Water Methanol Injection Kit - Crash Safety?

Finch204

Finch204

Greenie N00B Member
Greenie Member
So installing water/methanol injection kits is one of the more "bang for the buck" mods that we can do to our cars. I'm curious about the potential dangers getting into an accident with a WMI kit installed. I'm going to use @Redline's installation as an example here. The WMI kit is installed at the front left portion of the car, on the space ahead of the front driver's side tire. My question is, what are the chances of a car that has WMI kit installed, catching fire on a front end collision? Say the car was going 20 MPH when it rear-ended another car? What if it was going 40 mph? 60 mph? 80 mph? (You'll probably be unconscious at this point and won't even notice if your car is on fire). What if, instead of rear-ending a car, you hit a light pole instead?

I am asking this question from a car engineering noob standpoint. I am aware that a gas powered car has fuel in it. Yes it can still catch fire even without a WMI kit installed. It can catch fire for other reasons, like someone mentioned, a battery explosion. However I also believe that manufacturers have crash-tested their vehicles to make it as safe as possible; I assume the possibility of catching fire is included in those tests. My question is not if a car can catch fire, but really if there is an "increased" risk of catching fire with a WMI kit installed.

Discuss!
 
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Speculating about a crash that poses danger is hard to do, because three things would need to happen: 1) the fluid must become exposed; 2) the vapor concentration must be sufficient for ignition; 3) the vapor must contact an ignition source, such as an arcing wire, other flames, etc. In the strictest sense, methanol isn't flammable; methanol vapor is flammable. It's the same with gasoline. You may have heard the stories of shade-tree mechanics throwing cigarettes into buckets of gasoline to put them out. This can be done if there's not enough gasoline vapor to ignite. Methanol is the same in this regard, though vapor concentration for ignition is different for methanol. My understanding is that it needs to be much more concentrated for methanol vapor to ignite than for gasoline vapor to ignite.

For me, the answer is simple: carry a fire-extinguisher.

Technical data on the flammability factors of methanol:
http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1345&context=eeng_fac

Notably from this source: "significantly more methanol vapor must be present in air before ignition can occur, but that methanol combustion will occur with much richer mixtures of methanol."
 
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Forgot to add: metanol, being soluble in water, is able to be extinguished merely with water if it catches fire. Therefore, you don't need a special fire extinguisher class. Even jugs of water in your car could be a safety strategy. It is good to have fire extinguishers if gasoline catches fire, though.
 
Redline said:
Forgot to add: metanol, being soluble in water, is able to be extinguished merely with water if it catches fire. Therefore, you don't need a special fire extinguisher class. Even jugs of water in your car could be a safety strategy. It is good to have fire extinguishers if gasoline catches fire, though.
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Um, does not methanol burn clear? If so, how would one know to put out said fire?


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Littleloogy said:
Um, does not methanol burn clear? If so, how would one know to put out said fire?


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It burns a very light blue. You put out the fire by drenching the entire potentially affected area. If you look closely, you'll also be able to see the effect of things on fire, such as charring/melting/etc. Visible flames are very helpful to know the exact scope of the fire, but not the only way.
 
Redline said:
It burns a very light blue. You put out the fire by drenching the entire potentially affected area. If you look closely, you'll also be able to see the effect of things on fire, such as charring/melting/etc. Visible flames are very helpful to know the exact scope of the fire, but not the only way.
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In regular indoor lighting I am sure you could see a light blue flame, sure. But in normal bright daylight that flame is invisible. Brings me back to my karting days when my block caught fire. I didn't know it was on fire until my Tillotson started melting. Best not to risk the fire and dilute with water before pumping that shit into your hot engine bay.


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Littleloogy said:
In regular indoor lighting I am sure you could see a light blue flame, sure. But in normal bright daylight that flame is invisible. Brings me back to my karting days when my block caught fire. I didn't know it was on fire until my Tillotson started melting. Best not to risk the fire and dilute with water before pumping that shit into your hot engine bay.


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Yeah, we all have different levels of risk tolerance. I'm not at all concerned... There are soooooo many people running 100% too. It's by far the most common mix run. Have you heard of any catastrophes? I'm not saying it's impossible - far from it. But I can't remember a single anecdote of it occurring. Are you aware of one?
 
Redline said:
Have you heard of any catastrophes? I'm not saying it's impossible - far from it. But I can't remember a single anecdote of it occurring. Are you aware of one?
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I am aware of a instance where a hose popped off during a 1/4 pass. If he was on 100% I'm pretty sure his car would have tuned into a fireball. But No, I know not of one.


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it can still catch fire with a 50/50 blend so it really depend what you use it for...If it is cooling only a lower concentration is perfect and below that it will be exactly like your washing fluid system that wash....your intake valve and the combustion chamber :)
but for a fuel adder, you need to increase the concentration to avoid drowning the engine and it is where it get a little more dangerous...

IMO the weakness of a w/m injection kit is the supplied nylon pipe and connectors. If you change that for AN fitting you would decrease the risk a lot....It may still leak during a cracsh but it will take a harder and local shock to break it...It happened to me twice that nylon line disconnected, after few connect#disconnet, it get louse get out under pressure, spraying the engine bay with a full 3/16 large jet...Fortunately it wasn't on the exaust manifold and nothing bad happened...
 
