how safe is water injection?

[Vertigo]

water injection safe?

i thought water in an engine is bad bad bad? discuss!

[:madaz:]

water injection works by pushing water at very high pressure through a small jet to vapourise it, therefore the water is able to be combusted and dusnt effect compression ratios at all! safe as hell. Actually, in a highly boosted engine, or an engine with a high compression ratio, it is highly beneficial to aid the onset of detonation.

[GT4 20]

I've been running WI on my turbo cars for some years now without any issues. Certainly no problems with putting water vapour into the inatke system. That occurs naturally when you take into account atmospheric conditions.
Only problem is when you are running an engine which is dependent on it to stave off detonation. Pump failure, blocked nozzle and empty reservoir can cause sone unpleasant side effects
It's not suited to all applications and if the wrong size jet is used, can cause big power losses, but used in the right context, it can and often does allow a decent power injcrease on forced induction cars.
Gary

[sergei]

on the topic, does any one knows of cheap water pumps suited for this purpose?

[Stealer Of Souls]

on the topic, does any one knows of cheap water pumps suited for this purpose?

Probably a little pessimistic. What's your engine worth to you? Pay for a good quality one, and expect to part with a few dollars. Cheap pumps often can't produce enough pressure to do the best job. They work yes. But not as effective as a decent pump which can produce high pressure which with the right misting head produces a really fine mist. And the finer the mist the better the system should work.

[sergei]

well say $600 for water pump for $1500 car is not reasonble (although the amount of money I put in it is way more than that).
As I stated it should "suitable for purpose", ie relaible and provide enough pressure.
BTW reasonble price is in $100 area in my opinion. The device itself is simpe enough not to cost more than that...

[Stealer Of Souls]

Suitable and most effective can be two different things.

But back to subject.
I hear there are a few really good pumps that are 220VAC. Ulka E5EX is the model. About $130, plus you'd need to buy a little inverter. So about $200 all up...
But it'll pump around 100cc @ 15 BAR or as much as 200cc @ 10 BAR. Autospeed tested this pump and found it could actually produce 25 BAR.

With the right spray head that should create a plenty fine enough mist... Probably an overkill actually. But hey. Autospeed were using it as an intercooler spray pump rather than water injection.

[Mr Revhead]

http://www.aquamist.co.uk/

used to be a good nz based site that pointed to the above amoung others, but its now dead

[sergei]

it is very expensive, when it will get here it will be over $1000, for system wich marginally removes posibility of detonation, too much... If I could get hands on the pump I can build a controller wich will control the solenoids in similar way are injectors controlled...

[GT4 20]

It looks like I won't be needing my spare Aquamist pump after all - but I'm not going to sell it for $100
Gary

[Mr Revhead]

i dodnt really look at that sight, was trying to find the other one i had somewhere that also went into a lot of the tech of it.

let me know how you get on sergei..... water injection is one ting iv considered for the aw

[QikStarlie]

heaps of good info on here:
http://www.waterinjection.info/phpBB2/

cheaper kit..
http://www.coolingmist.com/

go aquamist if your serious tho

[Stealer Of Souls]

it is very expensive, when it will get here it will be over $1000, for system wich marginally removes posibility of detonation, too much... If I could get hands on the pump I can build a controller wich will control the solenoids in similar way are injectors controlled...

http://www.jumbocoffee.com.au/accessories/motors.html. Check out the ulka pump as an alternative. The pump itself is AUD$95+gst and it's a similar type to the aquamist pump. Although I haven't checked out all the details on the aquamist...

[Akane]

I do not recommend you to go the water injection route, there are plenty of cars out there who are pushing high hp numbers safely without WI.

Pros of adding WI:
Wank factor.

Cons of adding WI:
More things to go wrong
Money better spent elsewhere
Weight
more tuning parameters.
Actually consumes power (Pump needs electricity to power, that comes from your alternator)
Space
Maintanance (Don't forget to add water!)

We could go on and on about how reliable and little maintanance free WI is, if you have that much free time on your hands, how about come over to my house and wax my car for me?

Back on topic: WI is safe if done properly (I'm still waiting for wildcard's engine to blow........ hehe), but IIRC he had problems of it not working as it should at one stage. The pump has a MTBF and if it dies while boosting, it takes the engine with it to the graveyard.

[sergei]

Vibrating pump Ulka, 220V.- 50Hz

heh, I just tried to enter "vibrating pump" in google and got funny results....

[GT4 20]

The pump has a MTBF and if it dies while boosting, it takes the engine with it to the graveyard.

Unless you know what you are doing and set it up correctly using a water flow sensor. Then, if the pump fails or you run out of water, the flow sensor recognizes this and can instantly cut the boost if you wire it up to do so.
WI may well not be the ultimate for every set-up, but it does work well and is proven in the WRC. Don't bag something that you personally don't like. And I'm sure that the electical drain on the alternator will easily rob you of at least 10kW
Gary

[Akane]

[Don't bag something that you personally don't like. And I'm sure that the electical drain on the alternator will easily rob you of at least 10kW
Gary

Gary, since when water injection is used in the latest WRC? I don't recall anything about ST205's coming with WI's from factory for homogolation neither , if I'm wrong here please elighten as you havin't done so as far as I can recall. You can set up all the whizz electronics you can think of and the cost will keep piling up, also the complication and even more stuff can go wrong, why patch 1 problem with another?

Don't praise something that you personally have bought and don't wanna feel gimped about. And I'm sure all these money spent on the WI that DECREASES power within a very large range (water is not combustable) can be better spent elsewhere.

[GT4 20]

I've used WI on my previous 4 turbo cars, including a Targa car which I built and competed in a few years ago. I also have an Aquamist system which I will be fitting to the GT4.
WRC homolgated road going versoins of the ST205 came with a water injection system installed but not activated - like a few of the other features.
Yes, WI will decrease power if you inject too much, but it will also, as I have found through personal experience, increase power too.
Gary

[sergei]

Why do you think that water injection will rob 10kW by electrical drain?
I'm sure the pump drians no more that 100W (0.1kW) so the whole sistem would be no more than 120W.... Even say efficiency of the belt setup is 50% (badly slipping), the alternator say is 75A @ 14.4V which makes it generating 1080W (~1.1kW) so amount of power used bu belt-alternator system at full alternator load is ~2kW. Don't forget that alternater is never used at full potential, most of the time it is probably used at 20% at most (or ~ 50% with lights on -> 60W*2 + 50W* 2 = 220W, if you add rear lights ->300W)

[GT4 20]

Sergie
I was being sarcastic
Gary