At what point has any of this been fear mongering?


And I've already mentioned that even just straight water injection can increase power a teeny bit. Part of that is reduction in intake temps. But it's not going to be that dramatic of an effect on a lower HP truck towing uphill. Especially if EGT's are already below the danger zone anyway.

Of course no mod is absolutely safe. But propane offers the driver the LEAST amount of control out of just about any other modification. Hence why anyone who is even remotely considering propane injection should completely educate themselves. I'm simply providing the information. You have your results, which is great. But not everyone will have the same results as you, which has been shown over and over again with popped motors running propane.

 

Curtis I understand what youre saying, I also understand what everyone else is saying.

It looks to me like Curtis is saying it's ok to run it, some people may not see benefits if there's no problem. The more sound your truck is the lease benefits you'll see out of the system. He's not saying don't under any circumstances run it, just do your homework and understand what you're talking about.
Correct me if I'm wrong Curtis.

Takotruckin seems to be one of the guys Curtis is talking about. He's spraying water into his engine and has no idea what it is doing. Doesn't seem very educated to me... That's personal opinion on his provided information.

Clux, you seem knowledgeable of the system and have plenty of first hand knowledge about spraying. You in this situation are the kind of guy that Pocket is referring to as being knowledgeable of what you're doing.

My question is if you're running 1100* pulling a big hill loaded down and able to maintain speeds why would someone consider putting the water system on in the first place? Which I believe is the same thing that Pocket is asking.

I edited

 

"If you wanna spray out, it might take your motor out... Propane!"


"If you wanna spray gas, it might bite you in the a**... Propane!"


"It's not right, it's not right, it's not right... PROPANE!"









All RIGHT already. We get it Curtis. Propane is bad. And you articulated the reasons why wonderfully, as highlighted in larger letters above. I can't rep you anymore, but I can thank you once again, and probably can't thank you enough.


HOWEVER, THIS IS NOT INTENDED TO BE A THREAD ABOUT PROPANE! Please put the Eric Clapton disc away, and break out the Creedence ClearWATER Revival...


"Have you ever seen the rain?"



AHHHHHHHHHRRRRRGGH! There it is AGAIN! Water injection and propane injection used in the same sentence. (Ahem, I'm a hypocrite, as I did the same thing in the opening sentence of my first post in this thread). Yet, the whole point of my starting THIS thread was to separate the two, since they are different, and talk only about water injection systems! Vigorous condemnation of any or all water systems is on topic. Propane is not.


Perhaps because both are injected into the intake air stream, they get lumped into the same category. The quick at a glance take away from an uninitiated new reader might be that all extraneous injections are the same, but since there is a big difference between propane and water, I wanted to focus on the water...







YES! That's the idea! To open up a discussion in order to help anyone interested fully understand how WATER INJECTION systems interact within a diesel motor. More on that please!

 

All other things aside, under what conditions is having 1200* egt's better for your engine than having 1000* egt's at the same power?

I believe anybody should completely educate themselves about risks/benefits of all modifications before they try them.

 

Apply the same train of thought regarding propane to water/methanol (not just water, there is a difference). The methanol acts as a fuel in much the same way. It's an alcohol after all, and will burn in similar manner as other alcohols.



So everything you highlighted regarding propane, now apply it to water/meth. The main differences of course will be the BTU's, flash point, mixture (ie 30/70, 50/50, etc), and so on. But in the end, it's still a fuel going in the same path as propane.

 

Just to be clear......same power, 200 degrees difference, both safe temps.


My answer: if you didn't have an EGT gauge in the first place, you would NEVER know the difference. Which is why I still don't see the point of water injection in a situation like that. What's the point of that expense? What did you gain?


I don't care if EGT's are 800 degrees, 1000 degrees, or 1200 degrees. As long as you aren't doing damage to the engine or aren't suffering performance issues, it's going to run like that all day long every day. So what's the point of spending more money on a system you don't need?

 

For the same reason that people spend money on a bypass oil filtration system, or different intake, or synthetic oil, or gauges, even though pickups go hundreds of thousands of miles without them.

Suppose their engine drops an oil jet, and they don't catch it until the next oil change.

Or an injector goes bad and sends egt out of control on one cylinder, but all you notice is a miss and slightly higher egt's.

Maybe they just like having cool stuff like stacks and a lift and nobody else on their block has water.

 

My system was added to reduce smoking while running WMO. The added side benefit that I found was that it simply makes the truck run better. I don't run WMO anymore, but I still run water because I can tell a difference in the performance of the truck. With the water it smokes less and is much more responsive. With the water I also pick up just over 1 mpg combined.

 

How is it responsive and improving mileage unless you're letting it kick on at very low boost levels or running continuously?

Say goodbye to that motor soon if that's the case. These systems are designed to run based on boost. Some use boost and EGT's combined. But if you're running high enough boost to turn on water injection, then you aren't getting fuel economy in the first place. Unless it's kicking on at much lower levels.... which is very dangerous for the motor.

 

What is dangerous? The water, or the meth?



So that we are not distracted by volatile fuels in high concentrations, let's return to the scenario presented in my original post, with a mix of Water at 70%, and just enough Meth (30%) to keep the water from freezing. This mix ratio is the ingredients for a windshield washer fluid widely available at Walmart that does not have any glycols in the mix.

So when talking about the risks of water/meth usage to control egt's, are you describing this low meth to water ratio? As you yourself said, "there is a difference", and it stands to reason that higher meth to water ratios (say, eg, 50/50 and higher on the meth side) are more akin to propane.

