Water Methanol Injection

[Josh R.]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by MoreThanAV6:
Let me say this. Water injection is a bandaid soultion to high knock. Its difficult to tune and wears out your engine. Stay away from it. Put your money towards modification that increase efficiency.<hr></blockquote>

Listen to MoreThanaV6, he knows what he's talking about. Water injection is very efficient in supressing denotation, but like he said "it's a bandaid solution". There is a reason that none of the fastest GTPs run water injection, and you think they would because they have a roots blower with a very poor adiabic efficiency. The reason they don't run water injection is not because they don't know about it, it's because they know better.

What if you run out of water because you forgot to fill it, or your nozzle clogs because you used tap water instead of distilled water, or your pump burns out??

[ December 13, 2002: Message edited by: Josh R. ]</p>

[Tiago]

Im seriously considering this for high boost track runs, motor go out witha bang [img]graemlins/dunce.gif[/img]

[Mighty Thor]

I back it up 100%. The gain is very noticeable and it does make the engine run cooler and gives you that mmmff when you need it. A hundred 100 hp or more can happen depending how much you are running; it acts more synergistic.

I use www.smcenterprises.com Just let the guy know if you are running a low boost and he can make one.

Frankly, I would rather have a water to air intercooler. It's a pain to keep putting Alchol or pure water or mix. I just leave it off most of the time.

[Pike]

I've been researching this subject all day (with some help from nova - it helsp when you spell alcohol right in the search engines... :D ) and it is a very widely used method of cooling intakes (for high performance cars) and used to increase gas mileage (for low performance vehicles).

I started out a sceptic (since I started this post...) but now I'm starting to believe.

The theory is that the the atomized mixture of destilled water & denatured alcohol (thats what I figured would be the best types to use for our engines - you'll find others listed though) (at my particular estimation ratio between 3:2 and 2:1) chemically cools the incoming air stream. The theory behind this is that standard pump gas has an energy standing of 145 BTU while alcohol & water are at about the 450-500 BTU range; meaning they retain heat a lot less than gas (excuse me if my wording is a little off, I'm not the best with the chemistry lingo).

The atomized mixture is vaporized to steam during the combustion process (which also means your cleaning the inside of your cylinders as a bonus) and expels the heat with it during the discharge phase (as well as tempering hot spots on the cylinder walls - which is the big thing).

I looked at a lot of "kit systems" provided by manufacturers and most of them explain the process fairly well. Since I don't like taking a dealers word for it (he's got the motivation to lie since he's trying to make a buck) I went out and explored the region of do-it-yourself kits (and holy shnikes is there a lot of those...). (they are really popular on air cooled VW's and dune buggies)

after looking at the $200+ kits I decided that it would be easier (and safer) to build my own single stage kit. Total project price should be about $100.

In my estimation, if you don't push the limit with the boost and run more as a safety net than a boost enhancer, then you'll probably save some wear and tear on the engine and pick up a few extra psi on pump gas without retarding the timeing.

This is just my ideas after several hours of research and could be completely wrong. I'm open to debates about it since I've never seen it done. I would agree that its a band-aid solution if someone is just trying to max out the engine and take it beyond compatable limits. I would also say that this method might be a way to keep from ever needing a band aid if used properly.

my 2 cents worth! [img]graemlins/dunce.gif[/img]

[nova]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Josh R.:


Listen to MoreThanaV6, he knows what he's talking about. Water injection is very efficient in supressing denotation, but like he said "it's a bandaid solution". There is a reason that none of the fastest GTPs run water injection, and you think they would because they have a roots blower with a very poor adiabic efficiency. The reason they don't run water injection is not because they don't know about it, it's because they know better.

What if you run out of water because you forgot to fill it, or your nozzle clogs because you used tap water instead of distilled water, or your pump burns out??

