ERC 110 octane fuel at Speedweek?

[wobblywalrus]

Jim, assuming a fellow has a lean primary burn and a secondary burn in the exhaust tract, will this give a false "rich" reading on the lambda meter?  In other words, the burn in the combustion chamber is leaner than the meter indicates?

[dieselgeek]

Jim, assuming a fellow has a lean primary burn and a secondary burn in the exhaust tract, will this give a false "rich" reading on the lambda meter?  In other words, the burn in the combustion chamber is leaner than the meter indicates?

For what it's worth, in our case - the O2 sensors seemed unfazed (I got the expected AFR for the quantity of fuel going into the engine).   They worked fine on the different fuels and their indications aligned with the performance.  I.e., leaning it out to mid 12s picked up power, high 11s AFR slowed us down a bit and sooted the exhaust a little more.

[fredvance]

O2 sensors dont like our high octane leaded gas. We killed one on the dyno before SW. I Try and keep a couple of spares.

[dieselgeek]

our observation is, so long as the tune is in check (and not putting wet fuel on the sensor) the O2 sensor do not care about octane, and they don't mind lead either. 

[hotrod]

O2 sensors dont like our high octane leaded gas. We killed one on the dyno before SW. I Try and keep a couple of spares.

In my experience failed O2 sensors is frequently due to mounting location issues. If they are mounted too close to the exhaust port they can over heat, and if mounted below the center line of the header, they can get hit by droplets of water condensation while they are hot which kills them. Innovate recommends that the O2 sensor be mounted above center line from 10:00-11:00 or 1:00-2:00 position if possible to avoid that thermal shock problem from wetting the hot sensor.

Innovate has a tech page that discusses O2 sensor mounting issues.

Larry

[donpearsall]

Speaking of the ERC 110k gas at Bonneville.. These spark plugs came from a turboed - but otherwise stock Kawasaki ZX-10R. It has a Power Commander that was tuned just right after the turbo install. The bike has been run on the street and has seen boost many times with no problems. We had the tank filled up at BUB with the ERC 110k gas, but on the street it used premium (about 92 octane). After about the 6th run, the bike started running badly. When we tore it down for the inspection, we found that ALL FOUR of the plugs were broken identically right at the same point. They don't look burned or melted, just broken. What can cause this? I know how to read plug color, but this is new to me. The exhaust has soot like it is running rich, but always has.

Essentially the only thing that has changed from the street to the salt is the gas and the 3 mile high speed runs. Could this be too lean? The exhaust soot says no. The boost is limited to about 10 pounds. I still need to get a borescope and look at the pistons. 

Perplexed. Any ideas?
Don

[RICK]

Lean/ rich? Maybe both?  It was lean,,,,,,took the ground electrode down the tailpipe,  then got sooty as it lost the ability to burn the mixture efficiently?
 I had a drag car fool me ,,,read the plugs after each run,  turned out the cam was going flat, I about wore the bowl screws out before I got it figured out.


   So,,,,where did those pieces go?  Are there any witness marks on the turbo's exhaust inlet?


          RICK

           exhaust inlet= I think that's a oxymoron.

[Dynoroom]

I don't know the answer Don but I do have some questions / thoughts for you.

Spark plug heat range. If these plugs have been run on the street they never see the cylinder head heat they will at the salt. 3 mile WOT is much more than a blast on an open stretch of road.

I'm sure you've thought about this but you shouldn't just change fuel and make pass without doing a plug check, even when running higher octane fuel.

The turbocharger pressure ratio is likely to be higher at Bonneville than home because of the Altitude. The turbo must work harder (spin faster) to make the same boost (psia) so the tune may change due to this.

My bet is the plug heat range over the distance you ran is the issue.

ERC makes a fine fuel. I run all my engines on the fuel we plan to run at the salt or lakebed and have never had a problem. I've never seen large power changes or major A/F or plug coloration issues with the different fuels I get from Rick. He has always been VERY helpful with my fuel choices and any information I may need in selecting fuel.
Just for reference I run ERC 110K, A-8C, & A-19A in most of my engines.

