My new water injection plans

[MeteorGray]

I bought a water-injection kit from JC Whitney 30 years ago. I installed it on a '76 Ford 500 with a 351 CID V-8 that I used to tow a travel trailer. I got the kit because I really worked that Ford towing up the mountains, and I was doing everything I could to prevent preignition knock when under heavy load using regular unleaded.

The water injector had a vacuum switch that activated a small pump to inject water into the carburetor when the vacuum got low, about 4 inches of mercury as I recall. I wired a light to tell me when the pump was activated.

It worked, although I cannot say how effective it really was. I certainly did not notice any increase in fuel mileage. But I got my $50 worth of entertainment out of it, which was what it cost.

I think it was built by Spearco.

[oil pan 4]

That's pretty much exactly what I am going to try and do with my big block Chevy build. It's got 11:1 compression and I'm going to try and run it with regular gas and water methanol for higher load situations.

4"Hg, I will try to remember that.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by teoman

Just read that the new gasoline engines are supposedly compatible with E85, which has corrosive water and alcohol inside.

Most of the fuel injection hardware nowadays are compatible to E85, and the ethanol is actually more corrosive than water. Anyway, since in my country we use hydrated ethanol at a concentration of 96% by volume with the other 4% being mostly water, and that an ethanol-capable engine can still operate at a concentration of 80% ethanol by volume with the other 20% being water (seems inviting to run on homebrewed vodka not standardized to 40% alcoholic volume), it sounds like using hardware from a fuel system for the water spraying device won't get you in trouble as long as you avoid using tap water. Distilled water prevents electrolythic corrosion of the metal parts.

What water soluble oil/lubricant would not upset a diesel engine?

Alcohols, either ethanol or methanol, can be used to emulsify some lube oils and the water. Those castor-based oils used for competition 2-stroke engines are more likely to work since they're easily soluble on alcohols.