On Tue, 26 Feb 2013 15:26:19 -0500, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Tue, 26 Feb 2013 11:52:10 -0800, wrote:

So I was wondering, from a post here about a bone stock engine running
nitro methane instead of gasoline, how much extra horsepower could a
stock engine produce just by changing fuels from gas to nitro? I'm
thinking that the engine won't run very well. Now, I'm sure that if
the compression was changed, and the carb re-jetted, and the cam
changed, things might work better. But if all you do is change fuels I
think there won't be much of an increase. This is of course in
response to gunner's assertion that he was clocked going 264 mph on a
bone stock Ninja motorcycle burning nitro methane fuel. I don't think
the motorcycle could develop enough power to push itself and someone
sitting on it to over 200 mph no matter what kind of fuel it was
burning.
ERic

At the time Gunner initially made this (absurd) claim, an all-out
lakes-modified Ninja did 231 at Bonneville. That was considered to be
the world record for Ninjas, although it wasn't a class record. Some
other make was slightly faster.

The 1000 cc Honda that topped 270 was claimed to have 400 hp. That
doesn't sound unreasonable: the engine was built by Honda specifically
for this attempt. That must be very recent, because Gunner held the
world record for sit-on motorcycles until very recently. g!

That is, if Gunner had actually gone 264 when he said he did, that
would have been a world record at the time. The record for "sit-on"
motorcycles was broken by Al Lamb in 2012. It was 265 mph, and the
bike was another Honda.

As for running a stock engine with nitromethane; only if you want to
turn your engine into shrapnel. It is very weird stuff, behaving
differently with different percentage combinations of gasoline or
methanol. You may get lucky with small amounts, or, if the gasoline
sucks up the oxygen in the mix, you may blow your muffler into the
next county when the resulting hydrogen explodes in your exhaust pipe.
If you use much, you will blow up any of several parts of your engine.
It's strictly for people who know what they're doing. It also costs
too much to be practical. And if your engine is newer than, say, 1980,
forget it unless you're an electronics expert, too.

If you want a chemical jolt for more horsepower, go for nitrous oxide
("the bottle"). You'll find kits for it all over the Web. We used to
have an expert on it here (Bottle Bob) but I think he left.

With nitrous, your engine may actually hold together long enough for
you to get home. g
In the early 80s I found a radio control airplane store that sold
nitromethane for the engines in these model planes. It came in quart
bottles at different concentrations. So I used to buy the stuff and
run it in lawnmower engines. I would mill the heads until they would
just clear the valves to increase the compression some too. I was
amazed at how much better the lawnmowers would cut tall, thick grass.
Engine life was poor though. I never did try to run straight nitro. It
smelled good too.
Eric