Fuel Pricing, Nitro

[Bob Reeves]

I became a Powermaster fuel dealer simply because we had no way to buy CL fuel blends locally and we have always had good results with Powermaster fuel. I just received an updated dealer price list and all blends have gone up at least a buck a gallon YS-20-20 went up almost two bucks and this doesn't count the shipping costs to get it here. Looks like Powermaster is getting hit hard by regulations and we can guess the shipping isn't going to do anything but go up.


A friend of mine runs dragsters and Home Land Security just informed him he isn't allowed to posses more than 40 gallons of nitro at any time. Now when he buys a 55 gallon drum of nitro it costs the same but only contains 40 gallons. I would say if you can get fuel you might want to stock up now, who knows where it will go from here..


As a side note, Sorry gang I cannot ship fuel.. I discovered the hard way that you have to be a hazmat certified shipper in order to ship anything that is considered hazardous material.

[dennis lipsett]

I can appreciate the trouble getting good fuel. I also used Powermaster fuels and had a hard time locating a source. Fortunately I found one about 60 miles away and was able to get a few cases. I was also told that the prices were going up. As I'm not burning a lot of fuel in a season I think that I'll stock up a few more cases and have about a 5 year supply. By that time I guess I'll be either be infirm or have top go to electrics, not a great choice for me.
Dennis

[Jim Kraft]

I am flying my sparkers a lot more lately. They run fine on no nitro fuel, or gasoline castor mix. And on gasoline they use half as much as fuel. I am going to try to find some methanol and mix my own at least for the sparkers.

[Marvin Denny]

  Jim, jhow much methanol do you want?  There is a place about two miles from my house that has it.  As this is the start of a new racing season, he should have fresh stuff
   

   Bigiron

[Jim Kraft]

Hey Marvin; That sounds good. I have checked a couple of places in Salina, but haven't found any yet. Have a few more places to go. Might have to come to Wichita to get some. Glad to know there is a place down there to get it. I would probably pick up 5 or 6 gallons. That would keep me flying my sparkers for quite a while any way. I have plenty of castor so no problem to mix fuel. I need to come down and take you and Rea out for dinner anyway. I am still cleaning up my yard from the ice storm. Bummer. Burned the 4th pile of brush today. Have 3 more to go.

[john e. holliday]

Has anybody looked into "Ethanol" yet?  The local dirt track is requiring it for the three classes of racing.  While attending the Indy race at the Kansas Speedway noticed that they are now limited to "Ethanol".  They are now using the same engine, chassis and tire.  First time I have seen them in person.  Have fun,  DOC Holliday

[Bob Reeves]

Has anybody looked into "Ethanol" yet?  The local dirt track is requiring it for the three classes of racing.  While attending the Indy race at the Kansas Speedway noticed that they are now limited to "Ethanol".  They are now using the same engine, chassis and tire.  First time I have seen them in person.  Have fun,  DOC Holliday

They just anounced on the local news that a couple Tulsa gas stations are selling pure Ethanol for something like 2.50 a gallon. If it works the price is sure right, I just wonder how they keep the water out of it despensing it from a tank in the ground through a gas pump. Fox and Powermaster won't even mix fuel if the humidity is too high..

[Mike Spiess]

They just announced on the local news that a couple Tulsa gas stations are selling pure Ethanol for something like 2.50 a gallon. If it works the price is sure right, I just wonder how they keep the water out of it despensing it from a tank in the ground through a gas pump. Fox and Powermaster won't even mix fuel if the humidity is too high..

Bob they don't. I live in the land of Ten Thousand stills er Lakes and we have had E85 85% ethanol for a few years now and winter the chill can be interesting without a bottle of Heet in the tank. I have yet to get an E85 vehicle as the mileage is terrible even at $2.50 a gallon. As for the Ethanol plants (stills) around here some days they smell rather good and others it's awful.

[Wayne Collier]

I thought HEET was alcohol. (but I have been wrong before)  I know alcohol is used as a de-icing agent in many solutions.  That old blue windshield washer fluid was mostly water with a little methanol in it to keep it from freezing.  Truth is ethanol for fuel probably does absorb some water, but up to a point that is not a bad thing.  I have a Cox engine that I ran several times on a mixture of denatured alcohol and castor oil.  Denatured alcohol is mostly ethanol with some methanol and other ingrediants in it to make it poison.  (I think E85 may have the 15% gasoline in it mostly so that people don't mistake it for a beverage.)  I also tried a mix of 85% denatured alcohol with 15% Ozark Trails camp fuel to make what I called "homE85" to which I then added the appropriate amount of castor oil.  The engine ran on both mixtures but was tempermental and hard to needle.  The same engine on 15% nitro, 18% lube Powermaster is very consistent and runs like a dream.  I'm guessing that the right engine rightly tuned would do well on an ethanol mixture -- maybe even on pump E85 with the right lube.  I'm not much of a chemist but I think part of the reason that ethanol yeilds worse fuel mileage than gasoline is because a molecule of ethanol has only about a fourth as much carbon as a molecule of gasoline (depending on the blend).

[Mike Spiess]

There are two types of heet sold here one in a yellow bottle and one in a red. I believe the red is for "newer" vehicles. Yea  I've been thinking of going back to diesels so I can mix my own fuel.

[phil c]

Ethanol soaks up water until the mix is 5% water.  That is why pure grain alcohol is 190 proof(95%).  You can't distill any more water out of it.

They use special piping and filters on E85 handling equipment to minimize moisture pickup, but no matter what, unless the tank volume is sold fairly quickly the fuel will be picking up moisture.

EtOH has a larger amount of energy in it than methanol.  You'll get better fuel economy and a much hotter run.  Besides the usual tuning tricks of head gaskets, head shape, venturi size, etc.  the manufacturer is going to have to make additional changes such as larger fins, spaced wider, on the head and cylinder, different(more) taper on the sleeve, different(probably looser) fit between the sleeve and case, and an insulated needle valve.

I just got done running a Zenoah 200 ei.  Going to spark ignition may be the way to go if somebody can design a 1/2 oz. ignition module.  This thing started and ran just like a well-built glow motor.  No points or coils.  The module automatically retards the spark for one or two flip hand starts, and then matches it to the rpm for max power.