Avalanche

My LHS sells one brand of fuel, S&W Race fuel. Its a 20% Nitro 20% oil blend and costs $16 a gallon. The owner/workers will laugh at you if you ask if "its safe" for this or that kind of engine. Hes a bit of an "old school" douche bag, but you can count on him for honesty. I run it and it works very well, I do think its a bit heavy on the oil but I've seen no adverse effects.

049flyer

My Feedback: (18)

Fuel isn't rocket science guys!

Only three components in fuel:

Alcohol - Oil - Nitro Methane

If your car goes faster on one fuel than another it's because of more nitro or more alcohol and that's it!

If a certain brand of 20% fuel is faster than another brand of 20% fuel then the faster of the two has less oil and more alcohol.


If you want your engine to last longer run more oil, if you want to go faster run more alcohol and nitro.

That's all there is to it guys!

Aterlatus

Can't we just get a bottle of nitro-methane and dump it in a gallon of diesel? :P

dbow

My Feedback: (1)

I forget who posted about fuel not being regulated or whatever.

In fact it is, by the DOT. There is an additional fee associated with anything that contains chemicals that are flammable, corrosive etc.
That is usually just a handling fee and the carrier has to have it on the BOL or contents of the truck or however they ship it. In some cases the shipper may want the MSDS or the correct code of the product and class.

The shipper has to be HAZ MAT certified (not cheap), have the appropriate software (not cheap) and the correct labeling for the cartons.

If you ship something that is a hazard without the above it is called undeclared. Such as taking a gallon of fuel and sticking it in a box with no labels. If they catch you, they will impose fines on the company.

To be honest I dont much worry about the price of fuel, fuel is by far one of the cheapest parts of the hobby. There are probably several aspects that contribute to the price. The process for some of the components of the fuel and keeping it as pure as possible is not cheap. Water is the killer of Nitro and very hard to keep water out of fuel unless properly stored.


Dbow

Aterlatus

Entrance to theme park: 8 hours @ £25
Cinema: 2 hours @ £5 (plus snacks)
Bowling: 1 hour @ £5
Protitute: 20 minutes @ £40 (rough guess, unless any prozzies want to correct me)
Gallon of nitro: 12 hours @ £14

You do the maths - what's the cheapest fun?

dg2b

No experience on the one above but the fuel cost is a mute discussion in my books. I pay for the fuel "I feel best for me" and it shaves a few seconds lap time.

Aterlatus

Lap times are irrelevant to me - as long as the fuel makes me engine say putputputputput I'm happy

dg2b

jsswcks

20 % nitro is 20% nitro wether its for cars ,boats,irplanes
just like the guys wur saying earlier power master fuel is the cheapest at my lhs ive ran it and its fine but u try and buy it
if ur a newbie and the the guy at the lhs litalary will not sell it to u
he says "its not for cars" but it says right on the can cars ,boats ,airplane ,the hobby guys tell u to get a "good fuel with high oil content"power master has higher oil than most at18%.

joblo1978

My Feedback: (-1)

One thing to take into account is cars run a higher percentage of nitro than planes. That might have something to do with the cost difference. Another thing is like what's his name was saying, the amount of fuel that cars use is small compared to planes. The biggest buggy engine is typically a .21. The average plane uses a .40 or .45. and you can even get up into the .60's and even 1.20's. Since we use less, they're gonna jack up the price and get the same amount of money that they would from both hobbies.

Aterlatus

But I think the point is that there is no difference between plane, boat or car nitro - it's all the same stuff really.

OK, so it might have different nitro / oil contents, but what the hell? If it makes your engine go putterputterputter so you can rag the thing around the nearest road/carpark, who cares?

I'd say the type of fuel you use only really makes a diffference at race level.

If you're not sure, just buy the smallest bottle of a fuel that you can and give it a try - if you don't like it, don't buy a gallon. Simple.

rszanti

We can all mix our own - it's actually pretty cheap that way. Like 2fast said, it's only "Alcohol - Oil - Nitro Methane". Alcohol is the fuel, Nitro provides an oxidizing agent and the oil keeps the engine from wearing out (and maybe there's a few other additives providing better ignition properties). If you've got plenty of time for it and would like to experiment, I'll bet any of us could come up with an acceptable fuel for whatever we're running. 'Course the existing manufacturers have already done all that work and are packaging the fuel in convenient sized containers.

Actually, it's probably the packaging AND shipping costs that make it pricey. One load of the $1.99/gal fuel at the gas station is delivered in a 5000 (???) gallon tank truck. We buy ours in quart or gallon containers. And I noticed several online vendors have an add on of about $20 to ship a gallon container - must be something to that hazzardous shipment claim.

ps - if you don't know a whole lot about the chemistry of fuels and don't really want to know, then why not buy what your car vendor or the LHS recommends.

3 Channel Brain

In my first reincarnation (early 50s) fuel was about $3 a Pint/$24 a gal. So you spendthrifts have run the price up a buck or so.