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Old 26-10-2003, 12:05 AM
Richard L Richard L is offline
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Default Injecting water into a rich a/f mixture is not a good idea

Not so long ago, a user of our WI system has lost some 40+ WRHP during a dyno tuning session, not surprise to know that he was quite disappointed. Only after a few months later and have discovered that his engine is tuned to run an a/f ratio of around 10.5:1.

I would really like to hear from anyone if they have suffered the same experience?
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Old 26-10-2003, 06:07 AM
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That may not have only been too rich for normal conditions it is way too rich when running water injection I would think. The tuner was bogging the engine down.
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Old 23-11-2003, 09:39 PM
JScoob JScoob is offline
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I wonder if this was vishnu? I remember reading a thread about a guy who lost that much whp while attempting to get tuned at vishnu. IMHO I think tuners who don't know (or believe) in WI tend to not tune WI cars correctly, which perpetuates their belief that WI doesn't work.

I think the tuner didn't realize that not only could, but should lean out fuel with WI engaged. I'm almost afraid to get my car pro tuned at this point in fear it would actually get detuned.

What I want to do is get it tuned without WI and then proceed to tune it further with WI myself. The only problem is that this strategy only works with user tunable solutions (ie wrx UTEC). I eventually would like to get ecutek, but that means it can only be with WI - and again, the 1 ecutek WI tuned I've read about resulted in no gains (which I believe was not tuned right).

Any more details on the ecutek/aquamist integrated solution?
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Old 24-11-2003, 04:08 AM
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I would rather not point fingers at tuners and don't know if this first thread post was in reference to the tune you are refering to on one of the WRX boards. Assuming that WRHP is indicating rear wheel - this may be a different occurence. Vishnu has stated their position on water injection and likely their tuning method is affected by that position, but I would rather let them speak to their results and keep third person types of stories more generic rather than specific. Even if I disagree with those talented tuners out there that don't use or like water injection, I prefer to engage them directly in those conversations.

Any tuner that understands tuning with knock suppression technologies (such as race gas) has the experience needed to utilitize the benefits of water injection. They may or may not choose to do so or appreciate the similarities, even though they are not the same.

There are professional tuners who have tuned or are willing to tune for water injection, though they may take longer to find. Also as you said self-tuning is an option if you have the engine management to do it.

Also if you have a tuner you are familar with and like to use - don't hesitate to send them here to read the papers posted on it or to have them join in to ask about tuning. If your tuner is open to new (to them) things, you will likely be happy with the results having worked with a tuner you know and trust - especially if they are willing to take a bit of extra time to do it right without charging you for the extra time.

While you can't pull fuel with an Ecutek on your own - if you have an aggressive say 95 octane map programmed and then use DD to advance timing a bit you will get some of the benefits though as always not a full dyno tune benefit. Just make sure you use a boost cut in case you ever have a system problem since while Ecutek will pull timing it won't increase fuel for knock events which is why for the time being I am not encouraging a higher octane map - though it is possible if someone wanted to do it.
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Old 24-11-2003, 05:16 AM
JScoob JScoob is offline
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Well, depending on what the aquamist/ecutek integrated solution is, I'm actually leaning towards the cobb accessport/accesstuner combo. You get the benefits of reflash with unlimited map switching. I dunno how they pulled that off, but they claim they did it. The only suck is that the Tuner is not due out till Feb 04.

The other option for me is to get ecutek tuned with non WI and keep my UTEC to self tune for WI. That way if I have WI problems, I can just switch to the base tuned map. I wonder if anyone has done that? Most don't do both ecutek and UTEC.
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Old 07-07-2005, 11:34 PM
Shaker666 Shaker666 is offline
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An A/F ratio value below 11.5:1 is, IMHO, a sad attempt to cool the chamber down under very high boost conditions.
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Old 08-07-2005, 09:08 AM
Richard L Richard L is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaker666
An A/F ratio value below 11.5:1 is, IMHO, a sad attempt to cool the chamber down under very high boost conditions.
Any excess fuel yields a guaranteed percentage of carbon monoxide that exits the tailpipe accompanied by a molecule of oxygen. Since CO only produces 30% of power compared to 100% power of CO2. Apart from wasting fuel, you are also throwing power out of your exhaust pipe. :sad:
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Old 23-10-2005, 07:34 PM
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I'm more than happy to tune a car (Impreza) for a water injection setup PROVIDED I am sure and confident the owner understands the risks involved, I use a System 2C myself run directly off my M800 ecu, recently it stopped working due to the 10 amp fuse going (recommend use 15A btw), luckily I was using full wideband control up to 2.2 bar boost so all that happened was that my Knocklink got very active, fueling corrected itself BUT I was running at 0.82 lambda which is scary lean for an Impreza engine. I had used the WI setup primarly for charge temp control then got bitten and added 50% methanol, suddenly I could run race fuel ign as std !!. It uses Optimax plus NF booster as its std fuel strategy.

Bottom line, if mapped for the WI then fuel has to be reduced due to the water occupying the space normaly occupied by air, that means if the water is NOT working the lean running results. Given the above then ign can be advanced to take advantage of the cooler charge.

The alternative is to have the car mapped without the WI working and then enable it when aggressive use is wanted i.e. Nurbergring, Phil Gardner (Sti 5) had me map his car like this and it behaved faultlessly thro' several years of Ring abuse. yes you lose some power as the afr becomes richer but ... charge is cooler and so the engine is safer.

bob
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Old 25-11-2005, 03:03 AM
Donkeypunch Donkeypunch is offline
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I had my car tuned on a snow performance kit using a UTEC and VF22 at XXtuning. The tuner needs to understand what he can do with the engine management, and what water injection will do to the base tune (prior to tuning with water injection. There the tuner gets a baseline AFR, and then goes from there. Granted UTEC is easy to scale fuel out of, but I know quite a few people running ECUTEK with WI, no problems. You have to scale the fuel out with water alky injection no matter what type of fuel you run, 91, 93 or 95 or better. You have to eventually make the AFR good for the engine. 12:1 being about ideal for a subaru 2.0 ltr. Of course more fuel is going to hurt the engine. You a prone to more misfire, and lose power due to lack of oxygen to combust the fuel right. THe fuel we use isn't oxygenated like nitromethane. That is why tuning for WI/WAI is essential to a safe/powerful tune.

DP
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Old 25-11-2005, 09:53 PM
Richard L Richard L is offline
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There is no reason not to tune the car to work with water injection provided you have a failsafe mechanism incorporated.

I think in general, boost drop in absence of water is good enough to save an engine from damaging.

I know an ECU reflashed car presents a problem as it cannot switch to a non-WI map but we are trying to work with Cobb AP - they told me that there is something exciting coming through very soon when we last spoke.

Richard
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