Methanol or water in crankcase?

[jdperform]

I’ve been building methanol sprint engines for over 30 years, with much success I might add. However I just ran into a situation that I thought was water in the crankcase. Pukey looking oil EVERYWHERE on tear down. We did multiple tests on the cooling system, including heating the now long block to 190 deg plus to find NO water going into crankcase. Having said all of that customer said has not ever had to add water.
Is there an accurate way to test the difference between water and methanol fuel in the crankcase ? We now believe it’s fuel causing the milky motor oil. I would have thought the motor would have acted rich but no drivability complaints from the customer. Engine temperature was too cool at 185 IMO

[cgarb]

It's probably condensation. We run into that with drag race engines that don't get up to temperature quick enough to burn the moisture out of the oil. Evac tubes in the headers help or a vacuum pump help also.

[hoodeng]

Let it stand in a jar for a while till some separates and see if you can light the residue. Methanol has almost the same SG as oil [.8-.85] so will take a lot longer to separate. Water is 1 and will precipitate sooner.

[Dave Koehler]

One other source of milky oil is to ask how much time was spent idling and/or fussing with it.
I see this on uninformed bracket drag cars all the time when complaints arise.
Driving around, excessive idling in the staging lanes can do this.
No appreciable load on the engine so the unburned alky takes the path of least resistance.
And they usually have not yet learned to warm it properly and well.

As noted engines make heat and that can make milk.
Pull one of the thin alum VC off of any engine, including gas powered and you will find milk until it dissipates.

Case in point:
I was fussing around with my blown alky combo one weekend. Probably spent 1/2 hr. run time total. I remember using 25 gals in the process.
When I finished I grabbed the big drain pan and threw down.
My helper friend who was not aware of such things chastised me for wasting oil.
I just chuckled and said watch and behold.
I had a 12 quart capacity. We drained 18 quarts. Came this >< close to overflowing the pan.
He grabbed the pan the next time I went on a fussy binge.

[Alaskaracer]

When I switched to methanol on my stuff, I milked the crap out of my oil until I got my tune up fixed. The other thing I learned was temp. On gas, I tried to keep it as cool as I could....on methanol, it just keeps going faster and faster the hotter it is....I won't run now unless my temp is 180 or higher....I've hit the line at 190+ and it runs great...oil looks better too......

[bill jones]

---here my story---a reply to someone else on a forum somewhere and talking about fuel injection
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milky oil with methanol

-part of the problem with methanol is that the engine temperature never gets hot enough to evaporate the fuel out of the oil.

-Methanol evaporates at 150F and if you can get the engine temp up to 200F that does a lot towards evaporating a lot of that fuel that gets past the piston rings.

-having a fuel pressure gauge can help even when you are dealing with low idle and part throttle pressures while working out the barrel valve leakdown---but you need to also work with the idle poppet spring pressure and the secondary poppet spring pressure.

-I noticed your photo of your injector on your webpage-----and if that is what you are using and it was mine I'd relocate the barrel valve and the associated plumbing to lower than the nozzle height if possible---or at least as low as possible.

-When the barrel valve is higher than the nozzles you have to deal with the internal fluid volumes and drainages that allow the system to unload all that fuel inot the engine when the engine isn't running.

-By relocating the barrel valve and the associated plumbing to below the nozzles it's pretty hard for the fluid to flow uphill unless the plumbing becomes heated and the fluid expands.

-You can work with the fuel pressure gauge and the fuel shut off valve----close off the shutoff valve slightly---just enough to drop the pressure at idle a small amount and see how the engine acts.

-If you can reduce the pressure some decent percentage say 25% using the shutoff valve---and the engine still acts OK when you hit the throttle----then you need to change to a softer idle spring and or a larger main jet.

-Barrel valves have different width and depths of the ramps cut into the spools----so it's pretty important to understand just how much ramp you actually need cut into the barrel valve spool for the various applications.
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-It'd be nice to see the details of the combination you are dealing with---would make it easier to chase down the problems.

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-have you tried smaller nozzles---.033"s are larger than I'd run.

-We used to run .033" and .035" nozzles way back in the 1970's when we only ran 30 or 40psi fuel pressure but now I'd start with about .029"s which should get you in the mid to upper 500 hp range at 60psi.

-don't know what a 1 1/2 pump is-----but the old Hilborn dash 1/2 pumps I've used usually need a pretty small main jet----something like a .080 to .060"-----when used on 360 sprint cars with stack injection.

-I have used Hilborn barrel valves with #54 spool on applications from 2000 pinto on gas and methanol , 260ci Ford flathead on gas, 360 sprint car engines, 431 BBC with gas and using a single four manifold and a gutted carburetor (about 1100cfm) for a throttle body.

-One reason the engine is hard to start is because of the height of the barrel valve in relation to the top of the fuel inside the fuel tank---plus the drainage I spoke of earlier.

