Water injection

[speedster]

Troy -
Many good points and tips of things that would be missed. (Gravity/Vacuum feeding the storage tank dry)
Hydrolocking a motor would pretty much suck.
Thanks.

[rocket468]

I am happy you like our controller. We get our pumps thru surflo. I think we are the only alky kit company that can buy direct thru shurflo. It took alot of doing. I think we usta buy thur them before i came along.


Our controller is pwm based unlike others. Thats why snows for example comes in the heatsink for a case. It builds up alot of heat pulling voltage out of the circuit. We just took a differnt route than others with controlling the pump. Ours pulses full voltage to the pump. Instead of reducting voltage to the pump. We are worken on making ours alittle more sutable for nitrous solnoid use. I have a feeling alot of people would not mind a 100 dollar progressive nitrous controller.


The fittings we use are simlar to Legris brand but these are more easly removable. With the legris once they are on you have to yank pretty hard to get your hose out. I personal don't consider the legris brand reusable because you tear them up a good portion of the time getting the hose out. If you look at a pic on my site. If you push down on the blue portion of the fitting it will relase the hose. Thats why we choose these over legris brand.

blown353 comments are on the money with hooking it up. The only thing is i recomend using the check valve we include verses a solnoid. Its elec item and at some point it may fail either off or on. Checkvavles hardly go bad but are not 100% 0 leak.

Good to see yet another vendor (Devil's Own) is also using the Northen Tool/Shurflo pump... and better yet starting with the higher pressure unit.

I like their controller. My unit from Julio works good but the turn on and initial adjustments are in a box seperate from the main controller; the Devils Own box has everything convieniently located on the main controller.

It's best to adjust the pressure switches on the pump to whatever your lines and fittings will accomodate safely. I have my switch adjusted to cut the pump at 140 psi, as my fittings and hose are rated to 200psi. My pump pegged a 300psi gauge shortly before blowing up the hose when I totally bypassed the pressure switch-- so don't crank it up too high or bypass it entirely!

The usage of quick-connect "Legris" connectors and high pressure tubing instead of the more commonly used rubber hose and barb fittings seems eerily similar to my setup. I used nylon line and legris connectors on my car well over 2 years ago for all my vacuum lines and water injection system, and at that time I hadn't seen any other setup on the market or DIY-setup using the stuff. Not ragging on the kit at all at all (actually, it's a compliment)-- the plastic lines and legris connectors are clean looking, simple, reliable, and trick. Very easy to connect and disconnect.

Y-Try, no pitfalls to a carb application. I first built my DIY system back when I had the carb; back then it was a 2-stage pressure switch and solenoid controlled setup. The nozzles were in the carb hat. I've now gone to a progressive controller and like it much better; much more control of the spray and a much more consistant spray.

As far as nozzle placement, ideally you want it early in the intake system so the water "lingers" in the intake charge long enough for the water to vaporize and absorb heat from the intake charge. My nozzles are located just after the supercharger discharge. It's also simpler to locate the nozzles prior to the intake, as if you put the nozzles in the intake (exposing them to vacuum) you'll need to add solenoids to the lines to prevent engine vacuum from sucking the tank dry during cruise conditions. If you put the nozzles before the carb/throttle body they won't see vacuum and thus you eliminate the need for solenoids.

Another thing I suggest is you add a pre-pump filter; should you get some junk in the tank it will keep the pump clean and also keep you from having to remove and clean sediment off the filters on the mister nozzles.

One last tip: mount the water tank above the pump to gravity-feed the pump, but install the nozzles higher than the water tank... otherwise there is the possibility that the system can gravity feed with the engine off, dumping water into the intake, and possibly hydrolocking the engine the next time you start it.

Troy

[Y-TRY]

Would you guys recommend using this type of cooling IN LIEU OF an intercooler, if you only had the budget for one or the other? This seems much more simple and less expensive than an air-air cooler would be for my car.

I know it wouldn't help [power in normal load situations as much, but it wouldn't need to. I'd like a progressive controller introducing alcohol starting about 3psi and full-on by 15. In this case, how I drive my car, it would las a LONG time, since I hardly get into boost in normal situations.

[rocket468]

Alky will not completly remove intercoolers out of the equation. They both work well with each other. The cooler you can get the charge the better. I have Ic air to water :and alky on my supercharged Pontac, I see the benifits to having both.

[Fuelie Fan]

No, I don't have graphs, as I said before I was paraphrasing others. It's just a huge pet peeve when anyone claims to know all that there is to know about a subject, especially right before he starts asking questions about it.

And to begin address your last question , water injection is not a replacement for an intercooler, you will sacrifice some power. Intercooling actually allows you to increase the mass flow rate of air, and more air is more power. Water/alcohol injection provides minimal if any mass flow increase, because as mentioned before any energy it absorbs in the intake is 1)small and 2)results in steam formation which displaces usable air. The improved combustion from proper spark timing can actually improve scavenging, which in turn will increase flow rate, I've see that even on normal N/A engines while tuning.

The old adage "speed costs money" comes to mind, you will get more from intercooling, but you'll have to put more into it, and from how you describe your driving style, it may not be worth that extra investment?

[speedster]

Fuelie -
Thanks for all of your input on this topic. There are some really useful/practical points

[Blown353]

blown353 comments are on the money with hooking it up. The only thing is i recomend using the check valve we include verses a solnoid. Its elec item and at some point it may fail either off or on. Checkvavles hardly go bad but are not 100% 0 leak.

I don't like solenoids either-- one more thing to fail. I only mentioned them because they are a necessity if installing the injection nozzles below the throttle blades (i.e. exposed to vacuum.) That's why I much prefer installing the nozzles prior to the throttle blades, as that eliminates the need for solenoids (unless you have the nozzles mounted lower than the tank.)

Check valves are definately a good idea if you delay your pump turn on until higher boost levels, that way the boost doesn't force the water back out of the lines. I have my pump starting (and just barely running) at only 3 psi of boost so I didn't bother with checkvalves as I didn't have a severe backflow problem when I pressure tested the system. If I had my pump turn on point pushed back to say 10 psi then I would definately run check valves, as 10psi of boost prior to pump starting would definately backflow the lines and delay the time from pump turn on to actual flow of water out of the nozzles.

By the way, what is the size of your actual control box? I may be doing an install on a friend's car and would like to know dimensions for panel fitment and fab (also, is there a main driver box seperate from the control panel?)

Troy

[camcojb]

By the way, what is the size of your actual control box? I may be doing an install on a friend's car and would like to know dimensions for panel fitment and fab (also, is there a main driver box seperate from the control panel?)

Troy

Troy,

The controller is 2.5" by 1.5" by .75" thick. There are no separate boxes.

Jody

[Y-TRY]

What about engine bay heat? Would it be better to mount the resevoir in the cockpit? My engine bay gets extremely hot and I could imagine how hot the liquid would get if stored in there. Any problems like that encountered by you guys?

[rocket468]

Some people mount tanks in there trunk but the purpos of this is to have a bigger tank. The fluid temp is going to have min neg results. I have seen people try using cool cans extra to get it cooler but they did not get any butt dyno benifits from it.