Resmarted

iTrader: (2)

So I found an awesome WI/Meth Calculator. The devils own site/program was a little vague to what ratios and what fluid, this one is amazing!
Uses injector size, fuel pressure, injector duty, fluid weight (ie what % meth you want to run) to tell you how much fluid you need to push for what percentage you want to run (IE 10% of fuel fluid). Took me a while of searching to find this one actually so I thought I'd share! I'll hopefully be getting around to doing a full quantitative write up on water meth based off of thermodynamic laws soon, but that has to do with water vs meth. Anyway here it is:

http://www.customperformancesolution...injectioncalc/

binder

iTrader: (8)

nice.

i have 3 injection ports in my intake but since i switched to e85 i gave up on using injection. Great calculator though.

Resmarted

iTrader: (2)

Although e85 has a couple of drawbacks to it, I'd plan my build to run it if I had stations around here.

binder

iTrader: (8)

ya, very few drawbacks. I"ve already accounted for them all by having plenty of fuel system and i also have a fuel tank here in my garage to stockpile e85 just in case

Resmarted

iTrader: (2)

Have you considered running a small amount of water injection just to help keep the internals nice and clean?

I have heard of le-mans teams 'washing' out the motors with gasoline after each race to stave off corrosion. Not sure exactly what that means, maybe just run a tank of standard gas from time to time

binder

iTrader: (8)

Ya, they use petroleum to protect the engine. Alcohol dries up oil based fluids.

I'm not sure water would provide much more cleaning than e85. Alcohol is pretty good solvent so the cleaning provided from water injection wouldn't be as beneficial with e85 as it would with petroleum based fuels.

I did think about running water injection for a little more cooling though. There are a few local high hp vettes on e85 using water injection to help cool further.

str8dum1

iTrader: (11)

most tuners say between 6-8HP per cubic inch on E85 is safe. Wouldnt even fuss with additional 'cooling'

binder

iTrader: (8)

oh i'm not going to!

It's not worth it for my level but the thought did cross my mind. I just hate having extra systems in my car that can fail.

Now the guys running 1200+hp in their vettes, i could understand why they might want some more protection. I think they have 50/50 meth/h2o though.

graffkid732

iTrader: (44)

Not to get too off topic. But isn't it tough to store E85 with out moisture getting in the tank/barrel?

Resmarted

iTrader: (2)

Well water is the best liquid coolant on the planet, by far. I'm not sure how water would react with e85 in a combustion/compression scenario though. I think it wouldn't be bad to try. But you are already near the limits of your 67 aren't you? If you could flow to 700whp, then I say go for water injection (it's worth a shot) to see what you could make, but I don't know the specifics on your setup.
I've been going back and fourth on 100% wi and 100% meth. The 100% water can allow for more boost and more ultimate hp, but it's a lot harder/more complicated than meth to tune for. All you need to do for meth is tune for lower AIT, and lean it out a bit. Add some boost, a bit of timing, lean her out a bit (to compensate for added fuel) and you get what 10-15% more hp? Although I don't think the perrin pump can handle 100% meth...

Resmarted

iTrader: (2)

I've decided to bump this with a new link to an AWESOME pdf I found by Rice Racing (well it's really a discussion of water injection on turbo plane engines)
Great ****ing read:
http://www.riceracing.com.au/resourc...rinjection.pdf

Sylvan Lake V35

iTrader: (23)

I am going to have to do some reading, ever since I got lazy and skipped my direct injection plans I just run windshield washer fluid (laziness) with 1 port but I have been thinking more about optimizing my setup.

jerryd87

iTrader: (4)

i love my direct port setup, no knock at 26 psi vs about 350 counts at 18 psi with the same spark.

konrad

iTrader: (15)

where did you get your injector nozles ? I checked online and the cheapest I found is like $250 for 6 180cc nozless

Resmarted

iTrader: (2)

For binder (not arguing but, just a discussion):
I understand with what you're saying, and these are pretty common arguments against WI (not saying they're stupid or anything just saying I hear them often and I feel they're just thrown around for no reason).

And I hear you on being busy lol. My chemistry background is... minimal, not a fan at all. Physics is where my mind dances around like a teletubby high on speed, pcp, meth, and coke.

Here's why I think WI is great for our application:

Most of us are running built motors, and like in my car 8.8-1 comp is rather low, I don't have any issue with essentially decreasing my combustion chamber size... it will in theory boost the compression ratio. Which if you have the detonation prevention is fine... as you already know!

Next, if you do it right, you can lean out the fuel without fear of detonation. The biggest reason to have a conservative ratio on the afr is for cooling, but since water will cool the valves, combustion chamber and head better than fuel will, you can eliminate fuel. Most people don't because it really doesn't hurt a thing. I probably won't because again it makes such a small difference.

