Re: ALCOHOL IN OIL -- Hill Country Raceway

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Subject:

Re: ALCOHOL IN OIL

Author:
Don in Austin Street Stock 51

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Date Posted: 15:52:53 04/16/06 Sun

>I have a serious question to ask someone who knows the
>answer!! We bought a street stock that runs on
>alcohol and we have been unable to race because of
>mechanical problems. We have yet to race or even
>drive to car, we just run it to pull it on the
>trailer. The question is our mechanic found what he
>thought was water in the oil, but turn out after
>asking the person we bought it from that it is
>alcohol???? He stated, "that is alcohol and your
>mechanic is an idiot, after the car warms up the
>alcohol will go away". Is this true? I have always
>been told that only oil goes in the oil, if not you
>have major problems. I am very unfimiliar with
>alcohol. If anyone can help please do so. Plus the
>person we bought the car from worked on the car to
>transform it from a sportsman to a street stock.

I have seen this a lot with IMCA modified alcohol burners. It is a semi-normal condition. Here are some things that contribute to it:

*Overly rich mixture due to poor calibration of the carburetor or flooding at idle. The carburetion might be just fine under hard acceleration but rich at idle or low speeds.
Years ago Barry Grant carburetors were horrible about this despite their well-known name. (Highly overrated crap!)

*Lots of idling or low speed running -- especially in cold weather. Thermostat might help and is a good idea in my book. The low speed running pulling it on and off the trailer is exactly what will tend to pollute the oil without producing temperatures adequate to boil off the alcohol and water. (Its almost certainly some of both.)

*Piston rings are poor. Is there lots of oil smoke coming out of the breathers or just alcohol boiling off?

Any one of the above can cause alcohol in the oil which will most likely purge completely under race conditions.

A compression or leakdown test might be in order, but I don't necessarily see a deal-breaker here. "Mechanic B" is more on the money than your "Mechanic A"

Don
Street\I-Stock racer for ten years, previously pit\mechanic help for my nephew's IMCA mod.
www.donsautomotive.com

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