Comparison of different systems?

[wedgepilot]

Sorry in advance if this isn't the correct forum for this question.

Has anyone tried the SnowPerformance Boost Cooler offering, and can anyone give a comparison of it with the Aquamist system? It seems to get used a lot for turbo-diesels in the States - is it ok for petrol engines?

Perhaps Richard L could explain why the Aquamist system is superior :wink:

I'm not connected with them in any way, it's just that the price looks good given the current dollar-sterling exchange rate (I'm in the UK).

Thanks,
Alan

[Richard L]

Alan,

The sole job of any water injection system is to inject water, as long as it does that, it fulfills its duty.

No system is more or less superior than others as long as it does its job as designed. Like a car, you can spend 10K dollars or 50K dollars, it will all take you from A to B. You can have a car that will deliver four passengers comfortably or you can have a car that only holds two.

Most curent water injection systems are Shurflo or diaphragm-pump based due to its flow capacity and low cost - in the region of 3L per minute and costing less than 100 dollars. Add a oil heater nozzle, you have a water injection system instantly.

When we first started looking into making water injection systems, we have tried many pumps on the market including Shurflo, Pumptec, Flojet etc and positive diaplacement gear pump. They all shared one negative feature for us - size and weight. At the time of decision making, we opted for making our own light-weight and small-size piston pump. This is due to our racing customers demanded such a set-up. As you are well aware that "customer is always right" so we started designing the piston pump as our main component of pressurising the water.

We have also running into other technical problems in sensing the flow on other pumps due to its "mega-flow" capacity while we were only using a fraction of its rated output. A electro-magnetic piston pump such as ours, although low in delvery rate, it was more than adequate for our customers at the time. One advantage we have found by employing a piston pump is that the flowrate can easily be adjusted and monitored by varying the duration and frequencyof the pulses we send to the coil windings.

A bigger piston pump has been planned and designed but we decided to put it on hold due to the current market demanding a low-cost and high flow system. Until the market matures and demanding a system that has more "house-keeping" features in-build, we are not prepare to bring such a system out.

Please note that we too supply Shurflo type system to "high-flow" customers with all safety feartures incorporated but only a few requires such complexity. As the current market demands a high flow and low cost system, we are in no position to compete until one day customer's expectations switch to a more mature high-flow system that has accurate flow control and block-jet detection features.

It is strange to us that for anythings else, majority of the customers want the best component for their engine, but when it comes to selecting a water injection system, all their original intentions regarding the safety features just vanish into the thin air. We are pleased that there are a still a small number of loyal customers out there that appreciate our efforts and contributions and attempt in making a perfect water injection system.

THE BIB PUMP (designed in 2000):

[wedgepilot]

Thanks Richard, I suppose you pays your money and make your choice.

Alan

[mx5]

Just to add this:

I friend put a homemade Shurflo based system in his Evo 7 with zero diagnostigs/flow monitoring. A couple of months later the system failed for some reason and filled his engine with water without him knowing - the engine got damaged and needs rebuild now ...

At the same point I put an Aquamist 2D in. By accident once I shorted the brown wire to the high speed valve and the system started flowing at 100% water IDC at no boost (the car was cruising at the time). If it was not for the 2D warning LED, I would have blown my engine too. I saw the LED, I stopped and turned off the w/i temporary. When I got home I found the problem, fixed the shorted wire and everything works perfect since then ...

[cheekychimp]

I agree ... Richard, your opinions are clearly biased (joking :lol: ) but you have an extremely valid point. I you have spent quite likely anywhere from $3000-$7500 on a high performance professionally built engine why would you try to build a cheap $60 WI system to protect it? Even if you are just looking at bolt on modifications you wouldn't realistically expect dramatic performance gains from a $69.99 exhaust system or turbo ... I mean would you even buy something at that price?

I for one appreciate the features that you include and are developing but one thing I would like to bring up and may cross post to the manufacturers/sponsor page so that it gets viewed is this :-

Many car enthusiasts use Manual Boost Controllers (MBCs) because of their reliability, ability to hold stable boost and 'allegedly' faster spool-up times. Whilst the faster spool-up is undoubtedly related to the mechanical holding of the boost where Electronic Boost Controllers release boost early to prevent 'anticpated' spikes, I have found MBCs to be better. Is it possible to design anything that could plug into the boost control line that could withstand high boost but switch to reduce boost if a WI failure occurred?

Paul

[Richard L]

I am not sure how mechanical boost controller is constructed, if you could explain how it functions, I will try to devise some electronic/mechanical interface device to make it work with our output.

[Charged Performance]

Mechanical boost controllers are generally a valve that permits enough air to bypass the wastegate actuator to prevent its opening.

This can be done by calibrating a couple valves to leak enough air to permit peak boost, very simple and effective and inexpensive.

It can also be done with a spring loaded ball valve that closes when the reference boost pressure reaches the point where the valve is set. These too can be acquired inexpensively but are generally simple and industrial looking (not necessarily big - just not bling) then there are the ones made for the car market which are overpriced but do look better under the hood.

[cheekychimp]

But is there any way to switch boost to a lower pressure, if the water injection system shuts down or detects a fault?

Take a look at this :-

http://www.machv.com/turxsdualmec.html

Someone has clearly built a electronically operated two-way gate to switch air-flow between either of the two mbcs. Couldn't we go one stage further and have three of the grainger valves that 'charged' is talking about. One for high boost and one for low boost that we can switch from inside the cockpit and a third one that would open automatically downline if the water injection suffered a fault reducing boost to a pressure that was safe without water injection.

If anyone could get me parts numbers, I'd give it a go but I can't find the electronic switch valve anywhere.

Paul.

[Richard L]

Here is a few possible arrangement for the boost valve:





Here is how the boost valve works

[cheekychimp]

Richard,
Could you build this system to work with a manual boost controller? And if so could the 'default' (i.e. what the system reverts to in the event that a fault is detected) be set at say 0.9 bar.

Paul.