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wheelhorse656

Running a k181 on alcohol

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wheelhorse656

I am rebuilding a k181 kohler to put on a lawn ranger. I was wanting to set the ranger up for pulling but i want to the engine off of alcohol. I know a little bit about it but i need to know more like do i have to use special parts on the engine to run it on alcohol do i need to set the timing diffrent? i know i will probley need to set the carb diffrent. any help with this would be great.

Also on the second hand what do i do beef up the spark to make it hotter?

Thanks,

Jordan :thumbs2:

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wheelhorse656

If you haven't already been there, you might want to explore Brian Miller's web site.

http://gardentractorpullingtips.com/index.htm

Thanks for the link Bob!!!! :thumbs2:

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wheelhorse656

BUMP!! :thumbs2:

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rmaynard

Did you consult with anyone at Brian Miller's shop?

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shorts

It's going to want twice as much fuel, so find a cuople of spare carbs and be prepaired to do some serious rejetting to get the fuel flow right. also look into something like a MSD box for the ignition as well as a hot coil. then find someone with a dyno so you can dial it in.

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Jim_M

You'll also need an electric fuel pump, a plastic tank and alcohol proof fuel lines. The timing will depend on your camshaft and compression ratio. Its going to be between 28 and 35 degrees BTDC.

If you're running a stock cam, head, piston, rod, and crank I don't think you'll be happy. Unless you can raise the compression considerably, you won't see enough horsepower gain to offset the cost of the fuel system parts alone. In fact, with stock parts you may even lose horsepower.

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rydogg

My brother and I used to race go karts on the local dirt tracks we used Alcohol powered briggs 5 horse motors that were pushing close to 30hp with a lot of modifications. Alcohol is corrosive to aluminum so make sure you remove as much as you can and let the rest evaporate we also ran special fuel lines and the carb needed to be drilled out to allow for double the fuel flow. We stored our fuel in well sealed race fuel containers since alcohol will draw moisture from the air if not properly sealed, we also ran Klotz Racing Castor oil but i'm not sure what the pulling guys use, we were running these little motors at 6000+ rpm so a good race oil was necessary.

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wheelhorse656

Thanks for the comments i think what im gunna do is just keep it on gas. It sounds like it would be very expensive to just modify the engine to run on alcohol. Im thinking maybe gear it gearing it lower to get more torque instead has anyone tryed this?

Thanks,

Jordan

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