i was reading the other day that a lot of car manufacturers are looking at methanol as a possible future fuel.

there's a lot of talk and development of hydrogen fuel cells etc, but this could be a long way off. methanol has a lot of advantages in that it can be stored and delivered in the same way as petrol, so the infrastructure is already there. it is also not a fossil fuel, being produced by plants, so provided enough plants are gown, there will always be a ready supply. it does produce co2 emmisions, but the growing plants return the same amount of co2 back to oxygen so it s much better for the environment than using petrol.

many countries, particularly in south america already have a large methanol fuel industry.

but what does this mean for us performance enthusiasts? well, methanol fuel has a much higher octane rating than normal petrol, and is ideally suited to turbocharged engines

so let's hope that we soon see an introduction of methanol fuel powered cars and fuels to the forecourts

 

There are many issues involved with methanol.....

1) You need twice as much to make the same power as petrol.

2) It burns invisibly so has obvious safety issues.

3) It rots aluminium and plastics way faster that petrol.

But in turbo cars it does lower charge temps by its latent heat properties



IMO, I dont think it will ever be available on a large scale but stranger things have happened.

 

good points simon. the article i was reading was talking about a mixture of something like 5% petrol and 95% methanol, so perhaps the mixture is more safe (and should have a RON of 108)

they talked about the need for harder valves, but the 'rotting' effects were not mentioned.

 

A mixture sounds like a good idea.

Dont think it will happen in our life time though

 

Isnt methanol fooking dangerous to ones health?

 

we're not talking about drinking it chap.

 

I meant the fumes are deadly aint they or if it touches the skin? Oh is that something else

 

What changes to the YB engine wuld be needed in order to run methanol then?

 

bigger injectors and full remap !!!

 

Surely LPG or CNG would be better?

Readily availible, cheap (29.9p/ltr) higher octane than petrol, works with turbo cars, only slight power loss.....

I am looking at LPG for my next motor....

 

We have an LPG/petrol focus at work...its fooking wank,stalls all the time on gas ..and filling it up is cool Get it wrong and you get covered in gas with a loud bang that shits you up

 

Yeah methanol is highly toxic, if inhaled or dropeed on skin

Personally I ethanol is a better option (C2H6O), I have heard of this being succesfully with petrol in south America, not heard of the methanol mixing, and I don't know if it would

Ethanol is produced from sugar cane and thus can only be produced in subtable countrys with a large enough area to be able to provide for this MASSIVE size of crop