Custom Water/Methanol Injection System

[TheKingOTW]

I started doing some research on adding a water/methanol injection system to my supercharged 572. I will give you a brief overview.

After looking at all the systems that were available on the market, I narrowed it down to AEM and Snow Performance. After numerous emails back and forth with their tech support/sales people, I felt that the Snow Performance system had more to offer and I felt a little more comfortable with what I was buying from Snow. I will say that initially AEM was quick to respond to my email and answered all of my questions and I had to send a few email to Snow to get them to respond. I almost gave up when I finally got an email back. After receiving that first email, they were responsive to all of my questions.

I did not want to use a stock ugly plastic bottle for my methanol tank. While AEM seemed sort of clueless when talking to me about using a different bottle/tank, Snow walked me through the issues I might see. Because methanol eventually turns aluminum chalky, I decided to use “Kreem” tank liner on the new aluminum tank I fabricated for this setup. Kreem tank liner is primarily made for lining motorcycle tanks, but will work on any tank that gas, diesel, alcohol or methanol is stored in. Since my tank is also at the same level as my intake manifold, I needed to use a solenoid so that water/methanol would not be sucked in to my intake, when vacuum is present. AEM did not offer a solenoid option.

My engine has a sheet metal intake. When I had it built, I had 4 - 1/8” NPT nipples added on the underside of the manifold for future use. I guess this new system counts as future use and decided to plumb a dual nozzle setup into the underside of my intake. I used 2 – 375ML Nozzles. Snow was very helpful in assisting me to determine the proper nozzle sizing.

The custom tank I made has a bracket for the pump and separate bracket for the solenoid and controller.

Before this water/methanol injection system, the car made 1015HP. I plan to get it back on the dyno for some additional tuning and will post the results I see from adding this kit within a week or so.


Before the install


Setting up and measuring for the tank and bracket


Here is the tank with the pump and solenoid brackets.


This shows another picture of the tank with a whole for the low water/metanol sensor.


Here is a picture of the entire tank, pump and solenoid unit installed. You can see the controller mounted on a bracket on the front of the tank.


Here you can see the "T" connector for the dual nozzle setup underneath the manifold.


Here you can see 1 of the 2 nozzles going into the underneath of the intake manifold.


Here is another picture of the tank, unit installed.

[TheKingOTW]

Here is a picture of the entire setup in the car.



And for those who might be interested, here is the car.

[67 ls1 vert]

Pretty cool set up. I like the hood work. Let us know what kind of numbers you get. Like you need any more.

[TheKingOTW]

Can you ever have enough Horsepower?

Also, I forgot to mention that the tank holds 2 Gallons. The plastic reservoir that comes with the kit is 3 quarts.

[TheKingOTW]

Just had the car on the Dyno. After making some A/F adjustments, the car picked up about 70HP, making 1085HP.

[monteboy84]

Wow, that's got to be a handful. Thanks for the write-up, looks like a good product.

[TheKingOTW]

A few Updates:

Replaced the mufflers with DynoMax Welded (straight through) and removed the chambered mufflers. Increased the jet size on the dual nozzle meth squirters from 375's to 441's and opened up the back of the fresh air box for better direct air flow.

The car will be hitting the Dyno on Tuesday and I will post updated HP numbers.

[gui67]

Where did you mount the nozzles?

Are they located under the manifold, one before the 4 last runners and 1 before the 4 first runners?
If yes, I don't think water will be distributed well: the 4 first cylinders will have less water then the 4 front the back:
THe airflow over the first nozzle is for 8 cylinder, each cylinder will receive 1/8th of the total water injected here, then 1/2 of the air goes to the front cylinders, the second half continues in the manifold where you inject again water which is distributed between 4 cylinders.
each back cylinder(8,7,6 and 5) then receives 1/8 of water from the first nozzle + 1/4 of the water from the second, and front cylinders(1, 2, 3 and 4) only receive 1/8 of the first one.
Or am I missing something?

[TheKingOTW]

Your missing it.

Water/methanol is distributed evenly between all 8 intake runners and cylinders. It only activates under boost and all cylinders receive an equal amount of boost + the water/methanol injection. There are 2 nozzles, placed under the center of the intake evenly placed at 1/3 and 2/3 the length.

If your thinking was correct, then no air would enter the front intake runners due to the pressure of boost, the way it enters from the front of the intake at the throttle body.

Make sense?

[AintQik]

It works. I don't know how you are tuning the engine, but you should be able to run a few more degrees under boost now. We set our tables up to add a few degrees in the boost areas when the meth is installed.

For discussion here, could you describe where the horsepower came from? Was it the injection alone, or was it because you could add a bit more timing and not see detonation with the meth.

Cooler cylinder temps aside, I feel the biggest advantage is the reduction in detonation potential. Its like the old octane boost discussion. Octane boost alone will not give you more horsepower. Curious to see what your results were if you have them. Injection alone vrs. injection and tuning.

rj

[TheKingOTW]

It works. I don't know how you are tuning the engine, but you should be able to run a few more degrees under boost now. We set our tables up to add a few degrees in the boost areas when the meth is installed.

