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The following is from a quote from <http://www.landracing.com/forum/index.php/topic,4138.0.html>, a land speed racing website (aka Bonneville Salt Flats).
"...what the water really does is cool the incoming charge, retard the burn rate in the combustion chamber to reduce pre-ignition, and provide an additional quantity of working gas for the engine to expand and produce pressure.* In any installation and technique listed here, we need to separate these three effects...
...Specifically, cooling the intake charge without affecting anything else has advantages and effects equivalent to running on a cooler day.* Retarding burn rate to reduce pre-ignition (as opposed to detonation) is a separate effect that requires a higher amount of water.* Reducing pre-ignition through TBC's, smoothing sharp edges, or other chamber effects has to be compared to water injection without the penalties of injection.* Last, the best use of water is to absorb excess heat where we know we simply have too much heat in the combustion chamber and need to stuff some more inert mass in there (beyond the nitrogen in the atmosphere) to absorb it and push the piston down instead of melting it."
Although it is a high speed racing site, many of the aero and engineering principles that apply racing can be applied to econ vehicles.
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