel free to chime in.
later

 

[98spydert]

This doesn't have anything to do with the MAF, but just so I (and everyone else) am clear, are you talking about injecting methanol (methyl alchohol) into the intake tract OR ethanol (ethyl alcohol)?? The two are very different. Ethanol is the type found in rubbing alcohol and washer solvent, methanol is a byproduct of many chemical production processes and is EXTREMELY dangerous to handle. There is no respirator in the world that can filter methanol fumes and it can be absorbed through the skin. We used to mix it with gas and burn it on a fire extinguisher training field I worked at at Dow Corning. Which one were you planning to inject? I know lots of people run alcohol injection, but I've never heard of anyone doing methanol injection, only running methanol as a fuel.

That's a little exaggerated. Is it dangerous? Yes. Is it EXTREMLY dangerous? No. If you take the proper precautions, you'll be fine. Wear gloves, work in well ventilated areas, and be careful. I've injected methanol into my throttle body elbow for the last 6 months. I'm able to run 24-26psi on 91 oct fuel, 11:1 AFR, and moderate timing(20*peak). Works great. And, agreed: Methanol injection is not a replacement for an intercooler.

 

[MrBoxx]

Agreed. When I said extremely dangerous, I was comparing it to something like isopropyl or ethyl acohol. Methanol has a pretty low flash point and burns with colorless flames, so an accident with methanol is only a spark away. As long as precautions are taken, I see no problem with running it daily. Now I know that methanol injection is an option. Before, I wouldn't have even thought it was feasible.

 

[91-gsx]

i know methanol has an octane rating close to 120, but what is the octane rating of isopropyl?

 

[MrBoxx]

The blending octane for pure ethanol is 129RON/103MON. For isopropanol, the blending octane numbers are 118RON/98MON. Adding a gallon of pure ethanol to 9 gallons of gasoline with an AKI rating of 93 ([RON+MON]/2) will boost the AKI up to about 95.

Something I found on a vw forum. So, using R+M/2 formula: 118+98/2= an octane rating of 108. For ethanol it would be 116. Not too bad. In an injection form, it would lower intake temps and increase the overall octane in the air/fuel mix. My high school teachers were right: Science IS fun!

 

[91-gsx]

there is a guy that runs 30% of his gas from methanol by having the maft take 30% of the fuel out using the purple wire when the methanol kicks in. now most people run no more then a 500cc injector, he runs an M15 which is 1500cc. he has the system kick in at 10psi and it takes the 30% of fuel out at that point. i had another idea, yes another one, what if i had the alcohol kick in at 3psi with a variable controller and then i could take out 35% of the fuel out using the wot switch, and then i could use the purple wire to take out another 35% of the fuel. this way i could substitute 70% of the gas i use at wot with methanol. man would the car be able to run huge amounts of boost and tons of timing! just another thought. o ya the guy i mentioned above was running 25psi, 26 degrees of timing on a big16g full weight gvr4, o ya this was done with the stock 450cc injectors, 11.9sec 1/4mile at i believe 115mph. here is the link: http://dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187789&page=1&pp=25&highlight=alcohol+injection
later