Water Injection for gas engines?
 

Does anyone have experience with water injection systems?

Do you have the cheaper vacuum draw type or force feed system?

Have you noticed a increase in fuel mileage or any other benefits?

What type if any increase in mileage have you noticed?

Any other thoughts as to good or bad?

If your looking for milage you would want the vapor/vacuum setup. It mostly keeps things cleaned up in the combustion chamber.

Thanks beartracks,

does anyone have any numbers on how water injection has helped with fuel mileage?

What engine, what increase or bad experiences?

water injection
 

You do not want the vacuum pulled system. Might as well not have anything. A vacuum system pulls the most at idle and low speeds when manifold vacuum is highest. It may have some value as a cleaner, but the mileage will go down. When the engine is at speed and under load, the cylinder pressures go way up and thats when low octane fuel may ping/rattle etc. That is also when the manifold vacuum is the lowest, therefore, less water is pulled in to cool the mixture. At idle, the octane requirement is damn near nill and it will almost run on anything. There are lots of factors to consider and build into an injection system

If you dont have a pinging problem on cheep fuel, then you dont need it.

The Supercoupe guys (SCCoA & TCCoA) and the buick GN guys have water injection down to a science, lots of info there.

Water injection was first used (that I know of) on WWII fighters (P-38's). In the early 60's, the Oldsmobile "starfire" used a system because it was turbo.

Here are some figures, just off the top of my head that I recall, maybe not totally correct---you need to look it up!

Plain water, injected under pressure into the combustion chamber costs ~ 5% of power, which is immediately gained back by cranking up the timing back up to performance (mostly on High comp engines).

A 50% mix of water--Alchy will add ~5% injected under pressure. Snow Performance comes to mind, (I have more in my bookmarks), read their material.

I am not the great expert on water/alchy injection, but I do know some. I suggest you read some before you get roped into some system that will not work ! LOL!!

The Olds that had water injection was the F-85 JetFire from the early '60s and the system worked great. See my earlier post on the subject. You may be able to get info on the JetFire on line. Their turbo and water injection system was very complex.

Jetfire
 

MM-- I think you are the first person that I have heard about that has known about the olds.

My brother was a KA at the U of F in 62-63 and one of his KA brothers had one. I never actually looked under the hood, but saw the car and was aware that it was Water Injected and had a turbo-----I was interested in other things at that time!!

I have read a lot about water injection and even have an old Edelbrock unit for a carb. It injects water down the primary throats with a "Y" pipe very similar to an add-on 4-hole squirter for the accelerator pump on mech secondaries. It is adjustable for pressure, water amount and vacuum threshold. Still New-in-the-box. Roundtuits never arrived to install it.

Water injection started to really get looked at when the gasolines were converted to no-lead. The old 10-11 to 1 compression motors then had to back the timing way down to run pump gasoline. Water injection allowed people to jack the timing back up and at least get back to where they started. It does have to be pressure injected into the intake just above the intake valve on FI motors, at the carb for them.

If you want to see some real good examples, go to the buick sites and read some of the stuff the GN guys do. They are running big turbos with ungodly boost.

Thanks benshere and Moto Mel;
Great information, I still am looking and learning.

Anyone here have experience with water injection without a turbo or supercharger and have increased their fuel mileage or are those systems companies advertise that increase mpg a waste?

Mach6- A quick last comment for ya, then lets see who can add to your last question.

I am thinking that water injection will never add any MPG because it is actually a BTU decreaser (is there any such term/ :-X04) It will lower combustion temps. It could help if your engine had the timing backed down slightly to keep from pinging, but on a low comp engine that is kinda doubtful (.02). Now if you added alcohol, for a water/alchy mix, it might help a little. Even then, it may not gain any payback over the expense of buying a good unit plus the extra effort to watch it. That $$$$ sure would go a long way to pay for gasoline. Even though I am a fan of water injection, I just cant see it for what you want. Case in point is my new (very old) Edelbrock unit for a carb. My reason for buying it never materialized, so I never installed it. Sure looks good on the shelf------all these years!:-X15

Thanks benshere;
I was thinking along the same lines because of course water will not help the spark but some of these companies are claiming to get the hydrogen from the water to help the mpg and increase power by burning the hydrogen. It seems possible that someone could do it, but the big oil companies would either try to deathly prevent it or promote it if it was possible now. Hoping someone has tried some of these systems whether they are gimmicks or help a little. They sure make it sound convincing.
Glad for the education.

bee thinking the same.....
 

sounds like fun too!

The only benefits I have seen is with a turbo as it helps in keeping the combustion chambers clean of carbon and eliminates hot spots that cause pre-ignition.
Years ago mechanics commonly "De-Carboned" customers engines simply by running about 6 ounces of water ,slowly, through the carburetor with the engine at about 3,000 rpm, it was often called A Tune Up in a Bottle. It did clear the engine of spark knock/pinging problems for a while and with no negative effects.

MM--

I saw some info on using a water hose set to a fine spray and spraying it directly into a carb to clean carbon. I did it numerous times and it seemed to work. I kinda backed off because I was a little worried that it might cause some larger flakes of carbon to break loose (couldnt prove it!) and then might get under an exaust valve seat.

So, you are the reason we couldnt get a room in Daytona!! :-X05.

Yes MM;
20 some years ago when I worked as a teen at a garage I watched the owner pour water directly into the carb and it did help the engine run better afterwards but it sounded like it wanted to die while the water was going thru it. Of course this was a lot more water than just misting it as some companies are saying you can do. I realize the cooling effect but was hoping someone has tried it and seen a power increase like the claim of getting a small bit of hydrogen to help. Still too skeptical to try myself. Maybe some genius will figure it out. This one was suppose to work but some say it was a scam to get people to buy stock in that company.

40 MPG Hydrogen Supercar Unveiled

We will see soon hopefully
"The first of the newly manufactured units is expected to be delivered in third quarter of 2010"
Ronn Motors Announces First Orders Received From Eco Luxury Motorsports for the Scorpion HXTM Eco-Exotic Supercar

Too pricey but they may have the technology, someone has to make a kit for the rest of us right!!!!

I would be very skeptical of a hydrogen powered car or the possibility of being able to produce a hydrogen fuel that would be usable in todays cars. Hydroggen is an extremely explosive and dangerous substance. Ask anyone that has had a car battery explode on or near them.

As for a means of harnessing hydrogen energy by injecting water into a gasoline engine; I don't think it will happen anytime soon and right now, not at all.

I will believe the Ronn claims when it is substantiated by the SAE and not before.

Believe none of what you hear, a quarter of what you read and only half of what you see.:-X15