DIY Water injection

[brett_celicacoupe]

ill take my chances

[briney]

i have had some good success with using water, water/ethanol(metho), and water/methanol. you could use the setup with methanol. it absorbs heat like crazy. some extra fuel and lower temps mean heaps more power. i had a water injection setup on a turbo car, which used a small irrigation nozzle. ( 180 degree fan) this worked with a line from the manifold with a 1 way valve in it ( kept pressure in the tank. ) a tank, and a lock off solenoid triggered with a hobbs switch. this worked beautifully. i did have to keep an eye on the tank level. it blew a head gasket once when it ran out. the car ran heaps better and cooler. it used to boil if you flogged it for a while, but after putting the water/methanol in there, i could flog it for as long as i dared.

[inertia]

http://users.frii.com/maphill/wi.html

http://www.kennedysdynotune.com/waterinjected.htm

I'll be trying it on my gze when i get motivated... either gunna get a kit from somewhere or make my own as per that first website's recommendations... there's some kits on ebay around 450 mark.

[nick.parker]

i would tend to think injecting before a supercharger would help to seal the rotors and lubricate etc. hence increasing efficiency.

Do it and let us know how it goes. I cant imagine how the minimal amount of water could significantly increase sealing in the supercharger. I'd suggest if thats want you want to do then make a water jacket for the SC casing! This way the SC rotors will expand more than the SC case leading to better sealing and then maybe sc death....

I have experienced that fine mist water injection pre-supercharger causes the manifold pressure to be a higher by 2 psi on my 4AGZE (with 15psi of boost) but also the torque dropped considerably. I experimented by adding up to about 6 degrees of extra ignition advance to try and get the torque back, and it made little difference - I was too scared to try even more advance.

What are you thinking about trying differently? My next adventure will be injecting directly after the intercooler.

Cheers, Nick.

[Ben Wilson]

Brett... what are the rotors made of?? Anything other than distilled water will promote wear and destroy seals rather than lubricating. Corrosion is also an issue for long term use (though the coolant idea might fix that)

When I pulled the supercharger out of my car, I gave it a close inspection, there was no noticeable extra wear. The only sign I could see were 'water marks' on the rotors.

[Squid]

I stumbled across this:

http://v6supercharged.com.au/workshop.asp?ProjectID=8

I am looking at info for my potential WI setup (3sgte) and found this... the problem could just be with the build quality of the holden unit...

[inertia]

personally i'll be headed for something that's kit based, or get the components seperate... i can get the 12vdc 100psi + sureflo pumps for myself through my brother's fish pond business and the nozzles though aquamist etc.

I cannot justify spending thousands on the conversion and then skimping on something that has the potential to go bad etc.

[Ben Wilson]

It depends on the droplet size. That's why I ran my setup at over 100psi, I sat down and kept winding up the pressure until I got a nice, fine mist out of the sprayer. I'd say that guy was running a sprinkler fitting by the look of it.

[JustenGT8]

I have run WI on 2 cars now and swear by it. On the GT8 with 10:1 compression i can run 17psi no probs and inlet temps on a power run have yet to pass 35deg C. Previously i have uses Aquamist but i have found their pumps to be a little fragle...nice and light for a race car but for all round use i have moved to a more solid and reliable SurFlo 120psi pump.

You can't go past the aquamist nozzles though so why bother with the complexity of a rust prone injector? My autronic does the switching but a hobb switch works well enough. There's some argument to go with a load referenced variable flow but in my opinion once you are past peak torque (therefore peak det potential) the water injected is less critical and you can set a simple on/off system up top do this well.

[nick.parker]

It depends on the droplet size. That's why I ran my setup at over 100psi, I sat down and kept winding up the pressure until I got a nice, fine mist out of the sprayer. I'd say that guy was running a sprinkler fitting by the look of it.

With outdoor misting nozzles and 100psi behind it, the mist was no different to what you get out of aquamist...(I have both). Its so fine you can't feel it except for very slight cool feel (in still air) but in 1 second water is dropping copiously off the bottom of your hand...

[piggy]

im also considerign using this on my 162 but theres on real room with the topmounted w/a 3sgte so the only issue would be a good place to mount it

[Squid]

piggy - I am putting one in the 165, well planning on it anyway...

Justen - Wouldn't mind having a chat sometime to discuss the setup for the 165... perhaps at the next beer oclock...

[Ben Wilson]

You can't go past the aquamist nozzles though so why bother with the complexity of a rust prone injector? My autronic does the switching but a hobb switch works well enough. There's some argument to go with a load referenced variable flow but in my opinion once you are past peak torque (therefore peak det potential) the water injected is less critical and you can set a simple on/off system up top do this well.

The advantage of an injector setup is you can map the amount of water, I was running mine to inject around 8% fuel to water all the way through the rev range...

[JustenGT8]

Ben, aquamist do this with a variable speed pump. As a ducks nuts setup this would be great but the added complexity (for most) over simple on/off setup just isn't worth the ffort in my book. I confident my setup does 95% of what a load referenced flowrate would do. as i said, peak torque is the main consideration so size your jets for that plus a small fudge factor and you're away.

[Ben Wilson]

I see what you mean, but it's a bit like getting rid of all that complicated EFI gear and putting a carbie back on. After all, it's much less complexity and therefore should be much more reliable