Anyone running a supercharger on the Super duty V10 with water injection? I installed a Kenne Bell on my '01 and was contemplating installing water injection but have heard mixed feelings on it. Any input on the subject would be appreciated.

 

A water/alky injection will help to cool the discharge temps and allow you to run more timing. It also does an nice job in keeping the internals clean.

 

I always thought that water injection was a great thing, but in the book by Corkey Bell (I think it's called Turbocharging) it mentions that this is a bandaid for things, and it's better to find other ways to boost power, such as better engine cooling and intercooling.

Guess that's what I think now, since this guy knows lots more than I do.

 

This link, http://www.aquamist.co.uk/ will take you to one supplier of water injection. There's a late Chevy with a high compression rat running this same system who comes to the local cruise nights and swears by it. Not cheap but if you search some of the web turbo and supercharger forums you'll find lot's of info to make an informed decision. Hope this helps.

John.

 

A water/alky application is not superior to an air to air intercooler. However, not everyone can afford to pay for the parts and fabrication to facilitate an intercooler. This is the reason why many use N2O or Water/Alky injection. Considering the advataes of a water/alky injection, it would be alot better/safer than not using one at all!

 

Well, if it helps, I did a search on Google for water injection and found some instructions for a home made setup.

Making things at home rules.

 

Hmmm.

While Corky Bell is a brilliant engineer, I wouldn’t exclude all other references in my decision making regarding forced induction. Do keep in mind the arena he engineered and built for – the vast majority of his experience is “top of class” racing vehicles that out accelerated, out ran, out handled, out performed any pickup truck you or I could run on the street. Doesn’t mean everything he says is inaccurate, certainly not. But do keep in mind things are radically different at 200+ mph and 10K RPM. V E R Y different.

If you’re building a 7 second quarter mile twin-turbo crewcab, ignore my comments and read Corky’s book four times before making anything.

Anyway, forced induction is really a simple concept, its nothing more than an air pump that forces more air into the engine than it would draw by its own vacuum, so you can increase your fuel, and over a measured period of time, increase power output. The problem lies with the air pumps (turbo, or supercharger) in itself.

Both require energy to operate, and both inject some of the energy they consume into the air charge itself in the form of heat. Heat in turn expands the air, which simply put – takes up more space than air that’s very cold and dense. There are also fueling issues, whereas fuel as its injected can explode too early in the engine cycle resulting in pinging, and worse, detonation, due to the extreme temperatures of the airflow. Its called detonation because its like liquid dynamite. Its not uncommon for forced induction vehicles to have 300 degree airflow going into the intake manifold.

The goal of someone building a forced induction engine should be to focus some of their time and energy on reducing heat within the intake charge. OEMs like to use intercoolers, because its easy. And there is nothing wrong with that, until a point. Its possible on an extremely quick quarter mile, or a long road race course, to heat the intercooler to the point that during times of non-boost, such as in a corner, or deceleration, the intercooler actually heats the incoming air because its gotten so hot during the boost cycle. Often people experience this will replace the intercooler with a larger one, requiring more heat to be absorbed into the intercooler before it becomes an “interheater” again. Some folks use liquid to air intercoolers, which makes excellent sense based on thermal transfer properties of liquids (I’ll spare you the math), however even those systems can get overheated in time as the liquid used in the intercooler boils over. All liquids boil over when they cannot absorb any additional heat and turn into a gas. Then once again, you have an “interheater”. Also, the longer the hoses and tubes from the turbocharger/supercharger to the intake manifold, the greater pressure drop you will have. Intercoolers are often plumbed in front of the radiator to maximize cooler airflow through the units, therefore you’ve added a lot of plumbing. Also note for turbochargers, increasing the exhaust length from the combustion chamber to the turbine housing, also reduces pressure as heat is absorbed along the way into the exhaust manifold or header material, and sent into the engine compartment through heat radiation. Often why turbo cars get their exhaust systems ceramic coated inside and out, or wrapped at a minimum.

One “bandaid” as someone here stated above, is to use some kind of water and/or alcohol injection, to cool the intake charge by absorbing heat as it flashes into steam. This actually works pretty well, however like all systems there is a finite end to its effectiveness – when you run out of water and/or alcohol. During a particularly long run you could deplete your supply of fluid and then you’re back to running your forced induction without any kind of intake cooling system. No cooling, you increase your risk of detonation, which of course is bad.

I say “bandaid” because someone here said it first, but also because its an inexpensive add-on to solve a detonation problem. So yes, it can be. However, if you design and build your engine correctly, water/alky injection can be an viable, integrated system just like an intercooler of any sort, and depending on your goals with what you’re building, the answer might be both.

