Thoughts on water injection for increased MPG

[LonLB]

see this
http://www.aquatune.com/index.asp

The guarantee a increase of 25%. Seems like the system will work as advertised. I wonder what the long term effects on the engine are?

FWIW I do know that gasoline powered turbo cars pick up lots of power when using other water injection systems....I just wonder how it applies to non turbo gasoline engines.

[Koots]

I doubt it will work. i've used water to clean the carbon out of my engine before and it does actually work (i let engine vacuum suck it up)

But they claim that it will up compression ratio and give you horsepower. That is BS! if you clean the carbon buildup out of your combustion chamber it will actually reduce the overall compression ratio as there is no more carbon taking up space. If they were to not make this claim i'd give them some thought, but it's basically just a sales gimmick.

You'd be better off just letting engine vacuum suck in some water to clean it out and get it done for free. it will produce the same results and cost you very little to no money (depends on quality of water you use)

[LonLB]

Did you watch the news channel 4 review of it on? The video on the homepage....

I know that water injection systems add power...Why do they do that?

[Koots]

Originally Posted by LonLB

Did you watch the news channel 4 review of it on? The video on the homepage....

I know that water injection systems add power...Why do they do that?

I've seen some BMW guys doing it to keep their engines carbon free. I've seen turbo guys use it to keep their engine carbon free and seen it used as a method of cooling the intake charge.

I've never heard of them adding power though. Only thing it will help is allowing the engine to produce the same amount of power it did before.

I might be missing something but based on my knowledge of the basics of engine performance it doesn't make sense on how it can add power.

[LonLB]

Ah whatever. More to gain with tuning, than this stuff I guess.....I think that the water injection in turbo cars lowers temps enough to run more boost....Basically another form of intercooling.

Funny the testimonials you read about on their site, and the experiences you read about doing a google search are a bit different.

I was thinking out loud on this one. I wasn't ready to rush out and buy the first snake oil cure I saw.

[bwood]

I think the claim of increased compression comes from the fact that water won't compress and the H20 in the combustion chamber will basically take up space making the chamber smaller. I honestly wouldn't waste the money. If it worked as great as some claim, everyone would have one and everyone would be talking about it. Get a tune, and you won't have to keep you water bottle full.

[user0186]

this is the poor mans intercooler...been around forever, often seen on pulling tractors and turbo cars. works better with methanol/ethanol instead of water + a turbo

that price is outrageous considering you could do it yourself with your windshield washer tank/pump and a nozzle.

[Koots]

Originally Posted by LonLB

Ah whatever. More to gain with tuning, than this stuff I guess.....I think that the water injection in turbo cars lowers temps enough to run more boost....Basically another form of intercooling.

Funny the testimonials you read about on their site, and the experiences you read about doing a google search are a bit different.

I was thinking out loud on this one. I wasn't ready to rush out and buy the first snake oil cure I saw.

There was no accusations from me, i might have just answered aggressively

Someone mentioned the same thing can be achieved through methanol injection. Which in homemade terms is a washer fluid tank, pump, nozzle and regular blue washer fluid (high methanol content with no adverse properties to ruin your engine).

[user0186]

Originally Posted by Koots

There was no accusations from me, i might have just answered aggressively

Someone mentioned the same thing can be achieved through methanol injection. Which in homemade terms is a washer fluid tank, pump, nozzle and regular blue washer fluid (high methanol content with no adverse properties to ruin your engine).

If it were me I would just fill the tank with e85 straight from a gas staition. 85% ethanol, 15% gas. But then again none of this matters unless you would need an intercooler in the first place.

[bwood]

I've got a buddy with a 72 c10 w/ a 327 and it has an Edelbrock water injection system (looks like something from the late 70's). It is just a washer fluid bottle and pump with a controller of some sort and a spacer that mounts inbetween the carb and intake. He said he never could feel much of a difference with it and it crapped out about 4 months after he installed it.

[user0186]

Originally Posted by bwood

I've got a buddy with a 72 c10 w/ a 327 and it has an Edelbrock water injection system (looks like something from the late 70's). It is just a washer fluid bottle and pump with a controller of some sort and a spacer that mounts inbetween the carb and intake. He said he never could feel much of a difference with it and it crapped out about 4 months after he installed it.

Wrong place to inject the water. The idea is to atomize water/alcohol/methanol in the intake air to reduce air temperature through evaporation. Only reason to do this is if you need an intercooler and cant afford one.

[Atomic]

Eh, the compression ratio thing is half right. It will increase the compression ratio since the water wont compress which means you now have less space for air to compressor. But also, since there is water there, air cannot be, which basically means you just made the displacement of the engine smaller.