[ December 13, 2002: Message edited by: Josh R. ]<hr></blockquote>

If you are talking for everyday use then I agree its not the best solution. For high boost track runs it is a perfectly acceptable solution. Its been used successfuly for that express purpose for over 60 years and in aircraft no less. If your aircraft engine destroys itself, you don't just let fly profanity and pull over, gravity reexerts its control over you and you quickly head down. If its safe and reliable for short duration use on aircraft it is more than acceptable for short duration use of automobiles

[MoreThanAV6]

If you are just going to use it for track use then why dont you just get a NOS kit? Seriously the adibatic cooling ability of nitrous and added power would be better than the water injection. Water displaces space for air/fuel, which is what makes power.
Go for water injection, just remember that I told you its not a miricale working apparatus that most are making it seem, don't blame me if it doesn't meet your expectations.
Nova, water injection tears the teflon off the rotors of the supercharger in the grand prix and has the ability to case wear on cylinder walls which will lead to loss of compression.

[Riles]

Another option could be a combination of the water-air intercooler and supplemental fuel injectors. The water-air would cool the air down very nicely, and will always have the same amount of water (never need to refill), and then spraying the air-temp (same temp as with water/methanol injection) fuel into the airstream early (also atomizing it) would help to cool the engine down some as well. This way, the system is always on, always cooling, and permanently increasing efficiency of your whole turbo setup.

Joe
P.S. Not even sure if this is totally correct... nocutt referenced to it in his reply to one of my posts about fuel injection, and it sounds good to me :)

[daWhoady]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr> Originally posted by Josh R.:
Listen to MoreThanaV6, he knows what he's talking about. Water injection is very efficient in supressing denotation, but like he said "it's a bandaid solution". There is a reason that none of the fastest GTPs run water injection, and you think they would because they have a roots blower with a very poor adiabic efficiency. The reason they don't run water injection is not because they don't know about it, it's because they know better.

What if you run out of water because you forgot to fill it, or your nozzle clogs because you used tap water instead of distilled water, or your pump burns out??

<hr></blockquote>
The reason I have found the GTP's don't run it on their cars is because you use it before the blower. The Water/Alcohol Injection has to go through the blower then. For a turbo set-up is placed after the turbo, before the throttle body. It works great for GN's. Plenty of GN owners around town here use it and have had no problems.

The only real danger to it is if you do run out and you are still running at a higher boost. The systems I have seen though come with a guage that the driver can monitor when levels are getting low.

I don't see why you would call it a bandaid and state the only purpouse is to prevent detonation. What other purpose do you need? An intercooler is used to cool down the charged air, to allow more boost at a cooler temp. Whats nice about Water/Alcohol Injection is that you don't lose as much, if any, boost as you would with an intercooler.

[ December 14, 2002: Message edited by: daWhoady ]</p>

[Tiago]

a water to air intercooler would never give the same results as this alcohol injection. that just cools the air temp down somewhat. But the alcohol has many other attributes which let you run hella more boost, along with cooling hte temp down and eliminating hot spots in the cylinder(which cause detonation) it also highly increases your effective octane rating of the mixture, even less chance of detonation, therefore you can run hella more boost.

[HAZ-Matt]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by nova:
If you are talking for everyday use then I agree its not the best solution. For high boost track runs it is a perfectly acceptable solution. Its been used successfuly for that express purpose for over 60 years and in aircraft no less. If your aircraft engine destroys itself, you don't just let fly profanity and pull over, gravity reexerts its control over you and you quickly head down. If its safe and reliable for short duration use on aircraft it is more than acceptable for short duration use of automobiles<hr></blockquote>

Exactly. WWII aircraft using water injection (eg. Vought F4U) or water/methanol (eg. Messerschmitt Me109) only engaged the system at over 100% throttle (emergency power) and for limited durations. You don't run water injection all the time. (The Focke Wulfe FW190 used nitrous oxide [img]smile.gif[/img] )

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Tiago NOS'd Bird:
a water to air intercooler would never give the same results as this alcohol injection. that just cools the air temp down somewhat. But the alcohol has many other attributes which let you run hella more boost, along with cooling hte temp down and eliminating hot spots in the cylinder(which cause detonation) it also highly increases your effective octane rating of the mixture, even less chance of detonation, therefore you can run
hella more boost.<hr></blockquote>

The water provides most of the cooling, while the alcohol provides increased octane ratings. Pure ethanol has a rating of 110, and pure methanol has a rating of around 115 (don't quote me on the methanol rating...)

[ December 14, 2002: Message edited by: HAZ-Matt ]</p>