boosted hybrid

I am going to run water injection with my turbo set-up this spring. What surprises me is the lack of other turbo honda's using water injection. It is ideal for high compression engines like honda, and will provide a very potent surpression of detonation. Actually running 50% distilled water/50% methahol with the water injection kit will be like having a tank of race gas all the time. For those of you that dont really know what water injection does here goes:

1. Water has a high latent heat evaporation level, which in english terms is able to cool down hot things very well, much like your combustion chambers in your engine. Being able to cool down your combustion chambers is very important b/c it surpresses detonation by not allowing the fuel to pre-ignite by elevated cylinder temperatures from boosting.

2. Water when heated creates steam, the same principle applies to the inside of your combustion chambers. Steam is created. The steam that is created actually "steam cleans" the inside of your engine, removing the carbon deposits caked up on your pistons and roofs of the combustion chamber. Removing the carbon deposits also helps surpress detonation. Carbon deposits create a "hot spot" where denotation is more likely to occur.

You can use water injection as a means of extracting more power from your engine, by running leaner air/fuel mixture or advancing your time. You can also run more psi if you reduced your timing, and enrich your mixture some. Or you can just simply use water injection for extra insurance against detonation by keeping your air/fuel settings and psi levels the same and just adding injection.

I have seen the spearco kit for 200.00 shipped and the Aquamist for 350.00 shipped. I cannot see a reason to not run water injection. With the proper fuel system, intercooler and water injection there pretty much no way to have knock. I would like to hear why no one runs water injection...or at least I havent seen anyone mention they run water injection on this board.

MiraiZ

i have been lookin to hold a group buy for this sometime next year....I need to stimulate 10 serious buyers though...

Tomakit

Only downside, from what ive heard, is that you'd have to refill the water supply and for some that is an inconvenience.

Tom

Kamin

hehe i would jump on it in a second if you answer me these Q's
1) how does it inject water into the chamber
2) how RELIABLE is it, this is like a 2 parter. do you have to add water every time you run, how fast does the water deplete? and if the water isnt injected/you run out what could happen
3)how much more boost would this allow (theoretically)

thats about it
thanks

zojirushi

Its the same as getting gas, lol. Then i guess getting gas is also an inconvenience. It's well worth it from what I've read, I also plan to get water injection for my car.

Tomakit

hey, i said for some, not myself.



Tom

zojirushi

lol, i was only kidding around.

HXMan

I would be in for a group buy if the water injection thing doesn't require a standalone ecu...I don't think hondata has the ability to control this sort of thing.

Oh, and filling my car up with water once a day would definitly be worth its weight in gold....what would you rather do?

Fill tank with water?

or

Replace your engine?

I'll go with the water! Any sites on the net that sell them?

zojirushi

i don't think u need a stand alone to run water injection. I know jackson racing sells water injection too. try thier website.

HXMan

http://www.spearcointercoolers.com/h20inject.htm



Wouldn't that also be good insurance for a turbo system without a knock sensor?

boosted hybrid

The water injection kits run off of a pressuer regulater, just like a rising rate regulater. The regulator uses boost pressure to pressure the water tank and then the pressured water is injected into the intercooler piping, then pulled into the engine through the intake manifold. The more boost you run the more water it spits out. For the spearco kit there are three different nozzles that atomize the water at different levels. You are supposed to use the smallest of the nozzles for hondas on the spearco kits.

You need to fill the tank of water everytime that you fill your gas tank, probably every tank and 1/2 with hondas...we have small tanks compared to the domestics that use the kits. The best mixture would be 50% distilled water and 50% alcohol. Alcohol evaporates heat even better than water, but you cannot run all alcohol with the injection kit...it deteriorates the rubber inside of the fuel lines, injectors, etc.

The spearco kit is old technology, but works very well. Alot of DSM and grand national guys use the spearco kits. The aquamist kits are newer technology, but are more costly. Check out either http://www.spearco.com or http://www.aquamist.co.uk/index.html for either kit. I personally have bought the spearco kit...I really dont need the bells and whistles of the aquamist kit.

