Originally Posted by dcress1127
Originally Posted by OneBadGMC
Kind of depends...
Many alky engines are built without valve seals. This lets the motor pull a little oil through to help keep the top lubes. If yours doesn't have any, you'll need to add them back for street use.
Whats the compression ratio? Are you wanting to run it on pump gas or race gas? If race gas, you may as well leave it on alky, as it'll be cheaper and run cooler.
Speaking of cooler, how big is the radiator? Alky doesn't require nearly as much cooling capacity as gas.
The radiator is plenty big to cool it. Since it has a blower the compression is 9-1. Problem with alcohol is: I have to buy it by the barrel and pump it myself which, would be okay, but because of ordiance and covenant I can't keep a barrel of fuel in the garage. I thought it might be cheaper to change the motor over than to sell it and buy another motor. Sure appreciate the help.
This motor had just two passes on it when I bought it from a guy who had to quit racing due to a divorce. I told him I would hold it for a year and sell it back at the same price if he could get on his feet and now he told me he won't be able to do that and I am into it way cheap so, figured to put it in a street car of some kind.
You didn't say it was blown. If this is a injected motor, you're going to spend a TON of money to convert it over to gas.
If it's injected, plan on buying a new set of nozzles (which is the cheap part), plus a new fuel pump (about 300-600, depending if you buy good used or new).
If the blower is setup for alky only, you can potentially ruin it on gas. Alky blowers have clearances setup quite a bit tighter than gas blowers. If you switch it over to gas and it doesn't have the proper clearances, plan on locking the rotors up inside the housing, trashing the blower and probably ripping your crank snout off at the same time.
Gas for a blower motor is going to be considerably more expensive than alky. I just bought a drum (which I store here at the house), and it ran me 3.00/gallon for 99.99% alky. Thats about the equivelant of 6.00 gas. 6.00/gallon gas will NOT run a motor setup for blown alky. Plan on buying C16, which is considerably more expensive.
You'd be better off renting a storage bin and keeping the alky in there.