Can anyone give me a lesson on using Meth.
What is it exactly?
Why is it used?
Where do i get it?
How is it used?

It seems to be quite a growing trend as more cars become dual mapped, but I know nothing about it.


Andrew

 

From an article published in "Total Impreza"
No apologies!

Your Mother wouldn’t like it if she found it under your bed.
Health and Safety would have a fit if they found it in your kitchen.
The Tax Man would have a field day if he found it in your tank.
Methanol. CH30H. The (un)fair advantage.
It’s just plain bad for you, it’s no good denying it. You don’t want to drink it, despite it being an alcohol. Life isn’t better with it in your Coke. Don’t wash in it, rinse your dentures in it, or even allow it on your skin. It’s highly flammable, and burns with a colourless flame, so you can’t see what’s frying you, although you can put it out by chucking loads of water at it, or yourself if you’re on fire. This can be comical, but only if it’s happening to somebody else. It actually smells quite nice, but don’t go sniffing it! It’s highly toxic, causing blindness, confusion, headache, dizziness, nausea, a depression of the central nervous system and even death. A bit like a night on the P-ss in fact.
I’m aware I’m not exactly painting a rosy picture here, but stick with me.
It’s actually all over the place, with a small amount in the atmosphere, being a naturally occurring by product. It has all sorts of chemical uses (apparently). Its best claim to fame, in my mind anyway, was as a fuel for World War Two German rocketry. Now you’re talking, although in certain compounds it was known to dissolve the unwary pilot.
So what’s it any good for? Why would anyone want to know about a substance with so many flippin’ awful tendencies?
IT MAKES YOUR CAR GO FASTER.
OK, now you have my attention.
The Yanks have been racing with the stuff for some time, although it can have the side effect of rotting various car parts if used neat on untreated areas. Now, we don’t want that, but it turns out that if you just mix a bit of it with other fuel, you can find power virtually for free.
It’s a fact of human nature that we tend to ignore certain facts if the results can justify the risk. Like drinking too much, or eating at McDonalds, or bonking the wife’s sister at a wedding. We know it’s not going to prolong life, but who wants life without thrills?
Our Martyn has been setting up cars for some time now using various mixes of Methanol with pretty good results, especially considering the outlay, which consists of a bit of faffing about with draining tanks etc. followed by adding fuel which actually costs only two thirds of the usual stuff, then mapping it up on the dyno to get the benefit. The trick is that adding Methanol adds to the suitability of the original fuel to resist detonation, so you can crack in a fair bit more ignition. I dare say I could Google the reason why, but who cares? We’ve run between ten and twenty per cent mixtures, which can add anything up to 40 bhp or so to your original total.
This is serious extra power, and would normally take a bigger turbo to achieve that sort of gain, possibly along with the extra lag that comes with it.
I see it like this. You just want to drive it every day to work, and go fast occasionally. Don’t use Methanol. You’re better off just tuning the car the way you want to, and run the best fuel you can, as long as the car is mapped for it. If you want to go drag racing however, you’re daft if you don’t use either Methanol, or 100 octane plus race fuel. Considering how cheap it is to add as much as 40 bhp to the total power you’re running, it sounds mad to me not to explore it, considering you want as much as you can get out of a competition car. I know you’re thinking that your car is fast enough, but believe me, when you line up on a strip, you’d sell your mother to aliens for another half second shaved off.
There is another way of looking at it. Rather than pushing your luck, by either taking the ignition timing to the max, or running more boost than you want to, it makes sense to run Methanol, then back the ignition off a couple of degrees from the ultimate setting available from the superior fuel mix. Call it a “safety” measure, and you’ll feel better.
I wouldn’t want to run on it all the time. One good reason is the faff required to get the mix right, and you absolutely have to. Any attempt to run it carelessly is doomed to fail. If you don’t use enough, you are running the risk of detonation due to the extra timing you added. If you use too much, you’re leaning out the mixture as the stuff carries a lot more oxygen with it. If you have a specific use for it, like drag racing, you should be publicly flogged and ridiculed and the video posted on ScoobyNet if you can’t be bothered to get it right for something that important. Also, if you’re only using it occasionally, in a mixture with standard high octane, it won’t hurt your car’s insides, particularly if you don’t leave it in there for too long after the event.
There is a certain pleasure in preparing the car for a meeting, and a bit of fuel alchemy just adds to the fun of it all.
I’d compare it to Viagra, which as you all know, gives a boost to your performance, but won’t hurt you if you use it sparingly. I said sparingly, Martyn.
Anyway chaps, if the wife (or her sister) wonders why you’re pulling like a train all of a sudden, it’ll be our little secret.
Storage can be a problem, unless you can find new and interesting ways to hide a 45 gallon drum. Table lamp? Garden ornament? Contemporary art, offering a juxtaposition of man’s inability to suppress his destructive urges? Just leave it lying around and maybe Banksy will do the job for you. All fine, as long as you can disguise the tap.
I suppose you could claim an ECO feed in tariff for it, on the basis that it isn’t actually coming from one of BP’s leaky oil wells. I don’t think Greenpeace would approve however, considering what you intend to use it for.
As far as we’re concerned, it’s what switchable mapping was invented for, so get some in, get it mapped, flick the switch and go play!

