Insane home Water/meth injection...

JOEDEUCE said:

...he used pure water in his injection system, during his run his engine consumed more water than diesel.

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Thats crazy! I would never have thought you could use that much water. @Heath, sorry man, maybe I shouldn't be questioning you. It just sounded like alot of water to me. As far as boost and EGT's, I have yet to drive my Deuce with the new gauges. Automobile Multimeter for EGT, Boost, 24VDC [SYL-1813-24] - $48.50 : auberins.com, Temperature control solutions for home and industry Im going to program the EGT or the boost gauge to activate the solenoid instead of a hobs switch. Ill base my nozzle size on the info I score from you on this thread!

Ride2Kill said:

Thats crazy! I would never have thought you could use that much water. @Heath, sorry man, maybe I shouldn't be questioning you. It just sounded like alot of water to me. As far as boost and EGT's, I have yet to drive my Deuce with the new gauges. Automobile Multimeter for EGT, Boost, 24VDC [SYL-1813-24] - $48.50 : auberins.com, Temperature control solutions for home and industry Im going to program the EGT or the boost gauge to activate the solenoid instead of a hobs switch. Ill base my nozzle size on the info I score from you on this thread!

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That link is the best price I have ever found for quality pyrometers! Thank you.

I'm not 100% on my flow rates... this was just extrapolated from engines of similar displacement. I will say that is how powerful this system can be. We might not even need 1/2 of that flow rate for casual use, at lower HP. Our water tanks might have almost as long a range as our fuel tanks.

I will feel better once I have better data.

SIDE NOTE: You know we can polish those kegs as well, right? It has to sit vertical to feed, but nothing past that limits it's location. Copper/steel feed lines going to a strange cylinder mounted conspicuously. I think I could find a place it would look cool and be easy to reach for filling/maint.

Of course, I consider "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" car porn...

@ Ride2kill.... while Heath diesels 6.5 used insane amounts of water, he's running an indirect injected engine , and I'm thinking the multi fuel would not respond as well to that amount of water. I was just using the 6.5 as an example. Main reason I bring the 6.5 up is that , its cool to see something different , and its a different animal when compared to a cummins, just like cummins is a different animal when compared to a multi fuel... its hard to compare oranges to oranges, when we are staring at pears and apples lol. The cummins and powerstroke guys can tell ya what works well for thier applications All in all it looks as though SS member Heath has his research in line ...and will achieve good results.

My newest bit of pleasure reading....

http://ergosphere.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/us-army-water-injection1.pdf


These guys ran test engines at a water to diesel rate of 9 to 1!!!!! They were attempting to completely cool the engine with water injected into the combustion chamber.

They found it impractical.

But, this does show me that the engine might run with FAR more water than I had expected... I'm still looking for data that would give me a minimum rate required for peak load exhaust cooling, as mention in this paper. Interesting, but not what I needed.

@ Heath.... in your equations, does the small. Letter "j" stand for joules? I'm not a math expert and my science knowledge is a lil rusty lol. Just trying to get a grasp on what your working on here. Sounds like a solid concept from what I'm understanding. I'm wondering how to go about measuring fuel rate, since that seems to be the key to making this equation work.

Yep... Joules and metric. The math is just easier.

The injector size is known... if we know the pressure and the duration we can compute the flow pretty precisely...

...but I think we can cheat.

We know the flow rate for the LDT @ 135hp, and for the LDS @180hp... So I think I'll be functionally accurate if I juggle those two numbers to get an estimated flow rate for a cranked up engine, by estimating the HP produced over it's respective baseline fuel flow.

I have to get back to class soon, but that will be tonight's math problem.

Once I do this, I can ask jwaller how much water he goes through, and how much power his engine makes, and double check my estimates backwards. His system is progressive with an electric pump, so while they may be apples and oranges, I'm just interested in the amount of sugar in each. (Yeah, metaphors suck.)

Be careful with adding too much water. If you get too much your compression will go up and blow head gaskets at the least and could also cause major engine damage at worst.

Sorry, late reader to the thread. Have you looked at agriculture pumps? Often, they are in 24v, made to pump nasty chemicals (methanol being an unexpectedly corrosive liquid), and aren't that expensive. I would consider at least trying an ag pump before needing to construct a custom, 125psi pressure vessel for your sprayer system, especially with the volumes you're taking here.

