Water Injection
 

Whatever happened to water injection? The concept has been around for decades. The technology is absolutely mature and the results are irrefutable. So then, why did it fall out of fashion?

It fell out of fashion because it is too cheap of a set up and guys laugh when you say water ... a few selonoids , a spray bar, a holding tank & fittings & hoses depending on how pretty u want to get . Its easier for these guys to sell u a blower, intercooler , & some pulleys for 5K and done deal for them . i'm sure you've done the research its working and if you want to take it a step further add a meth tank ... 400 ponies

I know of a few guys using methanol injection. Most people that I know opt for the meth. instead of the water. It does the same job of cooling the charge with the added benefit of upping the octane.None of it is real practical on a true pleasure boat. It can't be beat if you really want to make some big HP.
By the way, I remember helping my dad build one back in the mid 70's, on a 68 Ford truck with a 300 I-6. I was only 5 or 6. I only remember it because it was the first time he really let me help do something with meaning. It worked damn good, and it was an everyday driver. We even used it to tow the race boat all over the country.
Eddie

There are a few of us considering Meth injection just for full throttle blasts. Several kits on the market and many ways to build a simple set up. Any of you have insight or have built one?

I'd like it just to prevent potential issues at WOT and our wonderful gas we now try to burn!!!

give John Baker a call at 630-251-8919 he is as sharp as a tack like Chris he has been runnin it for years & years .. I believe when we dynod my last set of motors the water comes in at 4000 rpm and the meth at 5000 temps were way down and hp was thru the roof ... He's puttin mine together now i think you'll like what you here:cool-smiley-011:

Man, water injection.... I built a few setups back in the late 70 early 80s.I un replumbed the polution pump those (air pump) those engines had on them right overtop of the carb. I put a "T" in the line and placed a smaller elbow on the "T". I had the elbow oulet flowing toward the carb. the inlet of the elbow was hooked to a water line comeing from a tank of water. The air pump would run when the engine was running the fast the engine ran the faster the air pump ran, the more preasure diferential there was on the outlet of the elbow causing it to suck water outof the tank. I put an orfice on the water pickup line to play with the amount of water untill it seemed "right". It worked pretty good. Ihad about $5 in hardware store fittings in the whole setup. Hey I was only 20 years old.

Interesting stuff

Feel free to E mail me or call me we have our meth set ups ready to sell along with complete teck support. We will be advertising on this site very soon. Our system incorporates nozzles into your carb adapter along with a a control box to start injection at any boost level you set it for as well as the proper high end pumps solenoids etc..Our system is designed to run 100% meth not 49 51. We recommend coming in with injection @ 7 to 8 lbs depending on your set up as well as a the ability to set up a progressive feed with the turn of a screw driver if needed with ulta high boost pump gas applications..

The only down side to all the power if there is one, is that the #6 drives are not designed to handle the high hp that can easily be attained with this system for a prolonged period and do take an added beating. We went through another pair of 6s last season and Craig Colabella is currently shaking his head installing all new gears top and bottom..he did ask what the hell are you guys running for power.It really works!
Glen 717-417-2900 or 717-324-7396

I have been duing a lot of reading about this stuff and the only downside i can see is the drivetrains cant handle the power these are making....Very very cool stuff...

Will any of this stuff work without a blower?

When we used the systems on the old Banks turbo systems, we took pressure from the manifold and used it to pressurize the holding tank. That made it self-powered and self regulated. 1lb boost pushed a little through the nozzles, 10 pushed alot. Nowadays it looks like you can do it much more precisely- http://www.alcohol-injection.com

If you want to read some of the early tech info written on the concept-

Sure, although on a boat there is a supply issue. I have used it on high compression street engines and ran regular fuel, only bringing in water at low vacuum/ open throttle times (rarely in a car). On a boat you are under a load all the time so when you bump the compression and timing up to make more power you will squirt a lot of water, requiring a LOT of water to inject. Obviously if you add methanol that is even more of an issue. If you throw a vacuum gauge on your engine and run some vacuum at cruise, then you could make it work with a little tuning. But you will not see huge numbers, just a nice increase and safety from bad gas.