Its important to note that water/alky does take up space in your intake charge, thus reducing the available space for air and fuel. It’s a mathematical curve like everything else, so to a point it works very well, then its effectiveness tapers off and eventually hurts your peformance. Like I said above, it absorbed heat through flashing into steam, and you have to weigh volume used versus heat absorbed, to determine how effective it will be for your purposes. Its not uncommon for a 300 degree intake charge to drop down to 175 or 200 degrees, via water/alky injection.

If you use alcohol, methanol, or something –ol, do note that those substances burn, which adds to your fuel. You have to keep this in mind when you’re building your system, so you don’t overfuel the engine based on airflow. It’s a minor point, but worth mentioning.

Its all about tradeoffs. You have to balance what your goal against complexity and dollars. Horsepower always costs money. But I will share some tips for building a forced induction motor, based on my experience (good and bad).

1. Remove all burrs and sharp engines on the piston tops and the cylinder head’s chamber. Casting flash has to go, and smooth things reasonably well. I’ve learned on larger displacement engines, some dimpling or roughness actually is a good thing, as it adds to turbulence and promotes a more consistent flame front across the humungous bores. Smaller engines notice less benefit from such surfaces.

2. Consider building a lower compression engine in the first place. The higher the compression, the less boost you can utilize before things blow up. There is nothing wrong with building a 8:1, or 7:1 engine and running more boost than you could with a 10:1 engine. I proved this a few years ago with a Buick V6, actually. 22lbs of boost in a 8:1 c/r engine made about 8% more horsepower than a 9.5:1 with a mere 8lbs of boost.

3. Use quality gasoline, of the highest octane you can get or afford. The higher the octane, the more it resists detonation thus allowing you increase intake charge temperature with more boost. To a degree.

4. If you can afford the port-work, port matching, and enlargement of runners, do so. Its an excellent modification regardless of your target boost level. I’ve had excellent luck with the extrude honing process myself. Though, its not inexpensive. Your worse case is an air grinder with dremel tools and stones on the end, and shape your intake runners (intake and head) appropriately.

5. Start off reasonable with the tuning your first time running the engine. Even if you do all your math up front and calculate things to a finite level, we live in the real world and things can go awry very quickly. Keep the boost level low until you gain confidence that all the systems are working together as you expect, then slowly increase it until you start to hear knock. Then you’re at a decision point as to whether you stay at that limit (well, slightly lower), or adjust your external systems to compensate.

Just so you know, there is some real world experience behind this. I’ve applied forced induction to several engines, and working on my fifth actually. An interesting project I did in the past was a 451 mopar stroker, which essentially is a 400cid “B” block with a 440 crank with the journals turned down to fit. This motor received a pair of T3 turbos (t-bird), and a homemade intercooling system. The intercooler was an aluminum liquid to air intercooler, brazed into the homemade aluminum intake manifold. The fluid I used was radiator fluid, from the cooling system. Its okay, you may laugh and choke on this idea, but know that this engine went into a 1975 Dodge extended cab, which I was going to use for towing. I had to make the cooling system significantly larger of course (4” thick howe aluminum radiator, etc), but it did work very well for moderate (10lbs and less) of boost. Because the cooling system was grossly enlarged, it had additional capacity to provide cooling for the under-boost intake charge, and the thermostat ensured everything stayed under 200 degrees. A hard acceleration spree would result in the temp gauge rocketing up towards “H” but it never hit it, and would hold steady just before the danger zone. This worked extremely well, but its important to note the engine, while very large (451cid), was a 8:1 c/r engine AND it never saw 4500 RPM no matter what. I built a large, low RPM motor trying to make the powerband in the 1000-3500 range, and make up the difference in the gearing. Lower RPMs generally mean internal parts don’t break, and in a pickup truck, do you really, really need 8,000 RPM? You may think so and that’s of course entirely okay, to each their own and what makes them happy. I don’t mind lower RPM engines with massive cubes – its cheaper in the long run to build, assemble, and experiment with. Sadly, I’ve learned that the hard way.

Anyway, I know I rambled on, but I hope this sheds some light on various aspects as well as was a good read.

Do know that I am *not* an expert in this field, nor will I pretend to be even though my writing style may make it seem that way. Like most of you, I'm an experimenter looking for more power. I'm only sharing my experiences thus far. I imagine my twin turbo 500cid crewcab will generate even more information and data, once I get to the point of installing the motor and tuning it. Right now, I have a garage full of parts, a lot of metal shavings on the floor, and a crewcab

 

Decided to go for it. Talked with a tech at Snow Performance and he brought up some good points and answered some questions so I decided to give it a try. Once I get my new pulley installed on the supercharger (more boost) and get the injection kit installed, I'll post the results.