The data I'm seeing is actually indicating it would be hard to over-water... even at a 1:1 ratio, the engine will run fine. It would just waste water and possibly over-cool. Check out the Army study I linked where they were injecting 9 parts water to each part diesel in the test cylinders without overpressure or hydro-lock. Oddly, the propane/methanol will lift a head on one of these in a relative heartbeat because of how early in the cycle the flame lights.

That being said, I'm looking for the bare minimum water required to de-carbon waste fueled engines and lower EGTs at highway speeds. I'll do my best not to risk over watering the intake... I know these guys can handle a large volume of liquid, but I'm in no hurry to find out how much the hard way!

Thanks for looking out.

Heath_h49008 said:

The data I'm seeing is actually indicating it would be hard to over-water... even at a 1:1 ratio, the engine will run fine. It would just waste water and possibly over-cool. Check out the Army study I linked where they were injecting 9 parts water to each part diesel in the test cylinders without overpressure or hydro-lock. Oddly, the propane/methanol will lift a head on one of these in a relative heartbeat because of how early in the cycle the flame lights.

That being said, I'm looking for the bare minimum water required to de-carbon waste fueled engines and lower EGTs at highway speeds. I'll do my best not to risk over watering the intake... I know these guys can handle a large volume of liquid, but I'm in no hurry to find out how much the hard way!

Thanks for looking out.

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I'll admit I didn't read the link. I guess at even 9:1 it's a relatively small amount of water per compression stroke.

Math:

LDS465-1a... .43lb/hp/hr.... that comes out to 2.6ml per minute, per horse of diesel.

That means, 100cc injector can compensate for about 8 extra hp of fuel.

1 gallon per hour is 630.9ml/minute.... That's 48.5 hp worth of compensation for a very small amount of water.

The "Small" 3.1 GPH injector can adequately compensate for an LDT cranked to an extra 150.35 hp.

So, I am going out on a limb here, and saying one McMaster Carr P/N 3178K75
should be enough to cover any of our needs. The larger nozzles run by the guys making 1000hp in pulling trucks makes sense. The water usage scales by 5x fuel past baseline... and they are dumping a ton of fuel over that. But we aren't running that much fuel, or trying to spike methanol in at the same time. That would more than double our water needs running 50% meth like the performance kits... (50% meth that isn't cooling + the water needed to compensate for the heat generated by burning the alcohol)

And, we run no risks with a slight over watering of the fuel air mix... So, I don't see any benefits to running a progressive controller on these engines. On a gasoline engine, yes.

OK guys... that's it. Please, double check my numbers, but I think we have the part numbers and hard data to say we have a water system that can control heat issues in a cranked up engine for less than $100.

I'm building it, and should have it installed by the May Michigan rally.

This a very impressive progression and I am fascinating with the upper mathematics. This makes me wish I could quit my no brain required job and start taking classes again, I swear my brain is becoming mush. Beer probably doesnt help.

Ok, let me ask a noobish question though. I have never done anything with a diesel engine and EGTs, much less water injection systems. I know, I will understand when I put a pyro in my own truck, but walk me through this a bit. Also, I am building my truck to be able to go multipul hundreds of freeway miles iwthout a fuel up.

Why are you setting it up to inject consistantly, why not turn up your fuel a bit less and have it only inject when climbing or the engine is working harder? I am going with 395s and then someday add a increased ratio overdrive, so I would think I could get a couple turns of power before I am running at 1100 degrees at 60mph.

I also need to research a *Hobbs* switch?

Also, if your EGTs start to climb and you realize, "Shoot, I am out of water!" can you simple lessen the throttle, or do you need to lessen the RPM?

I know, if you wanted max power then having water consistently squirted in makes seance.

Either way, major respect on your undertaking!

Thank you. I quit my ME degree 10 years ago because I was making more money as a manager selling autoparts, now I'm finishing it off as fast as I can to escape the "Rust Belt" or start my own company here. Maybe I'm finally learnin' something useful!

