Turbo fever (aquamist)

[Lewis, Gary M]

> Message: 13
> Date: Tue, 06 Aug 2002 16:42:47 -0500
> From: Jenny Curtis <jenny at physics.umn.edu>
> To: qlist <quattro at audifans.com>
> Subject: Turbo fever (aquamist)
>
> Hi Q-list:
>
> Well it was another car week-end for me, only this time the
> destination
> was the Saab owners convention in Ohio.  (My husband owns a Saab 900T,
> and it was his turn to pick a car-related activity).  While there we
> checked out some of the tuning tents and saw a demonstration of the
> Aquamist system.  It looks pretty cool.  It got me to thinking about
> that Ur-Quattro that I'm trying to finagle.  (I have found
> the car: the
> owner needs to get rid of it, wants to sell it to me, but is really
> having a hard time coming up a with a price. I think he's
> just having a
> hard time thinking about parting with it.)  The Ur-Q has
> turbo-saver (it
> looks like a nitrous bottle, but it hooks into a pre-water
> cooled turbo
> to keep it from burning up).  Now aquamist claims to provide cooling
> protection as well as performance gains.  Has anyone used
> these systems?
> The HP gains claimed for the 900 seemed unbelievably big,
> almost double
> what a tuned 900 like Graham's gets.  Could they really be all that?

It works.  Period.  At what level depends on the car.  What h2o injection
does is 3-fold.

1. H20 injection (WI from now on) goals are 10% - 25% of fuel delivery at
WOT (I'm shooting for 20% at 2.2 bar, 10% at 1.8 bar).  WI uses 50% h2o, and
50% alcohol.  That's 10% of the fuel at 108-113 octane.  Makes 91 octane
look like 93ish octane, plus it is EXTRA fuel.

2. The water cools the air coming out of the IC (nominally, but there is a
slight benefit.

3. The cooling effect of the water makes the fuel "look" higher in octane
than it really is as it makes the combustion chamber cooler. It makes lower
octane fuel burn like higher octane fuel as the vaporization of the water
absorbs a huge amount of heat.  Increasing the ratio of alc to h2o beyond
50% will increase the octane, but it adds more heat, which I've concluded I
don't want.  50-50 is I'm told the magic ratio...

Gary Lewis
1990 200TQW, RS2 Turbo, 1991 TQ Intercooler, 1.8 bar, Bypass Valve, Euro's,
Bilsteins, Redline in tranny and diffs

Planned upgrades: H20 Injection (Aug 02), Keyless Entry (Aug 02) 2.0 Bar
Upgrade (Sept 02)