FW: Turbo fever (aquamist) - water injection idea

[Livolsi, Stephane]

In my early automotive years, I was partial to Ford 302 ci V8's of 60's and
70's vintage - very basic carburated engines which were very easy to work
with.  I remember investigating water injection systems at that time and
deciding that the 'manufacturers' of such systems wanted waaaay toooo much
money and I designed my own.
Very simple, actually, I teed an intake manifold vacuum line and ran the
extra line to a second windshield washer bottle that I mounted in the engine
compartment.  Closed off the end of the line with a screw inserted snugly
into the end of the line.  Now I could adjust the flow by screwing it in
more or less.  Drop the line in the tank and if the engine starts
sputtering, it's getting too much water so turn the screw a couple more
turns.  Basically through trial and error I would find a spot where the
engine ran well at idle with the hose in the water.  Then a bit of driving
would confirm the water level was dropping (sometimes rapidly)

This was a very unscientific experiment with no hard numbers measuring
before and after performance, but during a subsequent rebuild of the heads
on that engine, I can tell you that those were some of the cleanest
combustion chambers I have ever, ever seen on any engine.  Seem to recall
there was a noticeable improvement in fuel economy too.

I was pondering messing with this on my 5ktq until reality slapped me in the
face - there is no vacuum to suck up the water in the turbo engine - it
would probably just blow bubbles in the water tank.  Those of you with NA
Audi's may want to give this a try.

Stephane

> ----------
> From: 	Jenny Curtis[SMTP:jenny at physics.umn.edu]
> Sent: 	August 7, 2002 6:55 AM
> To: 	qlist
> Subject: 	Re: Turbo fever (aquamist)
>
> --
> [ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
> Bernard Littau wrote:
>
> >[snip]
> >
> >>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?
> >>
> >[snip]
> >
> >I've read the first sentence, above, a few times now.  At first I thought
> >the turbo-saver was some kind of pre-turbo cold side water injection.
> Now I
> >am thinking the "nitrous bottle" is an oil reservoir that slowly delivers
> >the oil back through the turbo after the engine is shut down, to help
> cool
> >the turbo.
> >
> Right, the turbo saver, is meant to prevent your turbo from cooking
> after shut-down, which is the number one cause of failure in pre-water
> cooled turbos.  It's not a performance mod, at all.  I guess I was
> mistaken in thinking that water injection would also have a safety
> benefit for older turbos.  It sounds like there is a pretty clear
> consensus on the list that it doesn't.
>
> >
> >
> >A good rule is: Unbelievable claims usually are :-)  Adding a turbo can
> >generally double the HP of most engines.  (NA 10V I5 is what?, 135 HP;
> stock
> >MC is 168 HP; tuned MC is 275 HP)  Doubling a tuned turbo, which is what
> I
> >assume was being claimed for the 900, would be difficult to do in a
> reliable
> >manner. (A 550 HP MC??? :-)
> >
> The 900T tuned gets around 175 HP, the guy was claiming his got 325,
> nearly double.  I was very doubtful.
>
> Gary wrote:
>
> 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...
>
>
> He was running his right off the wiper fluid resevoir, and it seemed to
> actually work running on window cleaner.  He didn't say whether he'd
> upped the alcohol content of his wiper fluid.  I've considered doing
> this in Minnesota anyway, since there's nothing worse than having the
> stuff freeze on your windshield on a very cold morning.
>
> Jenny
> --
>