EFI? can it be this easy?

I want to switch to Methanol because of it's low price, high octane, and couple of extra oxygen molecules offers real power gain potential..

Roughly speaking you want twice as much alcohol as Gasoline so why can't I look for injectors that flow twice as much as the ones I have and start from there? Please don't tell me about Mega squirt. Three people in my circle of Jaguar friends bought them. Two gave up and scrapped the cars while one has managed to get his to work but no additional power over stock.. That's after nearly 3 years of any free moment working on it..

Although, double isn't the correct ratio, it's something more on the order of 50%ish and then you can get the rest of the way to good enough with an adjustable fuel pressure regulator. You may need to get a bigger fuel pump and you definitely may need to change some of the fuel system components. And to be "perfect" you would need to find injectors with the same dead time and voltage slope as what you're taking out, but in the real world this makes not quite much of a difference. It will still probably run like crap when cold because of alcohol fuels' poor evaporation, it needs a bit more cold enrichment.

If you scrap a car because you can't figure out how to tune it, then maybe perhaps cars aren't for you to begin with. Or maybe you should respect that at some point you need to put the wrenches down and get the checkbook out and pay someone to do it for you. (This isn't just a MS thing. You would not believe how many people can fark up a carb. Then we make it perfect and they get it back and their buddies are over and mention over beers that they can supertune it, and then two weeks later we get it back to undo what they did)

Im currently swapping 35% bigger injectors in my challenge car to run E85. Im going to see how well it runs with just the injector swap then I'll tune it.

I raced Briggs Raptor heavy stock ethanol class karts some years ago. I remember being very impressed that for a 237cc flathead single cylinder the main jet diameter was about 3/32", which is HUGE compared to what you'd use with petroleum based fuels.

In reply to Knurled: While I agree about some* ham fisted "mechanics" there is a world of difference between Carb knowledge and computer knowledge.. I've got decades of work rebuilding and modifying carbs.. In the beginning it was with people who could show me what worked and what didn't. Then I started to refine that knowledge on the track and dyno..

A Mega Squirt doesn't come with a greasy old guy looking over my shoulder giving me a look of disgust when I'm about to make a mistake.. filling the air with profanities and obscenities. I spent hours reading about Mega-squirt before I decided to forego it.. The number of variables overwhelmed me and since there is no base line to start from

*Note in both cases the guys who quit started out with un-running "scrap" cars to start with. They were told the fuel injection, or "computer" was the problem.. The reality was they may have been OK but a bad sensor or even more likely bad ground someplace was the issue.. I swear early Jaguar assembly line workers were the most limp wristed people on the planet..

In reply to echoechoecho:

When I ran mechanical fuel injection the bypass jet was doubled over gas and doubled again when Nitro was added.. Alcohol tolerates running rich a lot more than gasoline does..

Knurled wrote: Although, double isn't the correct ratio, it's something more on the order of 50%ish and then you can get the rest of the way to good enough with an adjustable fuel pressure regulator. You may need to get a bigger fuel pump and you definitely may need to change some of the fuel system components. And to be "perfect" you would need to find injectors with the same dead time and voltage slope as what you're taking out, but in the real world this makes not quite much of a difference. It will still probably run like crap when cold because of alcohol fuels' poor evaporation, it needs a bit more cold enrichment. If you scrap a car because you can't figure out how to tune it, then maybe perhaps cars aren't for you to begin with. Or maybe you should respect that at some point you need to put the wrenches down and get the checkbook out and pay someone to do it for you. (This isn't just a MS thing. You would not believe how many people can fark up a carb. Then we make it perfect and they get it back and their buddies are over and mention over beers that they can supertune it, and then two weeks later we get it back to undo what they did)

When I ran alcohol on mechanical injection I'd start and warm up the engine on gas. But a pint or two of race gas won't beat up the budget like a weekends worth of race gas will. Race gas is $14 a gallon or more depending on your compression.. Methanol is about $3.00 ethanol is about $4.00

frenchyd wrote: In reply to Knurled: While I agree about some* ham fisted "mechanics" there is a world of difference between Carb knowledge and computer knowledge.. I've got decades of work rebuilding and modifying carbs.. In the beginning it was with people who could show me what worked and what didn't. Then I started to refine that knowledge on the track and dyno.. A Mega Squirt doesn't come with a greasy old guy looking over my shoulder giving me a look of disgust when I'm about to make a mistake..