[JimL]

I need to reply to some questions with a caveat:  I don't know much but what I said, about the fuel burn.  I had an O2 sensor in the roadster and it worked fine on all the ERC fuels (it was a heated Ford element, hooked to a Split Second display unit).  I never burned off electrodes on most ERC, but that 80 mph difference was not the first time that happened to me. 

In '98 I couldn't get the roadster past about 110 (after the car had run 150+ at Elmo), and my 76 year old mother (her age that year) said, "If you haven't changed anything, it must be the gas."  I went back and got the lower octane fuel (because it was a stock Toyota engine), and went 170 on the next pass.  The car went 177 quarter, on return run, went lean and smoked #4 piston (not caused by the fuel, but a broken boost control and a stock ECM).

I'm just telling folks my actual experience, learned by accident, which I've seen shared by others.  Other folks have tried my fuel choice and seen satisfactory results....maybe not as good as could be, but good runs without broken motors.  That's why I believe the 90% distillation temp is a much bigger factor than we think. 

That's all I know!  Regards, JimL

[Peter Jack]

I've found that a lot of us have too much knowledge and it sometimes blocks the common sense. Your mother backed up the theory.

Pete

[hotrod]

When you change to a different octane fuel, you also change burn speed.

High octane fuels do not necessarily burn slower than low octane fuels -- octane and burn speed are independent variables. Sunoco Maximal, is the fastest burning fuel that Sunoco sells and is 116 octane.

Changing the burn speed in effect changes your ignition timing.
You need to talk to your fuel supplier and find out the difference in burn speed. 90% evaporation number is part of the question but so is the actual fuel components blended into the fuel. The more volatile fuel with lower 90% evaporation temps will be better in an engine that needs rapid throttle response. A high 90% evaporation temp causes a slight delay when you hit the accelerator pump before the actual fuel mixture changes due to the slower evaporation rate. It also depends on how hot your air mixture is, on an engine running a very cold intake air temp due to ice chilled intercoolers you will want a lower 90% evaporation rate to avoid having the fuel droplets drop out of the mixture and wet the intake rather than evaporating.

In an engine that has plenty of air charge temperature and or manifold heating the less volatile fuel might work better.

When Formula 1 ran 86% toluene fuels they had to heat the fuel to avoid problems due to toluene's rather low volatility.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toluene

Larry

[SPARKY]

I've found that a lot of us have too much knowledge and it sometimes blocks the common sense. Your mother backed up the theory.   




And they call this the thinking mans sport 

[jimmy six]

A few years back when I was running fuel with Joe Fontana I took out a plug and handed it to Joe to look at. As he examined it and told me the porcelin and thread color were "just about right".

I pointed out the ground was missing. He said "holy s--t" we need to fatten this baby up. I thought he would see it my way. I have found as the ground gets burned off the plug will give indicate a richer condition than normal especially if the pluges were not new before the run.

Others pointed out corrections in heat ranges. As compression goes up it has been my practice to use colder plugs for the most part as cold as I could get..........Good Luck

[joea]

...jimmy Fontana was likely very correct in his assessment..ie the plug
showed good color and likely good air fuel mixture...in this case it could
have been more of a timing/fuel quality issue for the cylinder pressure
at hand...richening it could be a band-aid of sorts...


ERC HAS BEEN THE UNSUNG HERO OF ANY SUCCESS WE HAVE HAD IN LSR..!!!!!

its been something we (team amo) have it seems practically taken for granted.....

what i hope many folks can try to do it talk with Rick Gold of ERC either
AT the salt flats or after in phone/email....

Rick PASSION for fuel is not surpassed by our passion to achieve faster speeds...

with fuels like vp's, they are often constrained by the series in which many of the fuels
are utilized......Ricks formulations are "custom" and really un-inhibited by outside entities...

he can build these fuels to the max for us....  and abit of enhanced knowledge from
him could go along way to utilizing his fuels to the best of our and our equipments ability...

Joe Amo

[joea]

ERC's fuel can readibly be obtained at your homes as well
thanks to Rick and crew....then you have it as an INTEGRAL
part of your system in testing/dyno etc....so in making
the trek to Bonneville you have a more completed package not
dumping in fuel arbitrarily and hoping for the best or having
to sort out its effect on your system during valuable time on salt...

Joe