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I've finished putting together and installing my own water injection setup.
It uses a pressure tank that contains a water bladder. The tank is
2 gallons. I fill the water bladder with one gallon of water, and
then pressurize the tank with an air compressor to 100psi. The setup
uses two pressure switches to control two misting water nozzles (mcmaster
car mini-mister nozzles). The first nozzles comes on at 5psi and
sprays water onto the outside of the intercooler. The second nozzle
comes on at 10psi - currently using 189cc/min nozzle at 100psi, and injects
right before the throttle plate. The pressurized water is controlled
via two solenoid valves. This allows the not only a fail-safe for
the throttle body injector (in case one solenoid fails), but also permits
the use of a second nozzle for the intercooler mister.
Advantages:
No Pump - no pump delay - injection starts immediately.
Doubles as intercooler mister.
High pressure - excellent atomization (at 40-100psi).
Turn on pressure easily adjustable via adjustable switches.
Able to run with denatured alcohol.
Disadvantages:
Filling the tank is somewhat cumbersome, but not too bad. Have
to drain air out, open valve, and gravity feed the tank occasionally letting
excess air out. After filling - close the valve, and pressurize via
air compressor.
On a two gallon tank, with one gallon water, and one gallon 100psi
air, after all water has been used, pressure will have dropped to 50psi.
The user can just repressurize the tank - but that leads to -
Knowing how full the tank is. I'm still working on this one -
can use pressure reading to see how full, but would be nice to use an additional
pressure switch to turn on an LED when the tank is empty.
Observations:
Water injection really does work - I've noticed at least a 100 degree
drop in EGTs, and I can run more boost without the ECU going into the bad
gas mode. This can be observed via two LEDs connected to the turbo
VSV, and the TVIS ports on the ECU. When the ECU goes into the bad
gas (knock) mode, it will open the TVIS valves under any throttle position
other than closed, and the ignition timing seems to be severely retarded.
Since I changed the headgasket (and had the head resurfaced) the ECU has
been going into this mode under moderate (14.2psi) with PT upgraded 50
trim turbo - I believe this is due to increased compression. I've
been able to run 15.6 psi with water injection without problems, and also
tried 17.1psi briefly without issues. I did some GTech runs with
and without water injection, and also with a 50/50 mixture of water and
denatured alcohol - results are averaged:
Just distilled water:
14.2 psi without 225
14.2psi with 222
15.6psi with water 242.
50/50 mixture of distilled water and denatured alcohol:
14.2psi with 225
15.6psi with 235
17.1psi with 242.
I attribute the lower numbers with the alcohol to the engine running
too rich - but that's just a guess.
I also did a my personal best 0-60MPH time with distilled water at
15.6psi - 5.22seconds.
Pics are at:
<http://josepho.www4.50megs.com/WI> Sorry they are not labeled.
Oh - BTW - the nozzle for the intercooler is 315cc/min. So one
gallon of water will last about 7.5minutes - course that would be under
boost conditions - with just the throttle body water injector it would
last 20 minutes.
DSC00001: Tank mounted in trunk (really bad mounting job - want to use
metal bracket in future). You can see the first solenoid - comes
on to spray water onto the intercooler.
DSC00002: Second nozzle on throttle body, and second solenoid valve.
3: Nozzle mounted on greddy IC.
17: Another outside view of IC nozzle.
18: Another view of second solenoid - can see pressure switches as
well on right.
19: Close-up of pressure switches.
20: Another view of second solenoid.
21: Yet another - hey it was my first time with a digital camera! :-)
22: Close up of first solenoid valve on tank.
23: Another view of tank, can see valve to fill tank on left.
25: Picture of two LEDs - RED is for TVIS, green is for turbo VSV.
26: Two LEDs, EGT gauge, and fuel pressure gauge (green LED comes on
when intercooler mister sprays, and red when the throttle body injector
comes on. EGT gauge shows #3 and #4 EGTs.
27: Water injection enable/disable switch, fan switch, and turbo
timer.
28: Dash shot - Apexi AVC-R boost controller.
joeo