I was hoping to find some guys on here who have done a water-methanol injection setup for their carb'd engines. I have a 1979 f150 with a mildly built 400 that I would like to spice up. Currently it requires 93 octane to avoid detonation.
I would like to be able to use cheap gas and gain a bit of power at the same time.

The kits I have looked at seem fairly straight forward and simple. Just a tank, pump, and pluming. Some have a control box to tell the pump when to kick in. I have seen DIY jobs that use the vacuum, but I feel that would not have the pressure to fully atomize the mixture.

What have you guys done to your rigs and what do you think of water-meth injection?

 

I haven't done anything with carbs but I just installed this on my truck - imgur: the simple image sharer

If you think you may not have enough vacuum that may be an issue as even my system uses vacuum to activate the pump from the computer. With a naturally aspirated motor you will have a low amount of boost at WOT, maybe 1??? Not much room for the system as I know it. However, I'd suggest calling Snow Performance and ask to talk to Josh, he is who educated me on my kit and if you explain your setup he may be able to help you identify exactly what you can use with your setup.

Also, you can use a pure water system (no meth) and not need to tune the carb again. If you had pinging you could use this to get rid of it. If you have meth in the mixture you'll probably want to make some adjustments to the tune on your carb as meth(anol) is combustible.

 

I've been using a SnowPerformance system on a similar engine for a couple of years. Almost as good as sex.

 

I've been using a SnowPerfomance naturally asperated unit for a couple of years. Almost as good as sex.

You have to be carefull it doesn't run when the engine doesn't. It's triggered by an adjustable vacuum switch.

 

I think your engine shouldn't be under boost when the motor is off. Otherwise, something in terribly wrong.

I have mine connected to a relay that is switched on when the motor turns on. I used the same signal that everything else uses, like the coil, PCM, etc.

 

Naturally asperated. Activated by vacuum. You have none at engine stop.

 

water meth is not a power adder, it allows one to run more advance and higher compression, with crap fuel, the meth is saturated with water in solution, will not burn with a match, it cools the air charge, witch allows the nitrogen in the air charge to expand at a better rate. too much WM will excessively cool the charge thus reducing HP. HIGH SCHOOL SICENCE. WHEN the throttle is at idle or near idle the system is off, when vacuum drops (as you push on the go peddle) the system comes on, this threshold is what you tune on some systems

 

Before any of that, figure out why it needs 93 to not detonate? It's relatively hard to build a 400 with high compression so unless you have had a serious engine built with something over 9.5 CR, and it's detonating then something is very wrong. Even if it is detonating a ratio as high as 10.5 should be tunable.

 

I have built many engines, only the ones people wanted stock cams did I worry about cr when one puts a good cam in motor it lowers dynamic cr and usually you don,t have trouble with spark knock or pre det