DIY - Water Injection
 

Water injection has been around a long, long time. I posted earlier that there are some very good methods of making a simple system, quite economically.

This one is my own starting point:
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_...earth/me3.html

But I just found more on an Australian site that offers some added refinement:

It's a good overview article:
http://www.autospeed.com.au/A_107970/cms/article.html

Then they have this 3 Part DIY series of building the electronic and plumbing needed to make it work even better. Between the really simple one above and these 4 Aussie articles, I'll bet the potential for more economy and output could really prove out much better.

http://www.autospeed.com.au/cms/article.html?&A=1522

http://www.autospeed.com.au/cms/article.html?&A=1528

http://www.autospeed.com.au/cms/A_1539/article.html

By the way, there are many articles in there on aerodynamics, better air/fuel ducting and the main site offers DIY circuit kits for many of the projects they cover.

Water injection is an interesting subject, but its really not incredibly useful in and of itself for increasing fuel economy. It can be used along with engine modifications to increase compression ratio since it supresses detonation and allows you to maintain stoimetric air/fuel ratios. However, you better build a reliable system because if it breaks, your engine can/will be damaged.

Good points. I plan to use my Fairmont 6 as the test machine with a view to include it in my Real Woody project.

Although I've been reading up on the possibility that major car brands are considering a revival of the Steam Engine, meaning even lower emissions and less fuel consumption.

http://www.autospeed.com.au/cms/A_2571/article.html

http://www.autospeed.com.au/cms/gall...w=0&a=2571&i=7

http://www.stanleysteamers.com/06.htm

http://www.stanleysteamers.com/

running your car on water
 

I've been researching this alot lately in hopes the hopes to cheat the system and get better fuel economy. All I've gotten was testimonials from the companies selling the products, I have seen no real people on forum's proving it. I suppose that you are talking about the Hydrogen system that you can build that you basically just add water run electricity though it and it seperates the atoms and creates hydrogen that you will inject through your air intake. Which would result in burning less gas and it would burn the hydrogen and clean the carbon from your cylinders. Is this correct? Is there anyone out there that has seriously and honestly seen this work?

That's why I'm going to build my own using this $10 (less than $5 in 1980) DIY project. It just injects water. It doesn't convert it to anything but steam vapor. No electrics.

I want to see what that does first. What issues I'll encounter finding clean water (non-tapwater) while travelling, carrying it in the car, etc. Once I get those questions answered, I'll look at other systems.

This site is also worth a look for those interested.

www.waterinjection.info

There is a dedicated Fuel Economy section as well.

Cheers , Pete.

That's excellent for me! I wanna go slow into this stuff, rather than blow my money of theoretical products. Thanks.

Peter a friend sent me this last nite. He found it on the FordSix forum:

http://www.turbomirage.com/water.html

Here's the FordSix Forum thread:
http://fordsix.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=49182

I've always liked these plans:

http://www.3barracing.com/waterinj.htm

They use greenhouse mister nozzles for a fine spray, which you can adjust using various nozzles.

Nice link. Mine isn't Turbo, but the ideas are great!

I understand the idea behind water injection but I'm not completely convinced about the FE benefits at part load. From what I gather, water could work in 2 ways. First it reduces combustion temp which would prevent knock and allow the computer to keep ignition fully advanced in all conditions. This makes a lot of sense on high compression/high boost turbo engines running near peak power. The other and less plausible scenario is a large enough volume of water would effectively increase the compression ratio and therefore delivering more power. Another option would be to allow you to run the car on low octane gas.

Has anybody here documented an FE increase with water injection? After reading from the forum in the above link (great link by the way) nobody had any hard data so far. I'm not saying its impossible, just don't see enough evidence that it works yet. Hopefully with time that will change.

thanks for reading
Justin

sounds good for WOT
 

A long time ago I noticed that Plymouth sold a chip upgrade for my breeze (same engine as a neon). It was supposed to increase horsepower, at the expense of requiring premium fuel. At the time I was rather irked, since I assumed that the car was designed for such fuel, then had the ignition retarded to match.

From reading this site, it looks like it only does that for WOT. If so, I wonder what it would take to remove that restriction (I assume anything from Mopar would be expensive, but probably just thought of the premium premium) and add some sort of booster such as water injection (I had thought of alcohol injection similar to what is used to modify turbo engines).

Before I did anything else major on my metro I tried water injection. With it mixing water at a 10-1 ratio it actually improved mileage by 4-5%. The trouble with the simple systems is that they are nearly impossible to keep dialed in. I ran -40f rated windshield washer fluid in mine.

I quit using it after a few tanks. I got tired of it going out of adjustment every time the weather changed 5 degrees and using a gallon of water in 50 miles or quit injecting enough water and making the engine knock like crazy because the ignition was at 15 degrees advanced and was not able to run like that without the water.