I think I will stick with the NOS for now. Going to try some stuff in the next couple weeks.

That is a good read thanks....

Unfortunately at first , now fortunately for us after countless hrs of of R & D work fine tuning own own turn key Marine injection kits. None of these main stream although great quality water injection systems are designed to run 100% methanol or have any data for flow rate,jetting etc needed to sustain our industries big CI blown hp levels.
Right down to the proper gaskets,solenoids,plugs, gap etc. As Methanol will eat standard gaskets as well as bonding agents for lunch in a few hrs,the leading kits solenoids will also only last one or two blasts in this application etc, we have tried them all..
We now have over 120 flawless hrs on this set up.
Simple and safer hp and we have averaged approx 10+ gallons of Meth to 250 gallons of 93 pump gas running as much as 15+ lbs of 14-71 High Helix boost with even and very acceptable EGTs..The only thing You will require besides an engine assemble designed to handle your hp level as well as an excellent cooling system will be an EGT gauge to help tune as you add to your boost levels.
Low water temps and EGT data are a must!

I was just wondering about these water injection systems the other day, and possible marine applications. I remember them back in the late 70's/early 80's...reading articles in Car Craft and looking through the Summit Racing catalog.

As I recall, those [water only] systems were reported to deliver not only a mild HP boost but even slightly better MPG as well, depending on how they were set up. Actually, the efficiency factor was what really had my interest this time around...though more HP is always welcome!

Can it be used to protect the engine at high boost and not really add huge HP???

I have enough problems with HP!!!!!

Seriously. I would be interested in learning more. When do you guys go public with your equipment?




Runninghot - Where's John located?


Thanks guys,

Kirk

[QUOTE=Pantera28-650HP;2459890]Can it be used to protect the engine at high boost and not really add huge HP???

I have enough problems with HP!!!!!

Seriously. I would be interested in learning more. When do you guys go public with your equipment?




Runninghot - Where's John located?


Johns in Yorkville RT 47 & 126
give him a jingle he's knows this chit backwords & forwards .. I believe he's in Dubai or japan this week but will call you back :cool-smiley-011:

Not just HP!! Methanol/ Water Injection used properly will make an engine much more efficient across the board! It is recommended to run a 50/50 to a 60/40 Methanol to Water ratio for various reasons and is considered extremely dangerous and detrimental to engine components at 100%! We will be doing a fair amount of research on this in the coming weeks and months as well as real world testing on Gas and Diesel engines.

I think it fell out of favor for a bunch of reasons:

1) Knock sensors allowed engines to be tuned much closer to insipient knock today than 30 years ago.
2) Fast burn combustion chambers allow for higher compression ratios. The new BMW M3 V8 has a 12:1 compression ratio!
3) Fuel injection manifolds are not good at distributing water injected at the throttle body, so a decent system would require setting up some sort of port injection.
4) A system should detect when the water reservoir is empty, and adjust the engine parameters accordingly, if you are really going to get the full benefit of water injection.
5) The amount of engine octane requirement only drops by 1 to 2 points.
6) People are lazy about filling another tank, and/or they forget.

That being said, it is still a viable system.

Michael

I saw a boat once with a hose out of the exhaust elbow drain plug, thru a filter, then into the top of the flame arrestor into the carb. Self regulating once you get the base flow correct, I guess it worked. Simplest method I ever could imagine. Fresh clean lakes only of course.

Does this mean I don't have to fix the hole in my intercooler?????????

I guess I will just say that the promotion to run pure meth vs water injection is a liability for any company including ours as it is flamible.The mixture that we all recommend with more parts of water than meth is of coarse non flammable.
With that being said the main stream water injection companies are also quite vague as to how you go a bought tuning their systems as well.

And I quote :increase timing in 2 degree increments until the first hint of detonation-then back off 2 degrees.

In our world that would more than likely mean send back to shop and replace pistons and maybe more.

