Water and Methanol Injection

[ctrain]

How many of you guys have this setup or have had it, ive got a 3T turbo (suck-through setup) which cant run an intercooler, so this setup is used to cool the air and fuel (with atomized water) and to up the octane of the fuel (methanol), im currently wiring mine up with this diagram



The pump is activated once it reaches a certain vacuum (3000rpm) in the intake and sprays the mixture into the SU carby, it uses a 40/60 mixture (40%meth/60%distilledwater) i could go 50/50.

The benefits are:

■ Increase horsepower safely by 10-15%.
■ Lower air temperatures by 50-200+ degrees.
■ Decrease cylinder temperatures up to 300 degrees.
■ Reduce the effects of heat soak in warmer climates.
■ Allows you to safely run more boost and timing.
■ Reduces carbon and helps maintain a clean combustion chamber.
■ Increases octane at user programmable boost levels.

Any opinions/experinces/thoughts on this setup?

Cheers,
Callum

[JKLMATE]

I've heard it's very effective, but never heard it was better than an inter-cooler.

Be careful, I hear you can cause issues if you increasing timings with the lower temperature headroom factored in.. but obviously, only if your solenoid clogs/fails or you forget your mixture and it drops, etc.
Also, I hear the methanol cannot be seen burning in day-time so I'd go to added effort to secure/contain it..

Good luck, pics when done would be cool.

[Duk]

So you plan to inject the water/methanol into the turbo's inlet then?
Be aware that there is the potential to cause damage to the compressor wheel with the relatively large droplets of water being substantially bigger than the fuel mist. If your pump is of decent pressure capability (150+psi), injecting after the compressor housing would eliminate that potential problem.

It could be beneficial to have a safety float switch inside the water tank that either lights a warning light with low water level, or better still, lights a warning light and then drop boost pressure to waste gate spring level (assuming you are running more than just waste gate spring boost pressure).

Water injection would have to be 1 of the most effective on demand 'octane (detonation suppressants)' available to you and me. Very under rated but often so misunderstood. It's no substitute for a good intercooler, but then no intercooler can provide the knock resistance of water injection either .

[ctrain]

The water pump I plan on getting is around 100PSI which is fine for my motor, high HP engines (400-500hp) need a 250PSI pump, this previous owner of this engine and the whole setup but lost it all when he moved and rebuilt the engine, the onlt things that arre left is the vaccum switch and the nozzle, the nozzle is suited for my engine aswell so i can run lower PSI and will still come out as a mist due to the restriction of the nozzle. I do plan on running a float in the bottle and signal in the cabin to warn me when its low.

I'll take a pic of where the inlet nozzle is, remember the SU carby is bolted to the turbo inlet, so air/water/meth all get mixed then fuel is introduced when it all gets sucked through the carby.

[dumbass]

I used to run a dodgy water meth injection
U don't mix it more than 50 50 as u don't gain anything
The edges of the compressor blade will get serrated from the water droplets

I had to wire up an aquamist hfs 4 the other day
Good bit of gear and has hi pressure pump that makes it able to run water into intake
And has a small gauge in the dash too

[river]

Hi,

They used to run water-meth injection in some of the large piston engines in WW2 and in the post-war large piston engine airliners and military aircraft for on-demand take-off power. Works well, but not sure if it's legal for your registered street car?

seeyuzz
river

[SHEPPO3930]

Snow Performance make the Boost Cooler. It's a very popular product and maybe worth looking at how it is set up. Is something I've wanted to use on one of my own cars.

IMO, I'd be injecting the water/meth after the turbo. There are no gains by injecting it pre turbo, only the possibility of damaging the compressor wheel, as mentioned above. Another thing to think about is injecting the water/meth at the port for each cylinder. That way u can guarantee each cyl is getting an equal amount.

Just my 2 cents.

[boxh34d]

Beside the issue of running water pre turbo eroding the comp wheel, won't you run into issues with the carb icing, and lessen the fuel vapourisation potential by injecting pre carby?
You have plenty of pump pressure to play with, why not inject just post turbo?

[George]

There's some misconception about water-meth injection being somehow inferior to an intercooler. In fact it's not and you even may want to have both.

For example an intercooler is useless in slow traffic on hot day, while water-meth is able to instantly drop IAT by some 40 C

[ctrain]

@boxh34d

the place that built the engine had always run the nozzle pre turbo, its been fine for a decade then i dont see any need in changing it, when the turbo shits itself, then i'll put it post turbo

[HIZOKU]

I Currently have a HFS6 Aquamist kit.