I always planned on going back to water injection but this time using a fuel pump and injector to actually meter the water properly with the engine. The plan was size the pump and injector so it only puts out 10% the flow of the normal fuel injector. Something like that would work and with a 2-3 gallon water tank it would be pretty reliable. Maybe after I get done with all the craziness I am working on now I will try it out but that will probably be a while.

The other option is to suspend the water directly in the gasoline using naptha or some other stuff so the car needs no actual changes to run the water in the proper ratio. There are a few patents on this idea and the few tests I have found all showed a good increase in mileage. But coming up with the right solution and having the ability to mix the water/gas at the gas station when you fill up the car might be a real nuisance.

my setup btw was a fish tank air hose going into the washer fluid bottle. Then to a gang valve to get a measured flow with the second valve open slightly to get air bubbles in the line. Then ran to a ported vacuum source on the throttle body so it would pull more water in at mid to heavy throttle where it was needed but not at idle where it wasn't needed.

DIY - Water Injection
 

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/kentuck...eorge-Campbell

I listened to this link, and the gentleman says you can and he has both leaned out his carb and added up to 50% water put in thru a carb set up separate from the gas carb,and doubled the mileage in his caddy.

the only problem I have with guys like that is the start off with the WORST possible car they can find (I mean, really, and Carb'd Caddy??) call their "original" mileage whatever the car shows up with a poorly adjusted ignition and carb set up. They then properly adjust fuel, timing, and everything else necessary, and then add a system that further leans out the fuel mixture with NO WAY to correctly recompensate for the denser air charge (which is all water does) and VOILA they have some miracle cure. What Im afraid is left out is the fact that the car then stops running on the first day that temps go above 65 because they just leaned out their fuel trims so much that the car detonates it self to death.

Notice that these wonderful experiments are performed on cars that start out as miserable examples of fuel efficiency. Find me someone who is getting 10% increased fuel mileage out of a Prius, and I'll be impressed. Otherwise I just see a car that was so choked with poorly designed emission controls, and carbs that were unable to be well set up new, let alone 20 yrs down the road (and hasnt been corrected since) that changing the oil is going to give you increased mileage and performance.

what about water/meth. mix ??

I thought I had posted in this thread before ????


I did see SOME FE gains with Water injection on the Supra. My setup was super cheap, proportional to the Fuel flow, and worked well.

In a Nut shell Fuel pump, Fuel pressure Regulator and 1 injector sized to be ~10% of the Sum of all of your FUEL injectors. I had 6 550 CC/Min's and 1 370 CC/Min injector for water. I ten taped the "7th injector" to one of the Batch lines, plumed it up and it worked well.

If anyone is interested, let me know and I'll explain in much more detail.

A buddy just won an AEM Water/ methanol Injection kit, I'll let you guys know how it works when we get it on his car.

Meth-Alcohol? Doesn't it cost more than the regular stuff?

I was reading another article on Mother Earth News that at 202 proof, you can burn pure alcohol. They've even got a variety of homemade stills (tower) for the backyard. Worth checking out.

In either case, making your own with newsprint or wood chips would be cheap enough (rainwater from the eaves), and Mother Earth showed which are the best sources for the starter yeast and making your own yeast culture. Just run a search for the keywords, and then search for the expert named in the article.

If you really want to make it for almost zero cost, build a small solar water heater from a good sized dual-pane window.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Moder...rd-Stills.aspx

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Do-It...-Cookbook.aspx

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Moder...-Solution.aspx

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green...-And-Cons.aspx

One Search I did:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/searc...rch=distillery

Wood Alcohol:
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_...d_alcohol.html

Hope that helps.;)

the DIY meth. still is what i'm also looking into

Got ya. Well those should help.

thanks ,just signed up for the newsletter to :thumbup:

I would like to hear more about this setup. I was thinking about doing the exact same thing until someone pointed out that that fuel injectors don't last too long with water running through. Do you have pics? thanks

To the question about the H2 injection and data -

there is a guy over on a Nissan Forum who has insalled one of the Hydrogen setups in his car. Early data he is reporting suggests it is giving him some interesting results - last updates were he was working on running a tank or so though ( has only tested a few miles then filled up again).

I PM'd him and suggested he may want to join our forum - he has taken ALOT of abuse over there - more than i think anyone who is willing to try something out and post results should.

http://www.nissanclub.com/forums/gen...e-mileage.html

is it kinda sad how mean some people can get when an "abstract" idea comes into play.

steve

He posted here yesterday. :)

i agree,, like we won't be able to afford to eat cause of E85

For FE I think that Water only might be cheapest. The alcohol does cool better than water, but is primarily for octane boost.

Does anybody know if E-85 will blend with water?

To much water is not a good thing with E85.

