Using Chilled water for Injection

[TurboGTi]

has anyone tried using chilled water in there WI system?
By chilled i mean water at or around 0 degrees C ?

Would this have any adverse effects on power gain?

what are your experience?

[SMoLiK]

I am curious about his myself... I am considering adding a cooler (oil or tranny cooler that is the right size) to a water kit to cool down the temps...

SMo'

[hotrod]

I'm not aware of anyone that has done any comparison testing. It would probably make a small but noticable difference if you were going for every possible advantage. The evaporation process will typically drop intake temps somewhere between 20 deg F - 40 deg F depending on the outside humidity. In high humidity tropical environments obviously you would be on the lower end of that range for evaporative cooling.

I have tried putting Ice cubes in my top mount intercooler sprayer reservoir at the drag strip. It made a small difference but the cool water quickly warmed up in the lines so it was not really useful on a day to day basis.

If your at the drag strip and need a few hundreths of a second it would probably be most practical to drop ice cubes in the reservior and then have some sort of insulation on the feed lines and a way to spray some water to purge the warm water out of the lines.

To get 1% increase in engine power you need to drop intake temps by about 11 deg F, so I would be surprised if you could get more than 1% - 1/2% or the engines max power, maybe 2 -3 hp.

Larry

[TurboGTi]

well i was more thinking along the lines of dry ice dropped in the reservoir to cool down the water temp.

i'm going to try this and see what happens ..... my alternator is burnt so i won't be doing this right now but i'll keep u posted...
or maybe someone else can try it too!

[pan_matt]

Build a double wall fluid container from stainless steel, with the water resevoir in the center. In the outer resevoir you can place dry ice to cool down the liquid.

Works very well

[TurboGTi]

Build a double wall fluid container from stainless steel, with the water resevoir in the center. In the outer resevoir you can place dry ice to cool down the liquid.

Works very well

Thats a good idea i would love to place a nice aluminum tank in the back for water but this would make my tank lower than the pump... hmmm maybe i could use a regular window washer pump to prime the aquamist pump..!
hmmm i'll look into this!

[Charged Performance]

The STi has a water spray tank with a level switch and washer type pump. It works very well in priming. Even this small pre-pressure will also increase significantly the flow potential of the piston pump design of the Aquamist pump.

If you are willing to do a tank in this manner I would research some for a large washer resevoir that has a built in pump and level sensor and designed in a way that will keep the intake covered during turns.

[TurboGTi]

yea thats what i was thinking of Charged..
?I''m still looking into this..!
I still haven't tried the chilled water as yet ....! but when i do i'll post!

[Charged Performance]

If I come across a make/model car that has an ideal washer resevoir design for a trunk mounted tank with a built in pump for priming I will certainly post it up. What we need is a junk yard specialist or a real all make/model trivia junkie to identify a good candidate!

[hotrod]

I snag little snippits of information I find interesting out of things I see on the web, and one of them is the following comment about a reservoir suitable for water injection.


On the 1995 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX, the windshield wiper reservoir is in
the trunk under the spare tire.
It supposedly already has a level sensor.



Another candidate I've heard mentioned was the: Saab 900 windscreen washer tank, on european models ( not sure if US models had the same).

I have not seen either one, but if someone has an opportunity to get a picture of one, and some dimensions, or drift down to an auto wrecking yard, it might be just what the doctor ordered.

Did a little searching, and found this web page that sort of serves as a list of candidates to investigate.

http://www.auto-electrical-parts.com/reservoir_level_sensor-parts.html

Larry

[TurboGTi]

well i like the eclipse idea i'll check it out ..but for those that like style check these babies out from MRT

http://www.mrtrally.com.au/performance/photo/mrt249.jpg

http://www.mrtrally.com.au/performance/photo/mrt250.jpg

http://www.mrtrally.com.au/performance/photo/mrt251.jpg


nice ..!
All i would need is an area to pack some dry ice around the base of this container so as to get the chilled water effect!! :D

[Charged Performance]

Be careful not to freeze the water mixture or fatigue the tank materials.

Please put the outlet facing backwards - you are more likely to be engaging water injection while accelerating than decelerating.

Add an electric level sensor.

Fortunately Impreza models can use the 12L RA spec C with pump and level sensor built in that tucks in nicely along the rear seat back.

[AKWRX]

Fortunately Impreza models can use the 12L RA spec C with pump and level sensor built in that tucks in nicely along the rear seat back.

The IC spray tank as used on the '04 STI is another neat, hidden in the trunk, solution for the Impreza.

[Charged Performance]

And a perfect solution with a built in level warning and a pump that primes the Aquamist perfectly and improves its piston pump flow potential quite a bit.

[Greenv8s]

Looking at this from the other direction, how much cooling do you lose if the injected water has been heated up from being stored in the engine bay? I'm guessing that the main cooling effects come from latent heat of evaporation rather than straight forward heat capacity, does this mean the temperature of the water isn't critical?

[Richard L]

It is an interesting topic. We have some industrial customer heats up the water to 99.9 degC before injection, so the evaporation is almost instant there by producing a fully humidify air very quickly for the fuelcell reactor. I am not sure if there are any cooling effect. Almost injecting liquid steam.