This is one of the reasons that we had to spend the time and effort dialing in our own system ,and as it works with water we see no reason to put out the fire!

The methanol has BTU's. There is energy in it as compared to water. Water converts to steam and absorbs heat, which works great, but you do get a bigger yield out of a fuel that burns cooler. Also note that we are not mixing two different liquids with two different specific gravity's. They are being mixed as an atomized spray in the intake airflow, and then homogenizing together in the combustion chamber.
We ran Methanol only for many years in our blown race cars with 16 nozzle injection and methanol is easier on parts than gasoline.
As methanol does not have the lubricating effects that gasoline has we add a top end lube to our mix for this application. Keep in mind that water is not a good lubricant either.

http://www.snowperformance.net/

Their kits are the best bar none. I ran one on my hot air Vortech Supercharged Mustang.

Basics:

306 cube SBF
TFS TW heads (ported)
TFS Track heat intake (ported)
500/510 218/226 112 LS
Vortech T Trim @ 14 psi
Through a stick shift

Pump Gas 93 octane made:
533 RWHP 499 TWTQ 18* total timing under WOT

Pump Gas 93 + stage 2 meth injection (single large nozzle)
632 RWHP 566 RWTQ ( pulled fuel via injector added 14* of total timing)

you can calculate flywheel HP numbers by mulitplying by a modest 13% drivetrain loss

This stuff works. a can of racing methanol from torco is about 28 dollars. I ran a 50/50 mix of methanol and distilled water.

I emailed them a while back. Nice people, decent product for smaller engines.

Most of us running large HP have much larger displacement than the cars.

Decent kits, but I think a little small for our boats.

Why do their kits seem small ? Im in the process of building an aluminum blocked 360 cubic inch SBF with big boost. I plan on running between 25 and 30 psi of boost with one of their twin nozzle kits and pump gas. They claim with the upgraded pump and large nozzles, it can support well over 1200 hp while using pump gas.

Honestly, I really dont see why people dont use this technology more in marine applications.

In gasoline engines, as with any intercooler, this suppresses detonation so more power producing boost and timing can be utilized. Water, with its high latent heat of vaporization cools the intake charge and combustion. Methanol cools the charge and combustion but also acts like an extremely high octane fuel (some researchers claim as high as 120 octane) as well as adding more oxygen to combustion.

There seems to be some confusion:

First you have to distinguish between Methanol as a fuel, and methanol to cool the charge. Methanol used as a supplementary charge cooler will not significantly increase the octane of the resultant mixure. There is just not enough if it being injected. However increased Octane and the knock resistance provided by the cooler charge are about the same thing anyway.

100% water is by far the best charge cooler. It's simply a function of specific heat of vaporization. Water takes over 2200 kJ per kG to evaporate while Methanol takes only 1100 kJ per kG. That's really the only function of such systems. Trying to "add energy" through the use of Methanol is futile and better accomplished in other ways.

Methanol was classicaly added to prevent freezing or to prevent fouling of the water from sitting for long periods of time. Other than that, the only reason methanol is used is because "methanol injection" sounds way cooler than "water injection"

The reason water injection systems have never gotten popular are many:

-They only help if you need additional charge cooling (provide no real function for NA applications). In fact, they will actually take away a small amount of power even if optomally tuned if they are not really needed (just as increased octane will)

-You have to carefully monitor the tank. Without some sort of warning system, your engine is a heap of shrapnal very quickly if the water runs out

-If not used often, any debre can clog the nozzels resulting in more shrapnal

-The control system needs to be more complicated than most want to deal with. Too little at one rpm and "boom" goes the engine, and too much at one rpm, the the water puts out the charge just like a super rich mixture would. The band of operation is pretty tight and really needs tighter control than a simple variable speed pump can provide.

This last one is probably the biggest reason you don't see water injection more often. Most racers just had a hard time getting anything out of it. What they'd gain down low, they'd lose up top or vis versa.

