Water/Methanol Injection

[DOPRIUS]

Water/Methanol injection may sound risky, or may make you dought the idea when you realize you will be squirting water into your engine! But its actually very safe! It actually can save your engine in most cases! If your running a turbo/s or supercharger on your engine, its risky that you will have a detonation! And the cause of detonation is a hot intake air temperature. But the way that water/methanol injection works is that the water is "misted" into the intake which super cools the air which changes how much timing you can change to further save your engine and make more boost. The methanol(alcohol) part mixes with the pump gas, turning it into a premium race gas of 114 octane in some cases! It also works well with Naturally Asperated engines! When used regularly it can improve gas milage by 1mpg! 1mpg may not sound, but lets say you drive a 2006 Chevy 2500 with the 6.0 Vortec. You will probly average 12mpg hwy if your lucky. So 1mpg is A BIG DEAL. But while your gaining fuel economy your also gaining power! In some cases, 15hp! And another question you may have is "where do i get the methanol?" Well your not gonna believe it but most windshield washer fluid that is made for winter driving contains the combonation of water and methanol that youll need! And it averages about $2.50 a gallon! Im building my D50 as a high performance sleeper, and i wanna be safe while making big power, so i will have the water/methanol injection on the engine! Also I plan to install a kit on my daily driver(2006 Chevy Malibu 3.5L V6) to try to add some mpgs while adding some passing power! If you have any questions just ask me! LMK what you think of this whole idea of water/methanol injection too! ;)

[Fordubishi]

LOL I just put a Snow-preformance water/meth system in an 08 Mustang and its a real nice easy kit to install. It is fully programmable for either N/A or Boost at a touch of a button.Got a gallon of distilled water and a gallon on Methanol mixed 50/50 now have 2 gallons for the car.

[pennyman1]

I plan on running it on Geronimo when the conquest turbo motor is installed. Many years ago I ran a simple methanol / water injection system that was tied into the vacuum lines with a check valve that drew the vapor in under low vacuum conditions such as acceleration. Not sure how effective it was compared to todays pressurized setups.

[Acuta73]

Thinking about doing this to the Ford and mebbe the D50 later. Anyone know if you can use a NOS plate for injection or does it need to be in the actual cold air intake?

Going to space plate the throttle body on the Ford, too. Why I asked.

Any tiny bit of MPG gain I can get on this thing, the better.


This made for an interesting read:

http://www.challengertalk.com/forums/f53/everything-you-need-know-about-water-methanol-injection-5271/

[Acuta73]

Hrm...more questions.

Some applications (particularly diesel) seem to be running it pretty much all the time aside from idle.

Some applications it's set up more like NOS on a "boost" switch manually.

Some applications it's set up on a throttle body or pedal switch to kick in at high RPM.

Some applications are using a pressure switch off a turbo to kick in at a certain boost level.

So...how do I use it? If it's just a "fun" button, I guess it may not be for me. If it can be used across the power curve and on hot days, I'd be on it.

[pennyman1]

it's really for boost conditions when you have higher temps from compressing the charge and want to drop the temp of it to get the best burn. It may help on WOT on hot days too on an normally aspirated motor, and boost output due to the octane of the alcohol.

[recian]

Diesel guys are using it to keep Exh temps down since they dont use an intercooler and the turbo is inches away from the intake. It's to cool turbo engines to allow for more "Fun" by upping boost and preventing detonation which is usually caused by high combustion temps and the low quality gasoline now like pennyman mentioned. That low quality gas usually has more alcahol in summer ontop of temps so it could be a summertime thing. Of corse you can't just throw it up there either. It needs to be adjusted and tuned. You're still putting uncompressable water in your engine.

[BradMph]

I work to buy more for my truck, so I can go faster to get to work, so I can buy more for my truck, so I can go faster to get to work, so I can buy more for my truck...is anyone getting the picture yet? lol

[noahwins]

So...how do I use it? If it's just a "fun" button, I guess it may not be for me. If it can be used across the power curve and on hot days, I'd be on it.

Pretty much. It was used in World War II fighter planes for "overboost" on the engines' superchargers, a short term power gain while dog fighting or pursuing another plane at high altitude. It was a tank that sprayed glycol for minute or two, bumping up the octane rating of the fuel so the engines wouldn't knock themselves apart while over boosting.

There are simple setups using a GM 3 bar MAP sensor, your windshield wiper bottle and parts from Home Depot. Seriously. It's not complicated.

It's not only for forced induction vehicles, you can run higher compression ratios or advance the timing on a NA application.

And it steam cleans the internals of your engine.

Saab used to have AWI from the factory on a few cars but people forgot to re-fill the tank so they stopped using it. I guess it's sort of exotic sounding.

[Andy 2]

Many years ago I saw something similar at a local fall fair. They were using windshield washer antifreeze connected to the intake with a vacuum line. Like Pennyman described. This is going back 25- 30 years........maybe more. Either way my point was that washer fluid is around 50/50 methanol-water I believe, is relatively inexpensive and premixed.

[DOPRIUS]

Yep! All my buddies that are turbo junkies use it in their 700hp+ cars and trucks!

[Fordubishi]

nice little set up
http://www.snowperformance.net/product_images/xproduct-large_image-7.jpg.pagespeed.ic.ikxSpW_4Ts.jpg

http://www.snowperformance.net/stage-2-boost-cooler-n-a.html

[DOPRIUS]

Yep that's the fancy pants setup LOL

[Acuta73]

I'm running 10:1 pistons in my truck, anything that will help is a good thing. Particularly if the engine is running on the hot side.

Kinda why I wondered. It DOES have a use in NA engines, but not as much as a Turbo application.

May continue to ponder it. With larger valves, the 38/38, ground cam, and heavy springs, it just may make sense.

[noahwins]

I'd imagine a simple on/off meth sprayer keyed off dizzy vacuum advance, an aluminum radiator, electric fan and Water Wetter would be a great low buck way to safely run 10:1 or even higher compression pistons. Then adding a 38/38 and the D&G Tr-Y headers wouldn't just be for the bling factor...

In fact, I want to try it myself.

[DOPRIUS]

A lot of people put water/meth to get better MPGs. And on higher compression motors it will even add power with the meth by bumping the gas quality up to race gas!