Things i have learnt are FAIL SAFES get a kit that has a fail safe you would hate to be driving with a tune suited for meth/water and then have no meth and water in the tank or if your pump fails.

Also im running my kit as direct injection (6 nozzles in each runner of inlet manifold) to make sure it is even flow.

as for a 50/50 mix and everything else is shit that is not true.... add more meth you get higher octane rating you could boost 98oct to 110oct you could run just water and have cooling temps drop heaps. 50/50 just gives you the best of both worlds a nice oct boost as well as some cooling.

I have known people running water injection on there cars for 10+ years still working fine.

[river]

Hi,

For example an intercooler is useless in slow traffic on hot day, while water-meth is able to instantly drop IAT by some 40 C

True, but in slow traffic its not like you'll be on boost and require the intercooler. What you need is your air con.

seeyuzz
river

[Duk]

There's some misconception about water-meth injection being somehow inferior to an intercooler. In fact it's not and you even may want to have both.

For example an intercooler is useless in slow traffic on hot day, while water-meth is able to instantly drop IAT by some 40 C

There is a lot more misinterpretation than that, George.

While there is no doubt that evaporating water absorbs plenty of heat. If you completely evaporate 400cc of water in 1 minute and it will have absorbed 15 kilowatts of heat energy. But because an engine with water injection now has a much higher moisture content when the WI is active, while inlet air is definitely cooler, it has very little if any extra density. In other words, there are no more air molecules in the inlet air stream because the extra density is basically taken up by the water.
In fact, if you do nothing to a turbo engine's tuning, but simply added WI, unless the car was (obviously not the case on this thread) was running retarded ignition timing via feedback from the knock sensor (already running an overly low octane fuel), the engine would more than likely loose power.
Where you might get some extra power is IF the engine management system used a plenum chamber mounted inlet air temperature sensor, the ECU could then think that the ambient temperature was lower than it really was, and add some more ignition advance and some extra fuel. But because the engine hasn't actually inhaled more air molecules ('cause the WI will displaced air) then the engine will be slightly over fueled. So 1 benefit may out way the other.
What the engine would really need is more on boost ignition advance but no extra fuel. That extra ignition advance should come via the main ignition map and should occur because the WI is active and not because the ECU is seeing lower inlet air temperatures. Basically the ECU needs to have an ignition map (and fuel map, for that matter) that has a dedicated tune because water injection is happening. In the same way that you could have a dedicated tune for a higher octane fuel.

The vast majority of WI effectiveness happens inside the combustion chambers when the inlet valves are closed. Here the water can absorb masses of heat during the compression stroke, because there is a huge and sudden increase in air temperature. By absorbing some of that heat, the fuel is less likely to spontaneously combust (the engine is less likely to knock).
The engine is then much more tolerant of accepting more ignition advance (there is also much less requirements for ridiculously rich AFR's to try and slow the combustion process). This will give the benefit of having more time to allow the combustion gasses to drive the piston down and so the engine can make more torque.
The secondary benefit is that exhaust gas temperature drop significantly. Not only because the compression and combustion temperatures are now significantly lower, but also because the ignition timing is now able to be more advanced, the combustion gasses expel more of its heat energy doing mechanical work inside of the cylinders instead of having the combustion events take place so late (retarded ignition timing) and still having a lot of under utilised heat energy just being wasted out the exhaust ports.

Water Injection is an awesome tool for massively raising the knock limit of an engine/fuel combination, but is not a power adder by its self like an intercooler typically is.
Intercoolers are not capable of absorbing the pure amounts of heat energy that water injection can, so can't provide the knock limit raising any where near as effectively as water injection can.

[aus jd 2703]

as i was told by Richard L of aquamist, you have to tune the car to use the water methanol injection to see any real benefits. which means you need fail safes. (flow, level sensor and pressure i believe are the three critical elements). you can maybe do away with the level sensor but the other two are critical. flow will tell you if you have a blocked nozzle and pressure will tell you if the pump is supplying enough water.

[HIZOKU]

Highly recommend Richard from aqua-mist huge help to me and my setup,

I run every Aquamist fail safe and im having my system wired up so i can flick my injection kit on and it will change my tune to suit.