Next the age old "well if it fails" thing is a complete sack of sh*t argument (I'm not knocking you, I've just have heard it from desk jockeys at tuning shops plenty of times, go turn to the tuners and talk to them about it and usually they have something different to say).
Why? There are so many fail safe devices out there, and almost all the ECU's the built turbo guys run support auxiliary inputs (at least in our community). If you have a pump, pressure etc failure the fail safe device kicks the ecu into whatever mode you want practically. AEM has a universal flow monitor kit, and devils own has awesome stuff too. You can build your own too if you really want. That argument holds no merit in my mind. Do it right, and you'll have zero issues.

The important thing is to run the right amount... The data is out there and with a little playing you'll get great results.

IMHO if someone tells you to just run more meth, they're a fool and really shouldn't be trusted to tune with a WI system. That's my opinion, not saying it won't work, but that's the corner cutting way to do it. Tunning for meth is infinitely easy. Drop the afr a couple, change timing to reflect for AIT changes etc. That's why traditionally people claim 100% meth has better power output: it's very very easy to re-tune for. WI should be used to curb detonation, nothing else. Not supplement fuel, not plunge IAT's because a FMIC is the size of a lunch tray.

Which brings me to my next point. Meth injection got a bad name for the same reasons it got popular. People bolt it up to their stock stuff and crank up the boost sky high and use it for a band-aid, in all respects. Compressors magically are efficient at 29psi where usually IAT's would be hot enough to fry a live chicken. Stock pumps and weak injectors suddenly have enough fuel to support the increase in airflow...
They cut corners. So what it works most people think, but then when something fails, you have multiple areas of your car pushed way way beyond what they should and you get catastrophic failure. Hence tons of angry posts on the internet, and general derp-age.

The reason those crazy drag cars do the 'best' on full WI is they put the time into setting everything up.
Their cars don't need more fuel; they have properly setup fuel systems.
Their cars don't need cooler temps; a lot of them run ice in Water to Air intercoolers...
Their cars don't need any power adders; they flow plenty of air with their turbos or superchargers, in fact the issue is they can't use the full potential of their system usually.
If you setup your car correctly you don't need meth (which most builds have done). Meth helps improve those things but by percentage has a literally infinite times lower octane level than water. By percentage there's no fluid you can inject that can increase octane with better than water.

So if you need more power meth is great via super cold IATs. But on cars where the turbo and supporting parts can reach far out past what the fuel you use can provide, water injection is exactly what you need. Yes race gas is oxygenated, but especially on my car, all I will need to do is crank up the boost and it's fine.

Resmarted

iTrader: (2)

Here is an excerpt from a great article about one of the founders of water injection during the WWII plane era. Details of Frank Walker... You can find the original article in pdf form on enginehistory.org, "what can I do about this problem"

The article soon after reveals methanol was not added for power etc, but in fact antifreeze properties.

Not from article but I'll just keep updating this thread with info, as I just found that the h2o molecules line up every 16 benzene molecules. And since they don't actually mix, the heat attacks the water post combustion (again following basic thermodynamics). I also have in my notes that 50% fuel 50% water and you are looking at about 6.3% more liquid mass in the combustion chamber. Beyond that methanol's latent heat is accepted around 850 kj/kg (for those of you unfamiliar it takes 850 thousand joules of energy to turn 1 kg of liquid methanol into a vapor) and water has the phenomenal stat of 2260 kj/kg. This is why you see temperature changes in the intake for meth, and temp changes in the combustion chamber for water. Methanol will get vaporized by even warm air, water won't. In fact methanol has a flash point (or minimum temperature for ignition via spark) as low as 11*c, while a fire point (or temperature where methanol will totally just com-bust) without any spark is somewhere above 500* (notes are smugged likely from fast food -__-) and as we all know, water doesn't have a flash point or fire point.
I'll look for my notes on the comparisons between lead and water as a detonation suppressant and what I wrote up about water being superior for cooling and some ideas on how to tune WI properly. In short you should use EGT and AFR to properly tune WI.

jerryd87

iTrader: (4)

good post resmarted i believe the reason most people in real world applications see a greater gain from pure meth over a mix actually has nothing to do with the temp drop.

sure temp drop has alot to do with both making more power, however the methanol has an added benefit the water does not by increasing octane. the combination of increased octane + the pre ignition cooling slightly edges out waters superior combustion chamber cooling.

they both assist in making more power, they simply do it in different ways. one lowers combustion temps the other lowers intake temps and increases octane.

the water is absorbing energy and thus allowing you to make more total but in the end it is absorbing some of the heat the engine is trying to convert into mechanical work, vs meth is simply allowing you to make more without loosing any of the heat to the water.

i mean theres a reason guys run pure meth in some drag cars but dont mix water in, and they actually make more power on pure meth due to higher octane + the fact methanol is oxygenated so by running meth you are essentially increasing boost slightly without increasing boost if that makes sense. similar to how q16 and nitromethane are also both oxygenated as well as ethanol, whereas water is not.

talking with the devils own tech guys(mind you these are guys whos sole job is to design these systems.) they have experienced around a 4-8% boost running pure alcohol over a mix with water, obviously varies with mix and type of alcohol being compared with. most cases not a huge amount but if your running say........600 hp you could potentially gain 50hp over running a water mix. again i believe its just because they are functioning in different ways.

also remember that in wrc running anything but pure water was banned due to certain things(alcohol's) giving an "unfair advantage" i know you think you will wash the walls but ive never hard of anyone washing walls with the proper amount of fuel, nor ever damaging there engine from its use. i can tell you that you will wash your cylinders from water far before alcohol, considering nitro meth runs 1.7:1 afr and dosnt wash cylinder walls(and is about 10% methanol) i would not worry at all.