For discussion here, could you describe where the horsepower came from? Was it the injection alone, or was it because you could add a bit more timing and not see detonation with the meth.

Cooler cylinder temps aside, I feel the biggest advantage is the reduction in detonation potential. Its like the old octane boost discussion. Octane boost alone will not give you more horsepower. Curious to see what your results were if you have them. Injection alone vrs. injection and tuning.

rj

I put it back on the Dyno and adjusted the VE table, A/F while under boost. We advanced the timing and now are running a total of about 34 degrees. Without adding timing, the methanol/water injection won't add any power.

[AintQik]

Exactlly what I was hinting at ;)

There are a ton of people who think you just bolt this on and it makes power. I only wanted to make sure it was in the thread here so people can see.

I actually had a kid come and ask for a "E85 tune". I asked him when he planned on converting to E85 and he said he wasn't he just wanted the tune because it makes more power

So I was just kind of pushing for you to say it was the added timing that got the power. People search these forums and what we know as second nature gets funny.

Awesome results. I'd like to get your motor specs as my next motor will be something similar.

[MIGOAT]

Man that looks wicked! I had to reply and tell you that....
I added a kit on my old mustang. I used one designed for the GN's and it worked well when adding timing. I had the D1sc PC. However I was missing the extra 241cui.

Great build and I love the car in the garage as well

[garner67]

Nothing to add, just drooling over your ride. Impressive build.

[aronhk_md]

That is just incredible. Almost 80 hp with the meth/water injection. I can only guess at how mine improved, as I havent had it on the dyno since the methanol was added. Any way I look at it traction is my biggest problem. Even at higher speeds the car is just a handful and the rear end is trying to swap with the front end. Love the safety factor the meth adds on top of the performance gains. Two questions for you.

1 - What meth.water mix percentage did you use on the dyno? I know you mentioned getting a bit rich, and I noticed it some with mine too. Using the -30 windshield washer fluid here.

2 - to achieve those hp gains over your previous NON injection status did you bump up timing? Did you do it the first time with the smaller nozzle AND the second time with the larger? I have an intercooler as well, but my compression is borderline high, and I'm hesitant to bump the timing too much....preferring the added safety of the injection to actually pushing for more hp.

Thanks,
Aron

[TheKingOTW]

That is just incredible. Almost 80 hp with the meth/water injection. I can only guess at how mine improved, as I havent had it on the dyno since the methanol was added. Any way I look at it traction is my biggest problem. Even at higher speeds the car is just a handful and the rear end is trying to swap with the front end. Love the safety factor the meth adds on top of the performance gains. Two questions for you.

1 - What meth.water mix percentage did you use on the dyno? I know you mentioned getting a bit rich, and I noticed it some with mine too. Using the -30 windshield washer fluid here.

2 - to achieve those hp gains over your previous NON injection status did you bump up timing? Did you do it the first time with the smaller nozzle AND the second time with the larger? I have an intercooler as well, but my compression is borderline high, and I'm hesitant to bump the timing too much....preferring the added safety of the injection to actually pushing for more hp.

Thanks,
Aron

The water/meth mixture is always 50/50. I buy the 5 gallon jug of VP methanol and mix it myself. To answer your second question, the only way to get an increase in horsepower when adding a water/methanol injection setup to your ride is by adding timing. The benefit to using this type of injection is to allow you to run as much timing as possible without any pinging. I did start with a smaller twin nozzle setup (375 X 2) and then went up to a pair of 441 squirters.

[aronhk_md]

Yes, I was told that for my setup I should use a 760 nozzle and a 380. So far I'm just sticking with the single 760 though. Mine has the 250 psi recirculating pump, whereas some of the units still for sale only have the 150 psi pressure actuated.

I have seen some reports that indicated no difference in intake charge temp between the 50/50 mixes and the 37/63 mixes like mine, but not really sure what to believe there. Methanol evaporates quicker to help cool, but water is actually capable of taking more heat with it when it DOES evaporate.

I will be playing with the timing, but very conservatively. The car really makes more power than I can normally use already, and its the safety margin on top of the intercooler that means the most to me.

Under 10-15 psi boost right now I'm at an air/fuel ratio of 10.1-10.5, so its a bit on the rich side.....where I prefer it, again for safety. I will lean it out slightly to get it into the upper 10's, and theres some power lurking there I know, but again.....dont really need more on the top, just hoping to pull as hard as possible low down. Someday when I build again I'll shoot for the 2000 hp range, but this motor cant handle much if any more than its making now.

Have you taken yours to the drag strip at all? I'm gonna get mine there before the end of the summer. Hoping to get it into the high 9's, even though its no longer setup as a drag strip car.

[H2Ogbodies]

I mix it 45/45/10 using distilled water, blue washer fluid and HEET. The idea is to give the vapor more flammability and it also acts as an on demand intercooler of sorts for the combustion chamber by reducing sensitivity to detonation. The kit I played around with had an aux. tank with stainless sensors and an autofill for the methonal tank.