Menthol works much better.

[Bowler807]

Supposedly during ignition the water flashes to steam and it increases the pressure to drive the piston down. Alcohol and/or methanol simply cool the intake charge.

[Koots]

Originally Posted by Bowler807

Supposedly during ignition the water flashes to steam and it increases the pressure to drive the piston down. Alcohol and/or methanol simply cool the intake charge.

I've used water to clean out my combustion chambers before, by sucking it in through a manifold vacuum hose.

It kept the engine clean, smoothed my idle down a tad and quieted the engine as well. My engine felt more powerful, which for some cars could feel like a performance gain. That's my only idea as to how it could claim an HP increase.

With water or steam in the combustion chamber it displaces area for air to fill. It ups the compression but reduces the intake charge. Like Atomic said.

Now the amount of water is barely a mist, i imagine. This won't displace a whole lot of space but will still be there. I'd be extremely worried of what would happen if the engine misfired on a certain cylinder. It might fill up with water and get in the oil pan or might hydrolock it. Worst case scenario but still a worry of mine.

[user0186]

Originally Posted by Bowler807

Supposedly during ignition the water flashes to steam and it increases the pressure to drive the piston down. Alcohol and/or methanol simply cool the intake charge.

Im not too sure about this either. My chemistry is sketchy at best but I would think converting water to steam in the clyinder would cost heat.

[Atomic]

True, evaporation is a cooling process, but then thats not really a bad thing since only 30% of the chemical energy from combustion in a gas engine goes towards driving the crank, the rest is lost from heat. If an engine were perfectly effecient, you wouldnt need radiators.

There was a guy that made a 6 cycle gas engine that used steam, and it was cool, but only small scale prototype.

[user0186]

well somebody needs to check out one of these setups on a dyno run i guess. my bet is you lose power, run cooler, and use same quantity of fuel.

[DENN_SHAH]

i had 2 of the Edelbrock water injection systems, or Vari-jection as they called it on my 76 ford truck.
IIRC, the first one used a vacuum switch for when to start injecting water and different size orifices for the amount of water it injected.
the second one used manifold vacuum ran to the module and had an adjustment for when to start injecting water and had a variable adjustment for the amount of water.
they injected the water above the carb thru a nozzle.
with them, i was able to advance the timing a little more without getting ping which gave me a little more power and a little better fuel mileage.
without advancing the timing, i noticed no gains.
performance wise, i was able to get just enough more power from my motors to beat my friends that could just beat me without it. usually i gained about a truck length or so in the quarter mile, so it wasn't a huge performance gain.
plain tap water would clog the nozzle after a little while.
i used a mixture of rubbing alcohol and distilled water.
i ran the second Vari-jection for sometime and on tear down the chambers were clean.
i never had problems with water in the oil or hydrolocked the motors.
the motors i used it on were a 360, 390 and a 428.

im not sure what gains could be gotten with water injection on modern NA FI motors.
probably some, but i really doubt a 25% mileage gain.
but then again they talk about replacing the O2 sensor with the kit. if your O2 sensor is weak, more than likely you would see a nice MPG gain, mainly from a good working O2 sensor.

[TDIpowered]

dumbasses lol Watermethonal is used to cool the intake charge often along side an intercooler or heat exchanger like in my old supercharged cobalt. It gives you more power becuase you can increase the timing without detonation becuase of the methanol raising the octane you wont have to worry about it sparking or not because it will with methanol/water. yes the water evaporates to do the cooling and the methonal helps advance the timing and increase the flash quality of the fuel. And you have to have a tune for it to be effective and see maybe 15 or 20whp from it. Without a tune it has the chance of messing up your engine. And we always ran 70/30 mixer. 70 parts water/ 30 parts methanol...Or a full gallon of windsheild wiper fluid that is 20* and under is a 60/40 split. so you would either mix in some water or find a place to buy methanol.

[user0186]

Originally Posted by TDIpowered

dumbasses lol Watermethonal is used to cool the intake charge often along side an intercooler or heat exchanger like in my old supercharged cobalt. It gives you more power becuase you can increase the timing without detonation becuase of the methanol raising the octane you wont have to worry about it sparking or not because it will with methanol/water. yes the water evaporates to do the cooling and the methonal helps advance the timing and increase the flash quality of the fuel. And you have to have a tune for it to be effective and see maybe 15 or 20whp from it. Without a tune it has the chance of messing up your engine. And we always ran 70/30 mixer. 70 parts water/ 30 parts methanol...Or a full gallon of windsheild wiper fluid that is 20* and under is a 60/40 split. so you would either mix in some water or find a place to buy methanol.

I believe several of us dumbasses already said that.