HAs anyone heard of these guys?

http://www.aquamist.co.uk

From what I understand they make a system designed to inject water into the combustion chambers. Specifically for the purpose of cooling down intake charge of FI cars.

=\ Is this insanely nutty or insane enough to work?

 

Don't know about that company per se, but cooling the charge on an FI car really gained favor in the c5 forced induction section in the last year or so. I had a kit from ECS on my Magnuson supercharged c5 and it did help, but I used only methanol in it. There are folks way smarter than I that took positions on how much water you could mix with the methanol, and some folks would assert that straight water was still better than no water at all. In simple terms, I think, the deal is is water reduced heat which is a good thing in forced induction, but methanol does that while also providing a combustible fluid, which water is not. So, methanol adds both cooling effect and energy.

If it's not electrical or mechanical, it's too confusing for me, but all I know is in methanol form it helped my car run consistent back to back mid-11s at the track.

 

hehe I figured it had to have some substantial backing. It's just that with all the talk about bottom feeding intakes and hydra lock, it's funny to come across someone that you pay to just shoot water into your motor.

 

It's a band aid fix to too much boost and not enough octane.

 

but it does help...the spray is such a fine mist that it should never cause any puddling.

 

Water with methanol acts as a chemical intercooler. When you cool compressed air with an intercooler you loose some of the boost. Water & methanol does not decrease the boost and works well with higher compression engines. It can pool water (97 SVT Cobra) but I never tried it on a Corvette.

 

wait.. did i understand this correctly ? you basically used a water ijection system but ran methanol in it instead of water ? So you, in essence, was mixing a mist of methanol with a shot of gas. The methanol cools as well as burns, does this raise the ignition point of the mixture. in other words, does the addition of the methanol make it easier to ignite the gas ? What type of results did you get, I see you got 11's but what type of hp/trq numbers ? what is the Price/performance ratio for this type of setup ?

Water injection can be simulated by using a house fan (the standing kind that blows air horizontally). Turn on the fan, feel the air coming from the fan, notice the temp. Now take a water mister (the hand held spray kind used for watering plants, etc. kinda like the type of spray you get from a windex spray bottle) and spray the back of the fan (from 6 - 12 inches) with a slow mist spray, one soft spray every 2-3 seconds, notice the temp, it should be cooler.

proper water injection performs this type of function on a gasoline engine, with the added benifit of reducing carbon buildup. Imo though, i bellieve the injection should be stopped prior the the engine being shutdown, i would run it a bit on gasoline only to help prevent any puddliing.

 

Hmmm!! Well I guess it is a much more respected technology than I thought. Funny I never ran across it before. Perhaps with the cruddy 91octane I get here in CA, water injection is the way to go if I choose to go FI....

Anyone know how much this type of work costs?

 

Peek around on this site....lots of useful info. This is the kit I had on my turbo'd Z28 http://www.snowperformance.net/

 

Water injection is far from new, and it can be very effective at inhibiting knock under high boost/high temperature conditions. Aquamist is probably one of the top mfgs. in the market. With modern electronic sensors and controls it is not a crude or sloppy "band-aid", but part of a detonation control system for those pushing the envelope in higher temp environs. Water has better heat absorption ability than any other fluid and a properly set up system will have no "puddling" issues.

 

Water Injection is an old way of increasing compression also. This was very popular with the old piston powered hydroplanes that used the big WWII fighter plane engines

 

If you look back to WW2, the Germans used MW/50 injection in their fighter plane engines, which gave them both boost and detonation control. These were carburated or mechanically injected engines though, and may not work exactly the same on electronically controlled engines of today. The Luftwaffe limited the MW/50 use because it eventually led to damaged engines. This might be due to poorer quality internal materials then we have today.
So, what I'm saying is, I'd be inclined to try this system if I wanted to go racing, but probably not on my daily driver ( unless it was a TA-152)

 

I used water injection on my '78 motorhome, when nothing else would eliminate ping.

 

It does seem that this has its merits. I'll belooking into it if I go FI. Thanks guys.

Now if only my vette was a piston powered, german motorhome that they used in WWII, I'd be all set!

 

As stated here, water injection was used in aircraft engines during WWII.

Around 1974 when we were in our first energy crises I was considering water injection as a means to increase gas mileage. It was advertised to also increase horsepower and help eliminate carbon build up. I never installed the injection because I was afraid of the long term effects of water on steel.

 

I had it on the motorhome for many years without ill effect. The amount of water you use is minimal. I would fill up a small tank under the hood with each fillup. Any residual moisture left in the motor when you turn it off evaporates immediately.

 

If I had the benefit of your experience I would have installed the injection. It's good to hear it worked with no detrimental side effects.

 

Guys, you've got to realize all of the instances you are quoting are ancient history...long before precise electronic control of fuel injection and spark events managed by powerful computer processors. The precision with which you can monitor and control the onset of detonation is light years beyond the old stuff. It's not "Kentucky Windage" guess work any longer.

PROPERLY set up, water injection systems are very effective at controlling knock...the ONLY way you get more power out of the deal is not having to retard timing as much under extreme conditions.

 

It wasn't just German fighters that used it. The premiere US fighter of WWII, the P51 Mustang, used it too. It was set to only come on when the pilot moved the throttle to "war emergency power". The high engine output of that throttle setting, not the water, was the reason engines which used war emergency power had to be inspected after its use. In a more pedestrian setting, the 1965 Oldsmobile Jetfire turbocharged engine also used it as a substitute for intercooling. Olds discontinued it because drivers forgot to refill the tank, with the result of detonation at high throttle demand and engine damage. A real air-air intercooler may be bulkier, but it doesn't depend on driver action to keep it functional.

 

I thought the Olds had a sensor system which cut boost if it ran out of "Olds Turbo Rocket Fluid" (a mixture of water and alcohol).

Michael