Surprisingly the water injection technology has been around since WWII with the fighter planes. They were able to run more boost on the engines with less chance of failure. Just like N2O being used in the fighter planes, water injection found its way into automoblie racing use.

From what I have heard (not personal experience...I dont want to be blamed for someone blowing their engine!) you usually can run 2-4psi higher with the water injection, but you need to have your engine tuned with the water injection set-up on the dyno to do this. And remember, when you run out of water and your engine has been set-up to run with the water injection things like pistons and rings seemed to explode very quickly!!!

boosted hybrid

Oh...cheapest place that I have found (place where I bought mine from!) is http://www.cnw.com/~redline/waterinjectionkit.htm. It is 210 shipped. Better insurance than the J&S knock sensor against detonation, and cheaper too!

HXMan

^^^^

Good info, thanks.

Now, you say boost pressure is what pushes the water out of the tank, and into the intercooler piping. So, when there is no boost, there is no water being "pumped", when there is boost, water pumps out?

Am I understanding this correctly? I assumed a pump ran the system, and the pump delivered a certain amount of water based on the boost pressure.

MiraiZ

I've already done all the research...Aquamist is the best by far (as compared to something like Spearco) Aquamist is used by both FMAX and JRSC as an alternative cooling method.

Water mileage really depends on how you drive your car....on average a tank of water will last as much as a tank of gas.

Some have chosen to put larger tanks in the trunk; I have even seen one person convert his washer fluid resovoir into a water tank.

Although a water injection system can be quite nice, the key is not to make a "water injection dependant" system...in other words, you do not want a car can boost only if there's water in the tank, because this can be dangerous....It should only be used to supplement your turbo system to reduce charge temperature, and not to be used so that you can boost extreme pressures regulary.





[Modified by MiraiZ, 8:37 PM 12/17/2001]

HXMan

I wouldn't tune my car around water injection. First, I am going to have my car running *hopefully* great without water injection, and then when I get the money I will use it as an extra insurance policy when boosting.

zojirushi

Yah, same here. I view the water injection as an extra intercooler.

boosted hybrid

Using the windshield washer fluid tank for the water source when using water injection is not a good choice. From what I have heard they dont pressurize well enough and therefore dont keep an even atomization of the water into the engine. I personally wouldnt set-up my car to be water injection dependent for the sake of component failure, but when boosting at the track...water injection and 110 octane gas you are set to boost alot higher levels that you would normally.

Although the Aquamist kit is alot better technology, the spearco does work very well. All of my DSM friends run the spearco kits and are happy with them, although they do admit that the aquamist kits are far superior. It really comes down to how much money you are willing to spend and what you want out of the kit. If you are just using the water injection kit to give extra insurance agaisnt detonation then by all means go with the spearco kit. If you want to be able to specify your water injection spray points in the rpm range, and have a much nicer, cleaner looking kit then go with the Aquamist. To have the control module that controls when the water injection sprays you are looking to shell out like 600-700 for the stage II aquamist kit. In my opinion the spearco is the best/most value for the money. It is much simplier, cheaper and works the way it should.

jacobkatz

do it your self water injection http://www.dawesdevices.com/water.html

Etylorcen

What are the going prices for both kits?

boosted hybrid

The do-it-yourself kits usually dont work out to well. My friend made on off of a site (not sure if it was that site or not) and the thing leaked constantly and gave him nothing but headaches, eventually just took it off and bought the spearco kit.

The going price for the spearco kit is 210.00 shipped from http://www.cnw.com/~redline/waterinjectionkit.htm. The aquamist kit is like 350-400.00 for the stage I kit. The other kits get very costly ranging around 500-800 for the different stages.

Kamin

would the water injection hurt the low end preformance?
like before the engine sees boost?

HXMan

It shouldn't be on when the engine isn't boosting. No need for it then.

Kamin

ohhhhhh

i need to think more

HXMan

Duh, you Lazy ***!

J/K bro!

JJ-Built

hey there...

i use water injection by ERL and it work great.
i have the kit for awhile now with no problem. i sugget to use the ERL system though because it's well engineered and it come with high quality parts.