The "Hobbes Switch" is just an adjustable pressure switch you can get at any NAPA. You could just as easily set it up with a switch on the EGT. The EGT sensor is about $100 and the "Hobbes" is $30. That's why I picked it. The EGT would probably be a better way to control it. But if you set the Hobbes to come on after you exceed a certain boost level, you are doing also telling it to ignore the "normal" use and only turn on when your foot is into it... when the turbo is being spooled up from all that extra fuel you're dumping in at fairly high RPMs. But, the EGT could cool the engine a bit if you were foot to the floor "lugging" the engine as well. At low RPMs and high fuel flow, you make heat, but not a lot of boost... hence the EGT would see the issue and kick in the water. Lugging the engine is bad, and should be avoided like the ex-wife, but it can happen, and the EGT would be better at catching it.

The water is there just to cool when the extra fuel is added... and yes, you can just keep an eye on the EGT and back out of the throttle if you run out of water. But... it's just water. Any gas station that has filtered or distilled water will be able to fix you up. Tap water may have some impurities, but seriously, you would have to run very dirty water for a very long time to have any issues. With a 10 gallon keg, and using 3 gph, at a high average fuel range of 10mpg on a 50gal tank at 60 mph (when the truck would be using it constantly for arguments sake) we have 8 hours of fuel, and 3 hours of water... that's constant use... pedal to the bolt, and needing the water the whole time. Honestly, I think it will last longer because with boost or EGT, it won't be switched on the whole time. But if you want, just remember that you need to check the water every 200 miles. As with all things dependent upon driving style, YMMV.

I haven't even done the other part of the math... the water is converted to steam... it expands. That means it makes some power in it's own right by making working use out of what would otherwise be waste heat energy. I have no idea how large or small that effect might be, I do know the water injection study claimed an increase in overall fuel efficiency, for what that is worth.

It's not free energy, and it won't make the truck a hotrod or a gas-sipping 20mpg wonder... but the water should let us get a little bit more power safely, and keep the engine clean even if we run nasty waste oil or idle too much.

I'm building it for my truck this spring... If someone beats me to it, we can compare notes. jwaller is the guy who knows the most about water injection on the multifuel, and I really would like someone to double check my data. No experiment is without risk, but as long as you have an EGT and a boost gauge, it should be easy to track the system before anything bad could happen.

701-1575 is the NAPA part # for the low pressure hobbs type switch, It is adjustable.

Ok, this may have already been answered, I am going to ask again because I dont want to read 6 pages of technical mumbo jumbo at 2 am.

You pressurize the water container to 100 psi through the trucks onboard air. This is enough that we can remove the expensive pump, we just plumb a line from the tank to the injector on the intake.

We have a switch that activates based on boost or EGTs and sends a "Yes" which allows the water to flow from our tank, to the intake manifold injector.

What are you using to receive the "Yes" and then turn that "Yes" or "no" (1 or 0, power or no power, how ever you want to express it) into water flowing or water not flowing?

To restate my question (Its late, not sure I am making sense) what is between the tank and the injector?

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I picture the 5 gallon jugs I use for hauling extra WMO with me, they are not light! Beyond that, if I wanted to fill three of them at a service station, it could be problematic. Personally, I would not want to have to refill it much any-ware other than at home or at a home. Maybe I am making this into a bigger problem than it will ever be for me.

If you have good results with it, I will most likely fallow suit. Id probably spring for an EGT switch personally, but the direction I am taking my truck is towards long trips across multiple states, while burning WMO. I would also like to get the best possible MPG. Water injection makes seance for that purpose.

McMaster-Carr


24v valve. gtg class.

Great tech here, thanks for sharing guys!

Ok, Im understanding most of this now, and I am really starting to think this is something I need to do on my truck. Heath, I hate to break it to you, but depending on when I purchase my home, I may end up beating you to it!

So, I am looking at the link you posted for injectors. I have NO experience with injectors, but I see a few different flow rates, and they are all only like, $5 each. Could you simply order three different sizes, and try a couple until you were happy with the results? Are they all going to be able to thread into the same holes?

Where and how do people place the injector? (I think I need to do a search)

If it was my thread, I would edit the first post with a summery of what you have found to make it an easy and step by step how to, so that people can read all six pages if they want, but the info is all together and easy to read.

This is such a cool idea.

The soda kegs look expensive if you want any more than a 5 gallon. You can get a 5 gallon for about 20, or a 10 for over 100.

The next question is how to mount it.