So after talking to my wife, I think I am going to buy a stage III Snow kit instead of nerf bars. So here's my question.
What is the power difference between mixing your own at 40% or 50% VS. using the boost juice that Snow sells VS. using washer fluid. I will probably be using washer fluid, since a good portion of why I'm doing this is to reduce egt temps, but was just wondering how much less power I might gain versus using a stronger mix. Does anyone know at what % mix it starts to not benefit the cooling?

 

just installed the stage two kit on my buddies 03 and it works great. he has the HOT juice and with just water it cools about 50 off the egts. washer fluid works well with coolin the egs about 100 to 200 off but not all that much performance. then we went to 50 50 water meth and the egts were down 230 at the start but then came back up at the end of the quarter. took alot longer for the egts to build up. and felt some pretty good power. i mean its not like oh my god did you feel that, but you can definetly feel it kick it. so if your lookin just to cool, then use the washer fluid, lookin for power use the 50 50.

 

Just got mine installed today. I didn't mess with any windshield solvent so I can't comment on it's influence on performance or egt reductions. I did the 50/50 thing. A couple things I noticed,...it does give a kick,...I would liken it to going from a 5/5 on my TST to 7/5. Also even the sound of power being applied is smoother,...just a sound difference but both I and the installer both noticed the difference. I'm not dumping on the windshield washer solvent usage as the 50/50 mix is hefty if you check out the Snow web site when you add shipping. I do have a local source on the Meth for mixing myself so it will be cheaper than the Snow pre-mix. I feel the windshield solvent will probably give you a wee bump and a bit of cooling if your towing or whatever but even that will get pretty $$$ if you use it all the time. The 50/50 will be reserved for that can of whop a... that needs to be opened from time to time for that special someone in our life.

 

Boost juice is the most expensive route, but saves the hassle of having to find real methanol.

Mixing your own is the cheapest way to get max power from the kit, but ordering methanol can be a pain.


Washer fluid if used because it's cheap, readily available, and works well-- just not as well as a real water/meth mix. Washer fluid has a lower percentage of methanol.

If you want to beef up the methanol content on the cheap, add to your washer fluid a bottle of "HEET" or other fuel line de-icer, which is almost 100% pure methanol.

Don't do that if you intend to use it on the windshield, though-- it's bad for paint and rubber.

 

Does Heet or these other de-icers have other properties that would not be good to run through your engine in this manner?

 

Does the 50/50 meathonal effect the rubber around the windshield?

 

I just talked with Dan,....he's the head engineer for Snow and he provided a weath of information on mixing instruction. He recommends using the Blue (specifically the BLUE) windshield solvent only that says on the bottle for minus 20* and that gives you 36% meth/water mix. You take one gallon of Blue solvent and (2) 12oz cans of heet and you have a 46% mix that is just about exactly where you want it. Dan's tn is 540-373-6274. In my case I'm running 62psi of boost and he had good input on where to set the primary spray psi and the secondary spray psi also. In my case it was 40psi and 60psi respectively. For your specific setting you may want to check with him.

 

Go down to your local heavy truck shop and check out air brake anti freeze. You can get it by the quart, gallon, 5 gallon pail, or drum. It is 99.9% pure.
Also if you happen to have a go Kart race track around your area, you will find they use meth for fuel.
Be careful with the straight stuff, you can't see it burn.

 

here is a chart showing the HP and TQ increase for a certain meth %. directly from snowperformance.net.

Here is a direct link to the article.

 

That's funny. Even calling the same company, you can different answers. i spent 1/2 hour on the phone yesterday ( don't remember who I talked to ) and I got SIMILAR information, but not the same. I was told the washer fluid alone is 33% and that 2 cans of heet or similar takes it to 50/50. Anyway, he was very helpful.
Basically he said anything below 30% will not burn up the water, and anything above 50% will start to increase egts. I think I'll experiment when I get it installed, but right now I'm thinking I'll try washer fluid with 1 bottle of heet for that happy middle ground of performance, egts, and cost.

 

Let us know how it works out. If possible could you get before and after dyno #'s? and what the egt difference is. You said stage 3 right?

 

I just get the bottles of air line moisture displacer or whatever. Its pure methanol. I experimented with burning it on the concrete, you cannot see it burn at all, all you see are the little heat waves that roll off of it. Make sure you have to all extinguished though... I have a small, maybe 1/2 gallon tank and I run probably 90% meth and 10% water in it. If I run my truck in first gear, 3k rpm and its on (around 22psi boost) it will miss and blow some blue smoke. I'm happy with it so far!

 

if you need meth i buy it in 55 gal drums.im located in akron ohio,its what we run in are sprint car and supermodifides.