[NickD]

Well this is from the Cruze owners manual, but what do they know?

"Notice: This vehicle was not
designed for fuel that contains
methanol. Do not use fuel
containing methanol. It can
corrode metal parts in the fuel
system and also damage plastic
and rubber parts. That damage
would not be covered under the
vehicle warranty.
Some gasolines that are
not reformulated for low
emissions can contain an
octane-enhancing additive called
methylcyclopentadienyl manganese
tricarbonyl (MMT); ask the attendant
where you buy gasoline whether the
fuel contains MMT. We recommend
against the use of such gasolines.
Fuels containing MMT can reduce
spark plug life and affect emission
control system performance. The
malfunction indicator lamp might
turn on. If this occurs, return to your
dealer for service."

Some of us board members don't care for some guy writing code for a microcontroller to do our thinking for us, so we got a manual transmission. But then you have to put up with some idiot marketing guy saying if you get a manual, you can't have a spare tire. But some made their own mods so they could have one.

 

[NickD]

Top tier ethanol free 91 octane is all my Cruze ever gets. Use to cost 15 cents more per gallon than that ethanol crap, but the corporation farms that are hurting now got the state to increase ethanol free to 50 cents more per gallon. Ethanol is also getting state subsidies.

From the damage ethanol did both to my 82 motorhome and 88 Supra turbo with corrosion, will never buy this crap again. Had to use it once in my 04 Cavalier, got a bad mix and could only drive 45 mph in 3rd gear to prevent detonation. And instead of getting 37 mpg, got 17!

So I can see your point about methanol, but not mixed with gas, injected instead and with a maximum of a 50-50 methanol/water mix. And with all these conspiracy theories going around lately, telling us not to use it because we will gain about a 10% gain in fuel economy and have a much cleaner burning engine.

In my neck of the woods would be strictly summer use, but just filled my tank this morning with 630 mile remaining. After a long hard winter, with that crap they were selling, more like 440 miles remaining with the same kind of driving.

Still some restrictions with methanol, like:

"Methanol is a toxic and highly flammable chemical. 100% Methanol ignites easily and burns vigorously with an almost undetectable flame. Methanol can be absorbed through the skin and even small amounts can cause blindness or even death. Using this fluid at high pressures, without dilution, in an under-hood environment with nylon lines and push-to-connect fittings is very unsafe. The performance advantages of using greater than 50% methanol concentrations are small, if they exist at all. However, the safety issues are very real and far outweigh any perceived benefit of running high concentrations of methanol."

 

[NickD]

Ha, back in the 50's and 60's use to use gasoline to clean our hands from grease and parts, was the cheapest thing to use. Don't dare do this today, this stuff burns your hands like acid besides costing us a small fortune.

Then only God knows what they are adding to our gas, MTBE's is one as is benzene to improve octane rating, both are highly cancerous types of additives. But quiet on these and like to pick on methanol.

Ha, wouldn't want my Chevy dealer to fill that tank, the oil hole in the valve cover is much larger and can't even hit that with a can of oil. But could because they tried filling with menthanol before and are blind.

This all deals with trying to get the best efficiency with a high compression engine that is loaded with consequences. Which is one reason I feel we should be going back to an external combustion engine, but using a much better medium instead of water for steam.

Unleaded gas burns at around 2,600*F that is sufficient to burn holes in pistons and distort exhaust valves, so EGR is required to cool things down. And in consequence, losing about 30% of our displacement.

Some are proposing to go back to lead, but feel our government soaked up too much lead, makes them aggressive to want to run for office, and stupid at the same time. Also that lead build up in engines is a b!tch to clean up.

Whatever with over a hundred years of fooling around, we still aren't there yet. CNG seems to be the best alternative for vehicles since we have a lots of this, but an engine designed specifically for this fuel, not this crossover BS that most vehicles have.

Also not easy living in a country ran by idiots. Look at any EPA sticker, 2 mpg fuel economy in the city, 50 mpg on the highway. So what do they do? Drop the speed limits on the highway when 90% of the population is driving in the city.

So what are they saying now about increasing the speed limits on the highways? Safety, when 99.9% of the accidents are still in the cities. Idiots.

To conserve on natural gas, what do they pick on? That extremely tiny pilot light, was simple basic and still generated some infinitesimal amount of heat in cold winter homes. Now with the overly complex ignition systems and all the added safety devices, lucky if your furnace even fires up half the time.

Then picking on CO2 when methane is the greatest problem for global warming.

 

[NickD]

This goes way back when using unleaded fuel to lower the combustion chamber temperature, during WW II, water injection was used extensively, but for every plane, was a maintenance crew. Was considered back in the 60's for automotive and some type of anti-freeze had to be used, but considered impractical for the average vehicle driver.

Only other alternative was to employ some kind of recirculation of exhaust gas to cool the combustion chamber temperature down, even with the negative side effect of reducing the effective engine displacement. Two ways of doing this, recirculating the exhaust with a valve called and exhaust gas recirculation or an EGR valve, or by closing the exhaust valves early in proportion to engine speed and load. Latter at first was too complicated.

Early EGR systems were super simple, venturi vacuum going through an intake manifold thermo-switch directly to this valve. EGR operation was only necessary when the engine was closed to operating temperature. Guys quickly learned by plugging that carb vacuum line, performance drastically increased, but with a price of burning their exhaust valves up and even getting holes in their pistons. With others, that vacuum line would just fall off.

With high combustion chamber temperatures NOx's are formed that was the only concern of the EPA, so would tell you to keep your EGR in good operation to reduce your NOx emissions. Ha, like anyone even cared, what they should have told you, you will shortly burn up your engine as well.

Cruze with variable valve timing employs the closing of the exhaust valves early method as controlled by the ECU. Not very easy to change, so you are not seeing the full advantage of namely water injection, still have a form of EGR. And of course,if you did change this, your engine would change to burnt toast very quickly if you water tank ran dry.

Lean burn can also drastically increase fuel economy, but also resorts in high combustion chamber temperatures, not as bad as bypassing the EGR system, but troublesome to the EPA. And will only permit it if someone can come up with a catalytic converter to eliminate NOx emissions. To date, this has not been done.

Of course the easier way to do this is to eliminate the N from NO, and while you are at it, also eliminate the C from HC's so the output would be pure H2O, but seems the government way is to tax the current emissions. Still garbage in and garbage out.

For water injection, even with the addition of methanol, best way to inject it is directly into the air stream feeding the carb or the TB. We didn't discuss this. Into the turbo would create more problems.