But this is mostly atomized water we are talking about here. Intended purely to lower EGTs and increase the air density by cooling the charge air stream. It would be helpful to discuss the dangers of this seemingly more innocent application, rather than focus on the what ifs of propane and higher meth ratios as fuel.

 

At low or no boost, the water is dangerous.

The water needs to be at or very near an evaporative state. For efficiency and better application, these systems have been redesigned over the years to spray at higher pressures for better water atomization to help ensure this happens. The problem is that at very low or no boost, the water can "condensate" more per-say. Those of you using water systems, what happens when you spray a stream of water instead of mist? See where I'm going with this? That fine mist from a top of the line kit is now having the water condensate in the right conditions as it moves to the combustion chamber.

Other dangers of water injection that people aren't told about is that with excessive use, the water can cause blow by in a motor. If you're effectively "steam cleaning" your combustion chamber, what does that do to the upper cylinder lubricity that is essential for diesel motors? Now stretch that out over tens of thousands of miles.

Then of course it's the water itself that is being used. Is it distilled water, or are people using tap water higher in mineral content? That's a personal consideration and not everyone does the same thing, but it should be mentioned at least.

Again, I'm not saying that water injection itself is bad. It does work very well to reduce EGT's. These problems that I'm bringing up are for excessive water usage. Having the kit triggered to spray at very low boost levels is excessive usage. Claiming mileage gains of 1 MPG is excessive water usage. Sorry, but it is. Not trying to offend anyone, just stating facts here and making people aware of potential problems and issues.

And again, a person using or considering using a water kit should examine WHY first. Why do you have EGT's that are uncontrollable or near uncontrollable in the first place? In certain applications like drag racing or sled pulling, yes you will have high EGT's. It's the nature of the game when you're throwing every bit of fuel you've got at it. It happens, and water injection here makes perfect sense. High EGT's, high boost, short run. Perfect.

But daily driving or towing, extended periods, varying boost and EGT's, varying RPM's, much lower power levels.... you shouldn't be throwing every drop of fuel at your motor that your injectors are capable of. If you are, your pulse width is already too wide, and at wide pulse width you will always have high EGT's. You're in the wrong tune, or your mods aren't correct and you're trying to overcompensate by throwing more fuel on the fire. Or maybe it isn't a fueling issue, and maybe you have a boost or exhaust leak causing the EGT problems. Now there's a problem that needs to be fixed, not masked.

Hopefully that helps to further explain my reasoning.

Yes, at lower cuts the dangers of the methanol itself begin to diminish. But think about it this way.

What happens when you start cutting diesel with gasoline? It changes the properties of how the fuel burns and how it ignites. It has a lower flash point and a quicker ignition. A very small portion of gasoline will have a minimal effect. A larger portion of gasoline grows the effect. If you've ever had gasoline mixed in diesel, you can hear how your engine changes in sound. That's because the fuel is burning differently. The properties have changed so that now the fuel flashes and burns quicker. In effect you are now changing the SOC (Start Of Combustion) even inside the cylinder, which ultimately changes things such as the burn rate and cylinder pressures, just to name a few.

So at smaller portions of methanol, you won't get a massive or destructive pre-detonation (assuming of course you are spraying a proper volume to begin with). But it does change the properties of how the diesel fuel burns, similar in a way to what low amounts of gasoline cut in the mix does.

Can it help? In some cases yes. You'll get a power increase that you can feel because of the change in burn rate and the increase in cylinder pressures.

But on the flip side, like any mod there are dangers. Unlike cutting gasoline in the fuel and metering a specific amount on each injection event, you are now adding on top of what diesel is being injected. So you are increasing the amount of fuel that is present. Again, it's a power gain, but if you are running a chip or programmer, playing around with additional fuel and additional cylinder pressures on top of what the tune is designed for can cause additional stress on internal engine components. On proper applications with the correct amount of water/meth injection at the correct boost/EGT's/RPM's, you most likely won't ever see a problem. But get the wrong amount in there at the wrong time under the right stress conditions, and yes there could be enough to tip the scales and cause a catastrophic engine failure. It has happened, far more rare with water/meth injection than say propane, but it's there.

And that's because it all goes back to what I originally stated. You aren't metering what is going in the same as the PCM is precisely metering the diesel being injected at exact times and duration. For instance, I have injectors that are far too big for my PMT motor. But I do my own tuning, and I have exact and 100% control over every single drop of fuel that is injected, and I set it at precise intervals that is computer controlled every time. That's how my motor lives. But you don't get that control when introducing a fuel mix through the intake and having it present in the combustion chamber long before combustion is supposed to take place.

Performance modifications are always a pay-to-play game. I'm posting this information not to scare people away or try and compare water or water/meth to the most evil modifications ever. Quite the opposite. They work and they work well under the correct application. But I am drawing attention to the potential problems and dangers associated with usage, excessive usage, improper usage, etc. Be fully educated on what you plan to throw under the hood so that you know how it's supposed to operate, when to use it, and what potential issues you might have to deal with. It's that simple.

And because of all the reasons and risks I've stated, that is why I don't see the need or value of water injection on a daily driver application. To me it's an unnecessary expense and maintenance issue that I can see corrected in other ways that are more efficient and better in the long run.

 

It kicks on about 7-8 psi.

I don't know exactly why, but after the WI has been running for a few days the truck runs better even when not spraying, It even idle's smoother. I ran out of water during a trip and deactivated the system, after driving around town for a week or so I could notice the idle getting rougher. Filled it up and turned it back on, 2 days later it was new truck smooth.