Jeff23spl said:
it can still catch fire with a 50/50 blend so it really depend what you use it for...If it is cooling only a lower concentration is perfect and below that it will be exactly like your washing fluid system that wash....your intake valve and the combustion chamber :)
but for a fuel adder, you need to increase the concentration to avoid drowning the engine and it is where it get a little more dangerous...

IMO the weakness of a w/m injection kit is the supplied nylon pipe and connectors. If you change that for AN fitting you would decrease the risk a lot....It may still leak during a cracsh but it will take a harder and local shock to break it...It happened to me twice that nylon line disconnected, after few connect#disconnet, it get louse get out under pressure, spraying the engine bay with a full 3/16 large jet...Fortunately it wasn't on the exaust manifold and nothing bad happened...
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What WMI kit? I've never had a single nylon hose pop off or even leak in going on 2 years.
 
I don't see why a 50/50 meth/water would be an issue. Windshield washer fluid can be 30-60% methanol, and those reservoirs get popped all the time in front end collisions. I don't hear of cars catching on fire over it.

You could always put the res in the hatch as well.

Most catastrophes of methanol I've heard about is meth leaking into the combustion chamber. Not meth leaking outside.
 
mangosmoothie said:
I don't see why a 50/50 meth/water would be an issue. Windshield washer fluid can be 30-60% methanol, and those reservoirs get popped all the time in front end collisions. I don't hear of cars catching on fire over it.

You could always put the res in the hatch as well.

Most catastrophes of methanol I've heard about is meth leaking into the combustion chamber. Not meth leaking outside.
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Yep, the infamous methanol hydrolock. That's why I run both a solenoid and a master kill switch. No methanol flowing unless I'm driving the car. Ever. LOL
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neganox said:
Lemme tell you about methanol leaks. *looks at snow products*
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Zero issues with my Cooling Mist products, though I do run an AEM inline filter. So far, no issues with it either.
 
Redline said:
Zero issues with my Cooling Mist products, though I do run an AEM inline filter. So far, no issues with it either.
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Same setup here. Coolingmist stage 3 w/ an AEM inline filter off of the tank. Works great. Also have a switch to kill the system in the cabin.
 
Redline i have AEM stuff and i run it since 5years but the quick connect on the jet side was no longer holding and it poped twice. At first, i though i didn't installed it properly but the last time i was sure so i replaced that connector and the hose and it seem fine then. But it isn't as resistant as fuel line. when it pop, you also miss the cooling effect on the car but no fault appear unless you have a fail safe...
 
Jeff23spl said:
Redline i have AEM stuff and i run it since 5years but the quick connect on the jet side was no longer holding and it poped twice. At first, i though i didn't installed it properly but the last time i was sure so i replaced that connector and the hose and it seem fine then. But it isn't as resistant as fuel line. when it pop, you also miss the cooling effect on the car but no fault appear unless you have a fail safe...
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Indeed. That's why I put eyes on it very, very often. I pretty much do that to tons of things anyways, with all the mods in my sig, LOL
 
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Redline said:
Indeed. That's why I put eyes on it very, very often. I pretty much due that to tons of things anyways, with all the mods in my sig, LOL
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I know what you mean, i have a similar setup built during the last 8-9 years, i'm just too lazzy to list everything....but i check it carrefully too . The second time it fail, i was at the strip so i fulled the tank and checked everything, made a run but finished with an empty tank to discover the hose poped under pressure..
This is why i have switched for another controller to get a kind of fail safe. I read bad review on the flowgauge so the one i bought will check pump current. I will try to adjust it to see a free flowing and trigger the alarm...But if you look at thread, i'm still working on it, i have problems with rpm signal compatibility...
 
Learning a lot about the use of methanol in this thread. The methanol fuel safety guide was a good read as well. Thanks for the good info everyone. I'll try to summarize my findings regarding methanol so far:
  • Methanol is more difficult to ignite than gasoline. (Something has to happen during a collision to ignite the methanol in the engine bay, but this "something" or "series of somethings" will be very hard to pinpoint considering no two accidents are the same.)
  • Methanol burns slower than gasoline. It also releases less energy than gasoline when burning.
  • In general, methanol may be considered less of a fire hazard compared to gasoline.
  • When methanol burns, it emits almost no light and creates no smoke. (This is the scary part. If indeed the methanol in your car ignited for whatever reason, you/people might not notice the methanol flames on your car.)
  • Since methanol is soluble in water, as others have suggested, diluting your solution with water will lessen the chance of it catching fire. As Redline have stated, you can also easily put out methanol fires using just water. In fact, using water is one of the preferred ways of extinguishing methanol fires.
So to answer my own question of whether there is an increased chance of a car catching fire if it has a WMI kit installed during a collision, the answer seems to be, there is a minimal increase. The chances of a WMI kit leaking, or of hoses popping off, seems to be higher than the car catching fire due to a WMI kit being installed on the car.
 
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