On the other end of the scale, cool your water to sub-zero temperature by adding some methanol (-90C freezing point), If you store this mixture in a thermos, it should have a dramatic cooling effect when the atomised mixture meets the air. It should be similar to surfing closely behind a snow making machine at 100mph (imagine you are the incoming air travelling towards the spray jet).

http://www.aquamist.co.uk/forum/gallery/misc/wi001.jpg

[hotrod]

I've also seen that, one of the overspray systems uses the same technique to achive extremely fine spray mist, as the hot water flash boils as the pressure drops as it exits the spray nozzle. As I recall at the point about 20% of the spray mass flow evaporates it completely negates the pre-heating of the liquid, (ie the mist dropplets have cooled to ambient temp).

Larry

[SaabTuner]

Water does have a very high latent heat. You'd just trade some of its specific heat for some of its latent heat.

In terms of detonation resistance I think it's a bad idea. It will all be vaporized before the detonation occurs and I think that sacrificing some of the specific heat (cooling) to vaporize it more quickly would be a poor trade-off.

In terms of outright power, you want to get as much heat out of the air as possible before it crosses your intake ports to the cyllinder. Any cooling effect after the intake ports will be less effective in increasing the overal mass of air entering the engine. This would be because there is already a critical pressure drop across the intake ducts and any futher pressure drop in the cyllinder would require more camshaft or porting to increase flow into the cyllinder significantly.

Adrian~

[Richard L]

I forgot to mention, our industrial cutomer is in the fuelcell business. In order to gain efficiency of the power conversion, air has to be 100% humidified to accelerate the hydrogen/oxygen reaction between the membrane layer.

There will be evaporation and some cooling but overcooling reactor will rob power. It is a delicate balance to maintain best output power.

[FastAOD]

I'll share my notes....(I am by no means a water pro)....LOL

I have only used water. No mixtures as of yet...

The 1 day i tested it was 105* F. The water in my tank was about 135* F. On a forced induction motor @14psi i lowered the intake temps 70* F. From 250* F to 180*.....

I inject my water into my blower, to atomize it. So even if it was cold water, it would be heated up by the time it was compressed through the blower....So i havent ever tried that...

[TurboGTi]

I'll share my notes....(I am by no means a water pro)....LOL

I have only used water. No mixtures as of yet...

The 1 day i tested it was 105* F. The water in my tank was about 135* F. On a forced induction motor @14psi i lowered the intake temps 70* F. From 250* F to 180*.....

I inject my water into my blower, to atomize it. So even if it was cold water, it would be heated up by the time it was compressed through the blower....So i havent ever tried that...

I'm happy that your sharing this information with us ... i am sopposed to have tried this with my system, but i still haven't been able to do so.

I did try using cold water once with a good seat of the pants result, but i don't have any numbers for that run.

I still have issues to sort out and until then i have to rely on your guys for help

Keep it flowing :D

[victorkish3]

I have tried chilling a mix of 25meth/75water but as yet have no container to hold this in apart from the usual secondary plastic washer bottle.

The mix was chilled to -16 deg c. Anything lower than this made it start to freeze. I was obviously limited as the temperature started to rise as soon as I put it in. However, I did have an interesting 'moment' with a Ferrari 355 and felt the benefit for a few moments. :D

I checked the temperature by the most scientific method available immediately after (dipping in the finger!) and it still felt quite cold considering that the ambient temperature was hot and after the 'Ferrari moment', the engine was hotter still!

[Rootzz06]

I thought that you want the water to evaporate as completely as possible for cooling.Isnt evaporation enabled first by fine atomisation and second the water increasing in temp?Will colder water slow the evaporation rate?Maybe colder water will enable to water to stay as a liquid longer and allow the water to travel further through the intake track before evaporating giving it more "hang time" and covering more area before it evaporates.This may help cooling.In my application,spraying through my roots s/c for now--I want the water to be completely evaporated asap.Does anyone know about how long it takes for the water to evaporate completely--for example how far it travels before it is no longer in liquid form or does it make it all the way to the cumbustion chamber as a liquid?sorry to ramble on but this may help me with injector placement.

[Performance Driven]

in my opion cooling the water temp to much would hurt atomization and overall performance of the kit. i come to these conclusions base on the experience on the dyno i have with cars. if the engine is to cold and i do a pull it will obviously not make the power that it will if it was in its operating temp. ive made 20 whp less just from doing pulls 3degrees before operating temp due to non- complete fuel atomization. . id assume the same factors would take place in shooting ice cold water into an intake charge. i will be testing this therory in due time and i will post my results. phil

[simple]

Most of new cars have air conditioners our days. And it is usually runs during hot days when cooling of the intake charge is needed the most.
Now, the discharge pipe from air conditioner usually sub-zero degrease C. Why not use the left over ?cold? to cool WI storage tank or flow line, or copy Jaguar?s 1977 technology and cool fuel before it get?s injected.
This will have sell?f levelling effect ? in summer when it is hot you will turn IC on and cool the fuel as well. And in winter ? WI is cool anyway.

[TurboGTi]

its been a while since i posted here, but i still believe that chilled water should improve the detonation point in an engine due to cooler water and hence greater cooling energy.

One of these day i'll try it ..its been awhile

[WW_VRS]

Could use an inline cooler, perhaps a Perrier element, although that would use a fair chunk of electrical power. As long as the 'hot side' has sufficient airflow going over it I reckon it would give a nice amount of chillin'. You'd need a thermostat to avoid overcooling though :)