Resmarted

iTrader: (2)

Yes exactly, every build is different though.
For my build and a lot of higher hp builds more power can be made with water injection and adding boost. When we talk ultimate power pure water has the most power potential period.

The article does explain that more power was made with full WI on the airplane engines and ultimate boost, which is my big point.

Another case of WI being superior is in WRC cars, specifically the suby's. They run full water and around 600torque in low to mid range, run somewhere near 60psi and run like 10-1 comp engines. In fact I read that somewhere near the same articles that I cite some of my other info.

Meth is easier to extract power and add power by a lot because of its AIT properties, but water can allow you to run much more boost which is what I'm after. In my build, I should make more power by adding a bunch of boost than dropping my ait's 30 degrees.

jerryd87

iTrader: (4)

that article is actually pretty old though with a lot of modern testing since. ill try and find it but i read an article awhile ago that the wrc cars run pure water because they made too much power running alcohols. your running it to reduce cylinder temps which can be done to a large amount with colder spark plugs as well. i can tell you this though you give me any engine and ill make more power on it running pure meth vs pure water. like i said they work differently and meth has ALOT more to do with it then just intake temp reduction.

i can tell you right now on 92 octane i started seeing slight amounts of knock at 18 psi without meth active and a 8.0:1 compression ratio, running a 7 gph nozzle with a 25% meth/75% water mix(what our windshield washer fluid is here) i was able to run the same timing and 3 more psi of boost before i started to see the slight amount of knock again(about 400 counts). adding about a gallon of denatured alchol to 1.5 gallons of that mix i was able to completely eliminate that knock, add another 2 psi of boost before seeing it and adding about half a degree of timing.

now running pure alcohol with 18 gph in the runners i can run 26 psi of boost without issues while maintaining spark.

also i know you mentioned cleaning, i can tell you meth will clean WAY better then water its not steam cleaning but it is cleaning from chemical reactions. alcohol with a rag will clean off caked carbon by dissolving it(needed alot on egr valves when i worked at the shop.) that same carbon will laugh at water + a stainless steel wire brush

i find the best place to find what people think is the actual alcohol forums not domestics(hell i can give you dozen that will swear a carb will destroy fi every time, they are VERY hard to convince of anything but their way.) and pretty much all of them swear by pure alcohol, they just dont recommend it due to fire problems(betting mostly for legal reasons if something does happen because those same guys will tell you they run pure alcohol.)


bottom line not trying to tell you not to do it or what to do with your car but if someone is making more power on water, they are either running too little(rule of thumb is 15% total fuel), or they need colder plugs. you essentially just looking at cooling properties and ignoring other things such as oxygenated fuels and octane.

Resmarted

iTrader: (2)

I'm not sure how technology changes the combustion temps seen, and the overall temperatures recorded... an engine is an engine...

A) tons of 7-8 second 1700hpish american cars run 100% water, because it's the best additive on top of race fuel you can find
B) meth makes power (via iat cooling), water lets you make more... I think this is the big distinction that people get hung up on. In fact, meth has a lower BTU output than gasoline. So if we run the better octane booster with the higher btu fuel we can make more power. We won't add as much but we CAN make more via more timing and more boost.

Gather up as much data as you can please, and eventually when my car's running I'll do the same. I'd love to have someone to work with on getting more data, and seeing as your car runs full meth it'd be perfect.

I bet I can make more power running water than meth on my build. Why? because at 1000ish hp, the issue is detonation and combustion temps not AIT. By percentage, water will increase octane infinitely more than meth. And I bet that at the highest boost levels the cooling of meth won't be enough in the combustion chamber. If I wanted to add nitrous I could with the water. The fuel wouldn't allow for detonation.

Also it isnt the same as running colder plugs...

If we look at how a heat engine works...
W=Qh-Qc

The spark is essentially the Qh, by using a colder plug we lower the value for qh. The Qc is the cooling in the combustion chamber. So if we add water we are lowering Qc. Lets assume though that the temperature we lower the combustion chamber by for both the colder plugs and the water, is the same; 1 unit.
Lets use Qh stock plugs=3 Qh cold plugs= 2 Qc no water=2 Qc water=1
So Work for colder plugs=2-2
Work for stock plugs plus water=3-1

It sounds weird but it has to do with the way energy travels. The excess heat that normally would cause detonation in theory is just used to heat up the water.
Thats a very very blunt run down of it...

edit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_cycle


I'm fairly positive you can make more work or power by emphasizing cooling post combustion by the simple carnot cycle.