Well, no, but at the same time, if you're proficient with tuning a carburetor, then you're 90% of the way there. You know what not enough fuel and too much fuel feel like under cruise and such. That is the biggest hurdle for a lot of people, I think, beyond bad installs. ("Well the ground is the same everywhere, right? So I grounded the sensors to random places under the hood and the computer to a piece of tube under the dash and why are you facepalming?") A lot of people can't diagnose drivability beyond "good" and "not good", and let's face it, if there's a mathematically perfect map that you can be 5-10% off of and still be okay, that still leaves a lot more opportunity to be not-good than good.

It reminds me of power seats. The more adjustments you have, the more likely you can't get it adjusted right The fewer adjustments you have, you still might not get comfortable but you can at least just stop making it worse...

FWIW, the extra oxygen atoms (not molecules) in the alcohol are just along for the ride -- they do nothing for the combustion process except take up space and turn what would otherwise be a gas (methane or ethane) into a liquid at room temperature. You get more power out of E85 for two reasons: the octane is higher, and it has a higher hydrogen to carbon ratio than gasoline does.

First question: are you running methanol or ethanol (E85). They're both alcohols, but methanol is a race-only fuel, whereas E85 is something you can buy at a pump.

While swapping out for larger injectors might work OK for WOT/full power, I suspect the around-town drivability is going to suck for all the reasons above (dead time, volatility, etc). Without reprogramming the ECU you're not going to be able to take advantage of the extra octane. For that matter, the ideal timing curve is likely to be very differently shaped due to differences in the combustion speed, so you could even end up losing power with a simple swap like that.

IMHO, the short answer is that it can probably be done and made to run to some version of acceptably well, it's a long way from ideal and may not yield any benefits at all.

codrus wrote: FWIW, the extra oxygen atoms (not molecules) in the alcohol are just along for the ride -- they do nothing for the combustion process except take up space and turn what would otherwise be a gas (methane or ethane) into a liquid at room temperature. You get more power out of E85 for two reasons: the octane is higher, and it has a higher hydrogen to carbon ratio than gasoline does.

Well... there are some benefits to getting more oxygen into the combustion chamber. It's easier to spray in 10% more liquid fuel than it is to get 10% more airflow.

frenchyd wrote: I spent hours reading about Mega-squirt before I decided to forego it.. The number of variables overwhelmed me and since there is no base line to start from

Is there not an online community that shares Megasquirt fuel maps? Definitely easier to follow in the footsteps of others than to wing it by your lonesome. When I did the Haltech install in the Turbo II, I found a couple of good resources where I could obtain information, and a baseline map for a setup very much like mine from a nice rotorhead in Australia. I should expect that there is a Megasquirt forum where members post up maps for various engines with various mods.

Knurled wrote: Well... there are some benefits to getting more oxygen into the combustion chamber. It's easier to spray in 10% more liquid fuel than it is to get 10% more airflow.

If you were spraying liquid oxygen into the combustion chamber then sure. You're not, the oxygen atoms in ethanol are already burned.

The word "oxygen" refers to both a molecule (O2) and an atom (O), and the meanings are getting confused here. The former is useful in combustion, the latter may or may not be, it depends on the structure of the molecule it's in.

Basically, you get heat out of chemical reactions by taking apart molecules with lots of bond energy in them and reforming the atoms into molecules with lower energy bonds, with the extra energy becoming heat. O-O, C-H, and C-C bonds are comparatively high energy, C-O and H-O bonds are comparatively low. Ethanol is C2H5OH, so the O is already bonded to both an H and a C, so there's no energy available from it. You don't get any more energy out of it just like you wouldn't get any more energy if you injected CO2 into the combustion chamber.

There is enough "not right" in this thread that I can't correct it all typing with my thumbs.

That being said 50% more injector for e85 and 100% more injector for methanol is pretty close.