 

Meth is used as a additive to boost the octane in the fuel and allows us to advance the ignition timing to gain more performance at a relatively cheap rate, it also reduces the possibility of det from bad fuel. There are many places around the country that sell methanol such as jennychem who also offer a delivery service. Do a search as there are many threads on here regarding methanol including how dangerous it is when absorbed into the skin etc.

 

I bet you spent all morning typing that Mr Jeffery

 

I won't attempt to extol my literary prowess like Mr. Jeffrey.

https://www.scoobynet.com/general-te...-methanol.html

 

I get mine from here......

http://www.jennychem.com/


I use a 20% mix in my car, so pour 4lt of meth in and then 16lt of V-Power on top. A 20% mix is the amount most commonly used as the gains from using more are minimal (so I'm led to believe), with a 20% mix you can see a noticible increase in BHP and torque, anything up to about 10% more I think.

 

Bloody excellent write up!!!

 

Car must be mapped for it budd noones mentioned that
If newage sti 60itre tank half fuel vpower add 12 litre of meth then top up tank up the neck also and switch maps n away you go I get 35 lb torque and 30/40 bhp extra for £12.50
Can't be bad

 

I think if you read Alan's bit again you'll see he mentioned it a few times !

 

DT Chemicals £138 for 205lt delivered

 

Anybody run it all the time?

Particularly interested to hear from those also with an untreated aluminium swirl pot!!!!

For cash and performance im thinking a 95ron + 20%meths would be great when the cars finished!

Or shall i just treat it as a track only additive?

the other thing missed from that article is the need to keep it sealed off from atmosphere when stored or it will pull moisture out of the air and cause issues with gumming up injectors and filters etc. If you buy a 200l drum and leave it in the garage, one little slip up with leaving the barrell unsealed could see you with alot of useless meths to get rid of! For this reason i think ill stick to 20l at a time even though it works out more expensive! ..... until i have 10 spare 20l containers to decant a 200l barrel into straight away.

 

SAME PRICE PER LITRE AS VPOWER

 

I run it in my car all the time, however I don't do many miles.
I buy 2x 25lt containers at a time as anymore than that would sit around too long.

1 25lt container costs £23.50 + vat so it's far cheaper than V-Power.
Factor in delivery costs etc though and it's only slightly cheaper when buying a small amount.

 

We are running usually all the time,plus gain against the V-power in our case is around 38bhp/40-50lb-ft

Price for 25L is around £18 from one seller on eBay,we are usually buying 2 x 25L..

Jura

 

On my old car i had it solely mapped for a 20%meth mix and did not get any problems. I used to buy a 25L drum when and if i needed it as i only used the car at weekends.

Make sure you get some heavy duty chemical gloves and a decent mask to help protect against spillage/ breathing in the fumes. When i was getting my car ready for it's mapping session i had a little meth spillage over my hand and i was off my face within 10mins, the missus ended up driving us home as i was in cuckoo land

 

Quoted by Andy F below.

 

Methanol is brilliant, i cant understand why everyone doesn't use it ! Been running it at 20% in my car for a couple of years now. It is nasty stuff and care is needed when handling it but so is petrol to be fair and no one seems to care much about that !

My last engine went from 404bhp to 436bhp, not bad for a 20g turbo rated at 380bhp =)
And this engine, well i have no idea its only ever seen a meth mix.

I recently brought two barrels, one for a friend at the cost of £124.50 per barrel delivered, so about 60p a litre. If your buying meth make sure you get virgin grade 99.95% min purity, cos its not all the same !

 

This may sound daft but I have always wondered how you go about switiching from running on v-power to a meth mix. I'm guessing you run your tank down very low and then fill up adding in the required amount of meth? At what point/how do you know when to flick the map switch over?

 

simple, work out you desired percentage first, ie on a classic with 50l tank at 20% meth, you take 10 liters to petrol station in jerry cans, chuck it in and fill the rest up with fuel, flick switch, job done

 

Most classics have 60lt tanks buddy, only the very early cars had 50lt. STI 2/3/4/5/6 are all 60lt.

 

i want meth just so i can talk to the girls on the jennychem website!

 

Trust me mate the girl on the website looks nothing like the moose working behind the counter!

 

Mine runs on a 16.7% meth/vpower (10l meth/50l vpower) day in day out, car covers approx. 8k miles a year, no problems over the last three years, i think i'd be classed as an addict

 

Ssh! Don't destroy his fantasy. He can have a ham shank while he orders the meth

 

Same as me. I'm guessing we use the same mapper as most people use 20%

 

Not to worry, TT isn't known for being fussy

 

I didn't realise that it was this popular. So if going for a dual mapping session, what's the best course of action for getting the meth map done after having a normal fuel map. How do you determine how much meth? I have a 50L tank btw but can never get more than about 40L in on a fill up. Would i have to go and fill half up to 25L, add 20%meth(10L), and then fill to the brim?
Would that be a close enough ratio?

 

That's how my mapper does it. I can't imagine people mess about draining tanks on a mapping session.

 

Yep, if you do have a 50lt tank (what model you got) then just pour 10lt of meth in and brim with fuel.

 

If youve got 10l of straight fuel left, and you stick 40l of fuel and 10l (20%) of meths in on top ..... the mix will become about 17%

If youve got 10l of 20% meths in, and you stick 50l of straight fuel ontop, that tank becomes a 3% meths mix.

I know syvecs is pretty on it with control when it comes to slight variations of fuel and switchable maps etc, but how do more common ecus like esl and apexi for example cope????