Water injection systems

[shinzen]

Morning everyone-I was remembering something I heard about a few years back that cooled the intake charge called water injection- after exhaustive searching the forums, I found a couple of references for supercharger apps, but I was wondering if there is any benefit for N/A cars. Up here at Colorado altitudes more air and a cooler charge may be some pretty big benefit- anyone a pro on this type of system or know if they work??

 

[Sir Nuke]

Actually water injection systems go back 50 years or so. its not new stuff at all......but to be honest I don't know of any one using them with fuel injection.....it was a very common set up at one time with carburated cars though. I guess that really doesn't answer your question...other than the fact that the systems have been and are used on N/A cars.

 

[shinzen]

Yeah, I just checked it out a bit, and the walther p-38 fighters used to do it back in wwII, but all the info I am seeing on the net almost looks like one of those wonderful ebay mods that promises 15-20hp!! Guess I'll do some more poking around

 

[erockp5]

Back in the 70's, yes I'm older, 60 Minutes did a story on improving gas mileage. They asked a mechanic to see if he could increase the mileage on a stock car they had chosen. Guess what he used? You got it, he used water injection and increase the mileage by 1-2MPG. Of course that was in the day when cars got 15MPG.

So like SirNuke said it has been around for some time.

 

[erockp5]

shinzen, found a site with a full description and a practical system which requires no drilling or significant mods(easily removed). It looks like for $30-40 you could try this without voiding your warranty. It looks like something interesting to try.

http://www.better-mileage.com/water1.html

steam seems to be the best delivery system

http://www.better-mileage.com/water4.html

 

[shinzen]

Checked that out cool info and a good inexpensive way to go, but I am not sure that that would really cool the intake charge enough- I think the electric one is the way to go- found a how to- check this out-
http://www.frii.com/~maphill/wi.html

 

[goldstar]

In general, cooling the intake air can provide some HP increase since the power varies essentially as the square root of the change in ABSOLUTE temperature. However, decrease in air pressure due to increasing elevation (as in Colorado) produces a much greater reduction in HP than could ever be offset by any practical reduction in intake air temperature.

With that being said, water-alcohol injection systems could provide a possible benefit to performance. Another approach to intake air cooling that you might want to investigate is a technique involving cryogenic cooling. You can find an example of this at: www.designengineering.com

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[shinzen]

Interesting stuff to think about- thanks for the input goldstar- and you have a point about the reduction by atmosphere, which is why I am poking around for different ways to make more hp

 

[TheMAN]

Re: Re: Water injection systems

there is a practical limit and performance limit on how much air cooling you can get

there will be a point where it will cost too much to get even another half a degree cooler air from all this fancy cooling crap

there will also be a point where any colder air will hurt engine performance and just cause it to run rich... why? fuel atomizes poorly in ice cold air!

In general, cooling the intake air can provide some HP increase since the power varies essentially as the square root of the change in ABSOLUTE temperature. However, decrease in air pressure due to increasing elevation (as in Colorado) produces a much greater reduction in HP than could ever be offset by any practical reduction in intake air temperature.

With that being said, water-alcohol injection systems could provide a possible benefit to performance. Another approach to intake air cooling that you might want to investigate is a technique involving cryogenic cooling. You can find an example of this at: www.designengineering.com

02 DX Millenium Red
MP3 Strut Tower Bar kit
Kartboy Shifter Bushings
MP3 Shifter
Suvlights Heavy Duty Wiring Harness
Osram Silverstar H4 Bulbs
Red Line MT-90 Gear Oil (stick now moves like an eel in oil)
5Zigen FNO1R-C 16" Wheels
Yokohama AVS ES 100 205/45-16's
Modified OEM Air Intake

 

[joshua69247]

You may want to check out this link.
http://www.nissanperformancemag.com/march03/project200sx/
They put water injection on a nissan thats been turbo charged. It mentions some of the benefits of the system. It sounds like even on a n/a engine it would be beneficial, but i dont know if you would see as big of power gains on a n/a engine as you would on a f/i engine.

 

[shinzen]

Thanks for that joshua- I also know that the turbo cars are a lot more sensitive to heat affecting hp- I think I might build myself a kit or something to see if I notice a big difference

 

[CRDMS1]

AquaMist

Peace...(hippy)