I can help with Megasquirt, its what I do. Have tuned everything from gas to alky to fuel blends.

codrus wrote: FWIW, the extra oxygen atoms (not molecules) in the alcohol are just along for the ride -- they do nothing for the combustion process except take up space and turn what would otherwise be a gas (methane or ethane) into a liquid at room temperature. You get more power out of E85 for two reasons: the octane is higher, and it has a higher hydrogen to carbon ratio than gasoline does. First question: are you running methanol or ethanol (E85). They're both alcohols, but methanol is a race-only fuel, whereas E85 is something you can buy at a pump. While swapping out for larger injectors might work OK for WOT/full power, I suspect the around-town drivability is going to suck for all the reasons above (dead time, volatility, etc). Without reprogramming the ECU you're not going to be able to take advantage of the extra octane. For that matter, the ideal timing curve is likely to be very differently shaped due to differences in the combustion speed, so you could even end up losing power with a simple swap like that. IMHO, the short answer is that it can probably be done and made to run to some version of acceptably well, it's a long way from ideal and may not yield any benefits at all.

The more fuel you burn the more power you generate.. extra Oxygen allows more fuel to burn..

Racing is what I'm talking about.. I don't care about around town drive-ability. I can keep the revs up on the pace lap by running in a lower gear.

Third Methanol is nasty stuff, special gloves, apron, and breathing equipment to handle it is required. but it makes more power than ethanol. and it's cheaper..

Luckily V12 Jaguar's don't control the ignition (except on a tiny number of computers few of which ever got to America) the timing etc. is controlled by the distributor. Springs, Vacuum advance/retard, nice old fashioned stuff that's easy to adjust..

You make a good point about the need to reprogram the fuel delivery curve except it get's pretty linear towards peak RPM.. Plus we are talking about alcohol not gas. as I've said before alcohol tolerates a lot richer mixture than gasoline..

1988RedT2 wrote:

frenchyd wrote: I spent hours reading about Mega-squirt before I decided to forego it.. The number of variables overwhelmed me and since there is no base line to start from

Is there not an online community that shares Megasquirt fuel maps? Definitely easier to follow in the footsteps of others than to wing it by your lonesome. When I did the Haltech install in the Turbo II, I found a couple of good resources where I could obtain information, and a baseline map for a setup very much like mine from a nice rotorhead in Australia. I should expect that there is a Megasquirt forum where members post up maps for various engines with various mods.

To the best of my knowledge there are two people with running mega-squirts in Jaguar V12's. Neither of which are really into racing, nor have they shared any of their hard won knowledge. If there is a solid base of information out there to refer to I'll reconsider.

Paul_VR6 wrote: There is enough "not right" in this thread that I can't correct it all typing with my thumbs. That being said 50% more injector for e85 and 100% more injector for methanol is pretty close. I can help with Megasquirt, its what I do. Have tuned everything from gas to alky to fuel blends.

Here's what I'm facing.. Jaguar EFI comes in basically 4 versions.. all the way from the earliest Bosch semi mechanical to the last versions From Lucas.. I had some experience with the first style when I converted a V12 to turbo and made near enough to 500HP (I tricked the computer into believing it wasn't sending enough fuel with a simple $85 FMU) The first fuel injectors were the biggest but not large enough for alcohol..

I intend to use the last 6.0 liter block but take off the H.E. heads and replace them with the earlier flatheads (massively more air flow) that will require a reversion back to the heron head designed pistons modified to near 15:1 compression.. Bore increased to maximum (about 6.57 liter if I recall correctly) cam profile/lift/duration etc.. is way down the list of problems

frenchyd wrote: The more fuel you burn the more power you generate.. extra Oxygen allows more fuel to burn..

Try shoving some CO2 in there then, lots of oxygen in that, it should burn great, right? :)

I'm sure a Jag V12 could be made to run with a Megasquirt, but yes, you'd be blazing a trail with it, and that's not a project for someone who doesn't have a lot of experience setting up DIY EFI stuff before.

In reply to frenchyd:

With all due respect, no it's not that easy. You can't just stick some big injectors in and accomplish anything at all without tuning.

If you don't like MegaSquirt, fine. It's kind of awkward, with a learning curve that involves weedng through a lot of people talking about things they do not understand.

But you still need a computer to tune EFI, and if the computer is your hangup, stick to carbs.

I am in the same boat. I'm a little older, and pretty overwhelmed by electronic tuning. But I have a car with MegaSquirt, and I recognize the potential. I'm gonna do my best to learn it.

... but I do appreciate you starting this thread. Good stuff here.

The computer in jag v12s doesn't have any way to access it to change anything even the last ones in 1996

codrus wrote:

frenchyd wrote: The more fuel you burn the more power you generate.. extra Oxygen allows more fuel to burn..

Try shoving some CO2 in there then, lots of oxygen in that, it should burn great, right? :)

There's a huge difference between the O in alcohol and the O in CO2.

BTW, at LBT, the extra O does bring some potential to the table. Not that it burns with more energy, but that you can run richer and gain more power. That's the big deal. The extra O is important. Gas makes best power at about .85 lambda, E85 can go richer than that before losing power.

frenchyd- What, exactly, are you intending to do? Is this a race car?

For fuel injection- it's really not that hard- as long as you can take data, and interpret it to make changes, you should be good to go. And with a good set up, tuning can be a lot more straight forward. That's regardless of the fuel type- as long as the calibration is normalized to the inputs well, much of it will be transferable from one engine to another just by adding the numbers of cylinders.

As for your V12- unless you can find an MS with 12 injector drivers, I would think that one easy way to set it up is as 2 I6's. We did that for Aston Martin for most of a decade of their production (I don't know what they do these days). The two sides run the exact same.

alfadriver wrote: As for your V12- unless you can find an MS with 12 injector drivers

MS3Pro can do it.

codrus wrote: FWIW, the extra oxygen atoms (not molecules) in the alcohol are just along for the ride -- they do nothing for the combustion process except take up space and turn what would otherwise be a gas (methane or ethane) into a liquid at room temperature. You get more power out of E85 for two reasons: the octane is higher, and it has a higher hydrogen to carbon ratio than gasoline does. First question: are you running methanol or ethanol (E85). They're both alcohols, but methanol is a race-only fuel, whereas E85 is something you can buy at a pump. While swapping out for larger injectors might work OK for WOT/full power, I suspect the around-town drivability is going to suck for all the reasons above (dead time, volatility, etc). Without reprogramming the ECU you're not going to be able to take advantage of the extra octane. For that matter, the ideal timing curve is likely to be very differently shaped due to differences in the combustion speed, so you could even end up losing power with a simple swap like that. IMHO, the short answer is that it can probably be done and made to run to some version of acceptably well, it's a long way from ideal and may not yield any benefits at all.

You make two really great points. I'm learning so thank you. I'm not trying to argue, rather trying to understand

Given the antique nature of the Jag V12 EFI (1975) it is possible to do things in a way that modern systems won't work. When I turbo'd a V12 I tricked the computer into increasing the fuel delivery with a simple FMU Given the tolerant nature of alcohol wouldn't it be possible to do the same with bigger injectors?

In reply to frenchyd:

Well... for a programmable EFI system, instead of tricking it, you just change the calibration. That seems pretty easy to me.

alfadriver wrote:

codrus wrote:

frenchyd wrote: The more fuel you burn the more power you generate.. extra Oxygen allows more fuel to burn..

Try shoving some CO2 in there then, lots of oxygen in that, it should burn great, right? :)

There's a huge difference between the O in alcohol and the O in CO2. BTW, at LBT, the extra O does bring some potential to the table. Not that it burns with more energy, but that you can run richer and gain more power. That's the big deal. The extra O is important. Gas makes best power at about .85 lambda, E85 can go richer than that before losing power. frenchyd- What, exactly, are you intending to do? Is this a race car? For fuel injection- it's really not that hard- as long as you can take data, and interpret it to make changes, you should be good to go. And with a good set up, tuning can be a lot more straight forward. That's regardless of the fuel type- as long as the calibration is normalized to the inputs well, much of it will be transferable from one engine to another just by adding the numbers of cylinders. As for your V12- unless you can find an MS with 12 injector drivers, I would think that one easy way to set it up is as 2 I6's. We did that for Aston Martin for most of a decade of their production (I don't know what they do these days). The two sides run the exact same.

You bring up a brilliant point. During this time Jaguar had 2 different Six cylinder engines they fuel injected. The first was the antique long stroke (4.17) designed during WW2 and brought out to 4.2 The second was the aluminum 4 valve later sold to GM and used in the SUVs. that one will have OBD2 capability