I rigged a system once using an extra fuel injector with lubricated water. Since the fuel injector was proportional to fuel (controled by the same computer) it should have worked really well. But I never got it to stop clogging the injector if it sat unused for any length of time.

Edlebrock made a water injection system. I had one on my 1981 38' flat deck scarab With the Banks twin turbo setup. It was a pretty nice system. It had a diamond plate tank on the bulkhead with two windshield wiper water pumps mounted under it and the control boxes mounted next to it. (little red box near bottom of tank)The control boxes controlled the pressure by rpm or manifold pressure. The tank was kept full through a hose that was tapped into the water intake inboard of the sea strainers. The hose also had an inline paper carterage filter like you would use to filter drinking water to keep the water entering the tank clean. The feed hoses tapped into the flame arrestors since it was a draw through turbo system. On the dash (top corners)it had a guage with an on off switch and five lights that would vary depending on the level of water flow that the control boxes determined was needed. I can't verrify any hard numbers but it seemed to work very well.

If you cut and paste the below video link you can check out some footage of our 93 octane Methanol injected test rig in action.

565CIs with high helix 14-71s 3 circuit Dominator's,Rudy Dryden grind Comp cams hydraulic rollers with our very own Ice Injection System
1.24 ratio dry sumps and 36p 17" cleavers.
We ran up to 16lbs on 93 pump gas safely engine wise before we settled on 13lbs + we could go higher however our test rig and drives don't do well with that much power it's a hand full to drive and we destroyed several gear sets in our #6s. The injection really allows us to make hp on pump gas.!


http://www.youtube.com/v/_JrlY46kRjs

Can water injection take the place of an intercooler? I have a 575sci and do not have room under my hatch for an intercooler, however I do have room for water tank/s. Would results be comparable? Does the fuel curve need to be recalibrated?

The answer is yes for your situation as well as the SC600 and 800 SC,s already running low to moderate non inner cooled boost.
You can add a few more lbs of boost safely at the same time have a cooler inlet temp than inner cooled only.
But to see real power you will need to add a few lbs of boost as well as a new fuel curve.

Adding boost is definately in my plans. I need to decide between spinning the hell out of the weiand 256 or upgrading to a TBS 871.

I only freshwater boat...would it be at all practical to seastrain and then filter lake water for injection?

WildWarrior, what kind of power increases did you see by adding the injection?

Our base 565s with Blower shop inner coolers and high helix 14-71s are safe up to 8lbs of boost on good quality 93 octane fuel.

Depending on boost levels through out our 120hrs of testing we added several hundred hp by injecting Methanol.
At the boost levels you see on the Video per our prop math 1.24 ratio 36P 17s and slip we are well into the 1300s at the same time keeping killer fuel /air and EGT's all on pump gas and minimal lead..

You don't have to have the wick turned this far on a supercharged engine to see hp gains .
100hp can be had by accident in more moderate boost ranges as our inlet temps go down so drastically.

Not practical but a good thought none the less.

You need a small tank depending on your needs usually 5 to 15 gallons. At that point depending on boost level CI etc you set your system to pump either all in at a certain level or in our case red lights come on at 8lbs that means were pumping per boost signal .Or you may set to progressively come in from 50% at 4 lbs and 100% @ 8lbs again depending on your set up .Your pump is injecting pressures between 100 and 225 PSI.With that being said it takes us 10 minutes per weekend to top off our tank. The guys that actually run a water mix and not pure meth generally run distiled water as you stand less of a chance in clogging your nozzles.

We now offer injection kits for all supercharged marine applications!

www.iceinjectionsystems.com

I built a blown corvette and used a meth and water injection system and it worked great with NO detonation. Installed with a pressure switch that only sprayed when building so much boost.

On a 575SCi make sure you've upgraded the head gaskets before you
ask for more power.

Pesky Varmint

Hey BIG DADDY dont waste your time filtering ,throw in a tank and run distilled water . Talk to Glen /wild he'll set ya up ..

Glenn get a set ready Mario has his Credit Card ready :eek::ernaehrung004: