97, is your setup intercooled?
Methanol is freaking fantastic stuff.....if tuned for properly.
Get the AFR correct WITHOUT methanol, get the timing safe WITHOUT methanol, and have the computer pull/add timing based on the cooler IATs. Simple as that. If done properly, there is 0 chance of hurting your motor. Matter of fact, it will make more power AND do it more safely. How many mods can you think of that do that? Not many, if any at all. A lot of people blow motors with meth by tuning the AFR with the methanol (i.e. leaning it out), or adding timing to the base spark tables on the premise that the methanol is spraying. If it is done this way, and something happens with the meth. Kaboom.
Not sure what kind of IATs you are looking at, and how much the meth would cool them down, but on my non-intercooled blower car, it was LOT. 120+ degrees kind of lot. It would go from 220+ with no meth, to less than 110 with it. At any given point, it was 150-160. So on my particular setup, if the IATs go over 150, then the meth is definitely not spraying and I want it to pull timing FAST. The tune does just this, as the base timing tables were done without the meth. If it stays below 150, then the meth is definitely spraying, and the computer ramps the timing up by around 8 degrees up top. It's really quite simple actually.
On the dyno, my car did not pick up a great deal of power with the methanol, around 20ish rwhp. BUT, my track times tell a very different story. Went to the track last weekend, made a pass on my primary tune (which is setup correctly for methanol), ran a 12.09 @ 117.5 mph. A half hour or so later, I made another pass. This time, the indicator light was on, there was meth in the tank, it was SUPPOSED to be working. Well, I noticed it felt a bit slower, checked my laptop at the end of the run....200+ degree IATs the entire run! What the hell!? I still don't know why it didn't work that run, as it worked flawlessly for the rest of the day. BUT, the computer pulled timing, kept it safe, and I made a perfectly safe pass without any methanol. On that run, I ran a 12.52 @ 110.2 mph.
So on the same tune, which is made to be safe both with and without methanol, I picked up .4 seconds and 7 mph in the 1/4 mile. How's that for a nice mod!?
As far as the mixes go, it really depends on what you are trying to do. The 'water' part does most of the cooling, while the methanol part is what allows you to run a bunch of timing. Pure methanol will allow you to run much more timing, and make more power/run better times. But the problem with straight methanol is that it won't decrease the IATs as much, especially with an intercooler, and will make it harder to get the tune to correctly (and safely) add/pull timing based on the IATs. More water = cooler temps, and easier to tune by, but can't run as much timing with it. Most of the people in my area recommend 50/50, but I run windshield washer fluid (30/70) and 21 degrees of timing on 8 pounds of boost with no problems. A guy in my area with a very similar setup as mine is running 24 degrees with 50/50, and has been for years now with 0 problems.
Oh, and don't be afraid to hit it with a lot of methanol. Some tuners will tell you to run as little meth as possible, and I personally think that's bad advice. While running too much is wasteful, more of it = safer. I'm hitting my setup with a combined 14 gallons/hour (900ish mL/min), which is a metric shit ton, and most tuners that I have encountered have laughed at me about it. But I have 0 problems with it, and damn does it run good (picked up 7 mph in the 1/4 with it.....hard to argue that); it has never once bogged on me, even when the ambient air was only 30ish degrees. Spraying that much, my AFR came down from 12.0 to about 11.1-11.3, which would imply a loss of power due to it being richer. BUT, that is deceiving, as methanol's stoichemetric number is not 14.7. It's something like 6.5, IIRC, which means that that 11.1 isn't actually 11.1. It's more like 11.5 or so.
Bottom line: if your looking to pick up a lot of power on the dyno, you're probably going to be dissatisfied with the methanol. If you are looking for a mod that will make a significant improvement to your times at the track, all the while making the entire motor safer, you will love it.