-The installed position of the main jet can----if it's mounted low it bypasses the fuel back to the tank or the inlet of the pump and you never can get it pumped UP to the barrel valve.

-I like to have the nozzles at the highest point---barrel valve slightly lower than the nozzles----and fuel tank level as high as possible but never higher than the nozzles.

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-running our 2000 Hilborn injected Pinto at Bonneville---we learned that the engine needs to be hot when you start it to help get then heat high enough to evaporate the methanol out of the oil ---or you end up with milky looking oil

-our procedure became to drain the water and the oil every afternoon before we left the track
-then we bring hot water and warm up the oil containers in hot water in the sink at the motel
-on the drive out to the track we place the oil containers on the inner fender wells to get some exhaust heat to also help warm up the oil

-the Pinto engine has two 120VAC electric heater freeze plugs---and the lower radiator hose has a pretty serious hot water heating element installed
-we connect the portable electric generator up to these heaters

[RDY4WAR]

It's water produced from methanol combustion and very common. There's likely some alcohol in there too, but mostly water. The 185*F operating temp is enough to boil out the methanol, but not the water. You don't have that issue (as much) in a Sprint engine.

It also makes the oil choice more critical since you need to keep that water in suspension. What oil was in it?

You can boil the water out and pour the oil back in. That's a common practice with Top Alcohol and Pro Mods.

[RDY4WAR]

Let it stand in a jar for a while till some separates and see if you can light the residue. Methanol has almost the same SG as oil [.8-.85] so will take a lot longer to separate. Water is 1 and will precipitate sooner.

Note: This will not work if the oil has a lot of dispersants as they will want to keep that fuel and water in suspension. A non-DI oil would separate more quickly, but you don't want that in the crankcase because it could allow the water to settle in the pan/sump, around the pickup, and you're just sucking straight water on the next startup.

[bentvalves]

for every lb of fuel (gasoline) burned in the chamber, a lb of h2o is generated. 1:1

some of it goes out the tailpipe, some of it goes out the breathers, some of it ends up in the sump.

[af2]

It's water produced from methanol combustion and very common. There's likely some alcohol in there too, but mostly water. The 185*F operating temp is enough to boil out the methanol, but not the water. You don't have that issue (as much) in a Sprint engine.

It also makes the oil choice more critical since you need to keep that water in suspension. What oil was in it?

You can boil the water out and pour the oil back in. That's a common practice with Top Alcohol and Pro Mods.

What oil are you talking about?

[RDY4WAR]

It's water produced from methanol combustion and very common. There's likely some alcohol in there too, but mostly water. The 185*F operating temp is enough to boil out the methanol, but not the water. You don't have that issue (as much) in a Sprint engine.

It also makes the oil choice more critical since you need to keep that water in suspension. What oil was in it?

You can boil the water out and pour the oil back in. That's a common practice with Top Alcohol and Pro Mods.

What oil are you talking about?

An oil that'll handle the alcohol/water well? That would be an oil high in detergent and dispersant with excellent foam inhibition and enough additive response that wear protection is minimally affected. You want to avoid oils high in esters and viscosity modifiers as these can have adverse reactions with alcohol.

High Performance Lubricants (HPL) Bad Ass Racing series
Amsoil Dominator series

HPL is who I would contact since they do a lot of oils for methanol engines in Pro Mods (Elite), Street Outlaws / NPK (Dave, Chuck, Dominator, etc...), and Sprints (Sammy Swindell, David Gravel).

[69427]

-When the barrel valve is higher than the nozzles you have to deal with the internal fluid volumes and drainages that allow the system to unload all that fuel into the engine when the engine isn't running.

This caused my #6 rod bearing to get damaged when #6 cylinder hydro locked (start up) from the distribution block (mounted to the bottom of tunnel ram) draining down #6 port line into the intake runner.

Lesson learned the hard way. $$$$$$$

Building a new distribution block and mounting it down low by the valley.

[Dave Koehler]

-When the barrel valve is higher than the nozzles you have to deal with the internal fluid volumes and drainages that allow the system to unload all that fuel into the engine when the engine isn't running.

This caused my #6 rod bearing to get damaged when #6 cylinder hydro locked (start up) from the distribution block (mounted to the bottom of tunnel ram) draining down #6 port line into the intake runner.

Lesson learned the hard way. $$$$$$$

Building a new distribution block and mounting it down low by the valley.

You may also want to try shutting the engine down with the fuel shut off.

[Racer71]

[/quote]
You may also want to try shutting the engine down with the fuel shut off.
[/quote]

That’s how we always shut midget engines off. If we had oil that looked like what’s described which happened occasionally it was typically a bad nozzle or bypass stuck making it over fuel like crazy.

[69427]

You may also want to try shutting the engine down with the fuel shut off.

My sons usually do Dave, It dose the rev up thing and then they kill the ignition. This happened going to Q1 after a morning warm up. Walking away I heard it crank with a thud. Oil pressure diminished the next 5 passes.