Sure it's n ot a good thing as a primary fuel, but if you are injecting Water/ Methanol at a rate of 10% (What I've heard as optimal No Source known) and it is 1/2 water and 1/2 E-85 we are talking 5% water, well under the 11% stated.


Would be a cheap way to get your hands on Alcohol

the cheapest windshield wiper fluid is what most use. the wal-mart winter blend is supposed to be about 38-40% methanol. Burns pretty well, and with a diesel, I know that some have seen better MPG with it. Even just water bumped it up.

Sorry I have not been watching this thread.

Everything lasted until it threw a rod (about 1 year):-( (car got run without oil 3 x LONG STORY, don't ask)

I do not have pics that I know of, I can look, but it was about 5 years ago.

Injectors can be found in junk yards for nearley free, mine were fre from scrap engines, so I just didn't care if they lsted or not.

One thing i did do was NOT hook it up to my turbo timer, I didn't want to inject water just before shutdown, may want to put a switch on it for non turbo timed car.

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.

Cobra, thanks for that info. I was cruising around for other info and found a guy who's done Water Injection successfully on a Turbo, as well as a Crankcase Ventilation mod, and some other neat stuff. If he isn't a member, he should be.

Water Injection Project

The Picture is there, large format, if you click it.

Check out his main page:
Matt Karls' Dodge Mod website

And from there check out his formulas and data table (weight/HP/MPG).

Another good source can be Google Patent Searches <http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en>

Search water injection gasoline engine

Patent searches can provide a lot of good info. ie vortex generator

Never knew about that service from Google. Thanks!:thumbup:

I built one of these (similar to the one on the Aussie site) back in 1981 after reading an article in a performance magazine. My 1930's designed carburated aircooled engine had been 'hopped up' by the previous owner to where it now had a little over 9:1 static compression. Yep, it pinged and rattled if I didn't use premium fuel. I retarded the timing, and power was noticably lower and it got a few miles/ gallon less. I guessed increase in throttle blade angle to go relatively the same cruising speed was the culprit. It seemed to run a little hotter oil temps at that timing, and didn't idel well either. Advance the timing and use premium, and all was good.

After adding the low-buck water injection, I was able to keep the advance in timing once again, but use regular fuel. The engine ran better, idled better, ran cooler, and seemed overall 'happier'. As mentioned however, there is always a downside. I ran it out of water several times, and the engine would ping <so I'd have to drive real carefully until I couldget the tank filled> Mine would go out of adjustment, too, but I never tracked down the source of that. Condensation inside the engine conserned me. This milky white sludge would collect inside the oil fill cap, and I assume elsewhere inside the engine "this can't be good" was my thought.

It was sort of a band-aid for an engine build for performance, I figured the additional oil changes, remembering to add water, fiddling with the needle valve just wasn't worth the effort. I wasn't sure if internal condensation would cause long term issues, but surmised if I drove the car daily, the condensation would just boil off as steam and go through the pcv system.

Here is the thing that most tinkerers forget when it comes to raising the compression of a normally aspirated engine: the higher the comprression ratio, the better cylinder filling you get. In fact, cylinder 'overfilling' is what you get. This is a well documented and good for a power increase. What it does for FE I don't know, and would guess it all depends on what engine we are talking about.

Good discussion about water injection on
The Mayfield Company Homepage - Automotive Analyses website. :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

Another excellent Website for DIY water/alcohol injection. :thumbup: RSR Water Injection Calculator

Hello All
As far as cleaning up carbon deposits and preventing buildup, all you have to do is see a cylinder head of a car that has blown a gasket, allowing the water jacket cooling water into the cylinder...clean as a whistle, ask any mechanic!!!
Water injection itself helps by absorbing the heat in the combustion gases to turn into steam. Everyone knows that water itself has a high latent heat of evaporation...less heat thrown out into the exhaust gases and water jacket means more efficiency. Normally only about 15% of the available energy is used to drive the car, the other 85% or so goes out the exhaust or coolant.
So How does the steam help?
from data derived from WWII aircraft and literature I have read, the steam pressure
(sort of steam engine like) adds to the BMEP (brake mean effective pressure) of the exisisting , burning air fuel charge to force the piston down. The figures I have consistently found are 20-25% of the amount of fuel being used at any given moment. The anti detonant property is already well established. More water than this will not work, ie snuff out the flame front or get mixed in with the oil....one should be well aware of the dangers as someone so rightly pointed out. With regards to WWII aircraft the systems were very simple because unlike cars, these warbirds used their maximum power at a fixed WOT throttle setting in dogfights. In cars there will need to be a proper metering system to realize its full potential, as well as a cutoff during the warming up cycle. If any one would like the references please contact me
The Articles for the voltage controlled DC water pumps are definitely worth a try, but make sure the water is injected downstream of the Hot wire MAF to prevent the platinum wire in the MAF from suffering an untimely death!
Cheers