A scene that typically causes...
A scene that typically causes that hair on your back to stand up: Drilling into the intake while still on the engine was the easiest way to make the system work. Packing the drill and the ⅛ NPT tap with grease and stuffing the manifold with paper towels and tape prevented any shavings from entering the runners. Whew.
After mounting the hardware, Jackson took charge of wiring the system. Good thing he is an electrician by trade—at least there were only a few wires that needed to be addressed. The intelligent control box uses a combination of rpm and manifold vacuum (or boost in some cases) to control when the pump kicks into action. Typically, it would be set to turn on only when the engine was at zero vacuum, indicating wide-open throttle. Mounting the injectors under the throttle blades as in Jackson’s case required the use of a solenoid (included in the kit) to keep the engine from siphoning the juice into the engine unintentionally.
Once the plumbing and wiring were done, we strapped Jackson’s red Cobra to C&C’s Dynojet chassis dyno for a little truth session. The boys started out making a run with the car in its normal state of tune, which included VP113 fuel and the timing hovering at 36 degrees. The car put down a respectable 361 rear-wheel horsepower through a C4 tranny and an 8.8 rearend spinning 255-series Mickey Thompson Drag Radials. That was with the aforementioned 12:1 compression, a set of ported World Products heads, and a 242/246-at-.050 solid flat-tappet cam. Your basic old-school combo good for low 7-second eighth-mile e.t.’s. For round two, we filled the injector tank with straight pure methanol for a back-to-back test. The dyno graph was almost identical except down maybe 2 horses total. That would indicate that the engine already had plenty of octane and the added methanol just made the engine a little rich.
The push-lock hose was teed...
The push-lock hose was teed into the injectors and routed far from any hot exhaust. Keep in mind that any mixture stronger than 30 percent methanol can be extremely flammable. Yeah, we ran straight medical-grade methanol. We’re cool like that.
For round three, Jackson disconnected the fuel line from his carb and ran the fuel pump, completely emptying his gas tank, only to refill it with run-of-the-mill 93-octane pump gas. Spinning the dyno drum again with the meth injection turned on showed power to once again almost exactly mirror the high-octane race gas. So far no big change. Curious.
For the final test we pulled the plug on the Snow kit and ran the engine on pump gas only. There was a slight bit of audible detonation as the engine climbed through its powerband, but we were all shocked once the dyno graph popped up on the screen. It had dropped 50 hp!
Apparently, the methanol injection had increased the octane the engine was seeing enough so that it performed just as well as the straight race gas. Wow, a product that worked as good as—no better—than claimed! Never before has being hooked on meth been a good thing. One thing is for sure though, with gas prices as high as they are, Jackson’s old Mustang couldn’t have chosen a better time to become a methanol addict!

Different-sized injector nozzles...

Different-sized injector nozzles are included in the Snow kits for tuning the amount of water/methanol the engine sees. The Muscle Car kit comes with an optional dual-nozzle setup to bump up the flow over the common four- and six-cylinder single-nozzle kits.

The Boost Juice that Snow...

The Boost Juice that Snow sells is 49 percent methanol/51 percent water. Snow says the blue windshield washer fluid from the parts store is typically 30 percent methanol/70 percent water, and can be used effectively as well. They do not recommend using E85 or any other alcohol mixture that contains gasoline, or it will destroy the pump and void your warranty.

With the wiring complete and...

With the wiring complete and the engine running, the purple wire (seen capped off here) needs to be grounded for 5 seconds while the engine is held at the desired engagement rpm. That, along with a manifold vacuum dial on the controller box, determines the activation of your injection.
| Dyno Data |
| Methanol Injection Test |
|
With Meth |
Without Meth |
|
| RPM |
HP |
HP |
Difference: |
| 4,400 |
294 |
279 |
+15 |
| 4,500 |
306 |
283 |
+23 |
| 4,600 |
314 |
290 |
+24 |
| 4,700 |
323 |
295 |
+28 |
| 4,800 |
330 |
300 |
+30 |
| 4,900 |
335 |
309 |
+26 |
| 5,000 |
341 |
310 |
+31 |
| 5,100 |
345 |
315 |
+30 |
| 5,200 |
350 |
312 |
+38 |
| 5,300 |
350 |
313 |
+37 |
| 5,400 |
350 |
316 |
+34 |
| 5,500 |
355 |
311 |
+44 |
| 5,600 |
357 |
302 |
+55 |
| 5,700 |
362 |
301 |
+61 |
| 5,800 |
360 |
294 |
+66 |
| 5,900 |
362 |
284 |
+78 |
| 6,000 |
362 |
284 |
+78 |
| 6,100 |
360 |
272 |
+88 |