I will Richard :)

The weather is "hotish" but I tend to go do my testing in early morning and keep things relative most times so I can compare information in a valid way. last time was 10.6 deg C so will aim for that again. Through the day when I have been doing the durability runs its been 25 to 30 deg C in general.

Can't wait for winter, I should move to the UK, got any jobs for me Richard??? :wink:

I think you can do a back to back test (testing the difference with system "on" and "off") under any temperature as long as it is within a few minutes of each other. If you were to compare with some previous tests at 10.6 Deg.C, then it is necesary to do it in the morning. It is also interesting to do find out the difference between morning and high noon, with system on and off. Total four results, two baseline without WAI.

I wouldn't come to England, there are no road here to test your car on. The weather is miserable too. Last three summers, we did not get many hot days to switch on our aquamist shower unit at race tracks. Winter is getting colder too. So much for the promised global warming predicted by the top 2500 scientists.

http://www.aquamist.co.uk/forum/mist1.JPG

RR,

Your build and setup is awesome beyond words. Great ideas, effort, craftsmanship and functionality all rolled into one. Love it! Anxious to continue reading about your results!

I ordered my car trailer today, it will be here in about 4 weeks or so then I can get into some more serious testing (and sleep easy). I'll post back when I'm closer to that point.

Are there any threads where you give a more detailed explanation as to exactly how the setup works and how all the parts function together? I was interested in pre-turbo injection and Richard directed me to this thread and to the other 27 page discussion on this board. Thanks!

Found this quote from a pilot in regards to water methanol injection on planes he used to fly:

"Hi Gents,

May I make a contribution regarding the merits of water methanol injection in piston engines.

My back ground is in aviation, both as an engineer and pilot. Many years ago, I spent a lot of time on Lockheed Neptune aircraft. This aircraft was equipped with both piston and jet engines.

The piston engines were Curtis Wright R3350 Turbo Compound 18 cylinder radial engines. The number 3350 referred to their displacement in cubic inches. The rated horespower at take-off was 3700 at 2900 RPM.

Two types of take-off power could be used. The first was a 'dry' take-off, using no water methanol and 61.5" MAP (Manifold Absolute Pressure). The horsepower produced was 3400.

The second type was the 'wet' take-off, using water methanol, and 59" MAP. The horse power produced was 3700.

The reason for the 300 HP increase was due to the cooling effect of the water methanol on the combustion temperature within the cylinder. This allowed the air/fuel ratio to be leaned slightly from a rich 11:1, to a best power ratio of 12:1.

In ordinary circumstances, the best power ratio of 12:1 could not be used in a 'dry' take-off configuration, because the engine would have suffered from detonation. Thus, the primary benefit form the water methanol was the avoidance of high combustion temperatures at high MAP leading to detonation. The methanol also lowered the freezing point of the water, preventing icing within the water tank at the higher altitudes.

The fuel being used was AVGAS 115/145. If a meaningful increase in power (auto engines) is required using water injection, then it will come from an adjustment (auto-lean system) to the fuel mixture at high power, whilst the water is flowing into the cylinders. Some trial and error would be involved, I would imagine. In any case, an air fuel ratio leaner than 12:1 (with water injection) would not be adviseable).

Incidentally, as a member of a group which still flies two Neptunes and a Lockheed Super Constellation, both of which are equipped with R3350 engines, we have had to resort to slightly lower maximum power values. This is because AVGAS 115/145 is no longer availble, as we can only obtain AVGAS 100/130 or AVGAS 100. Nevertheless, the performance / power is still impressive.

Cheers,

Kim."

Cool read. I am somewhat familiar with the principals of WI and I run a post turbo setup on my WRX. I was really interested in the particulars of how your custom setup works. I know you are doing some different things but when I studied the pictures there were a few parts I saw which I didn't even know the names of. Interested in what the parts are and how they are setup and tuned to function as a system.

Again, beautiful work. It's work of art.

If anyone wants to know my WI system related stuff out of respect for Richard and this great site please send me an E-mail about it as I feel its not the right thing to talk about here for various reasons, this thread is more about my own car and testing of the WI rather than my own set up etc if you know what I am getting at here. What I do can be achieved with his much better units too, mine is but a self made very antiquated by comparison solution towards getting the undisputed benefits of water injection :)

My e-mail is peter@riceracing.com.au

Do post the principle of operation, it is a good technical information for those who wants to know how it is done without a pump. It is very clever.

email sent...or, as Richard suggests, perhaps an overview here would be ok? I'm sure others are curious as well.

Full credit for my system ideas goes to Eldred Norman and Hugh McInnes.

Eldred gave me the idea for the air water atomizing nozzel and Hugh the pneumatic nature of operation.

basics first:

A pressure vessel is linked to manifold pressure (open link, no one way valves etc) this pressure being tied to intake manifold pressure determines the fluid line pressure and thus the delivery rate is in proportion to the vessel pressure, it works in an acceptable fashion on most high performance single turbo cars in regards to metering. What happens in this basic form is that at peak boost there is a higher water to fuel ratio or percentage (lets say maybe 35%) and as revs rise past peak torque/boost onwards to peak power point the ratio can come back to a more correct target say of 20%. It naturally delivers more fluid where its needed mostly at peak cylinder pressures (and over doses a bit at lower revs if the boost builds up quickly) but if the AFR is kept anywhere north of 11.11:1 then the power losses of this brief over water rate is below 5% in my experience.

ahhhhh now from this pressure vessel it goes to a filter stage, then a solenoid (which is ok enough to be used with 50/50 water meth) and is controllable enough to be used off a PWM circuit on an ECU that has this function if you want to fine tune the delivery rate at lower rpm's etc. then to the water side of the nozzel.

The other side of the nozzel is plumbed to the same pressure source and it blows a small volume of air out two small orifices which explode the stream of water into finer droplets, which generally are fine enough to allow it to be used on the lower pressure side of a turbo inlet system (between air cleaner and compressor wheel). From my research of war time WI tests this injection location will give a maximum air flow increase of around 4%... so will make your compressor flow 4% more for the same given rotational speed, after this amount the effect gets saturated from the info I have been able to find on the topic.

In its simplest form the WI system is turned on by boost pressure, via an adjustable pressure switch, but in my case I control it off the ECU though I do not trim the delivery rate its set to 100% values so its on or off and flow is determined by boost pressure. Good thing about this is its relative to boost so the more boost you run the more water flow and its basic and seems to work ok for me. The water nozzle has a precision flow control valve so the rate can be adjusted from 100cc to 850cc/minute, according to my calcs at 20% WtoF that should cover a 2.6lt motor to 1000bhp in turbo form.

This is it in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Lizxy3XIY8 (on lap top you can see VBOX telemetry of pressure transducers mounted in the water line and air line, doing calibration)

That's roughly everything about it. Once again I cant pay enough respect to the old boys who I got this idea from back when I was doing my engineering diploma and dreaming of one day having a turbo rotary that I could make fast :) I progressed through weber jets just squirting solid streams of water :) doh! to running mixes of meth to water cause I could never get it to work with stock ignition, and then not really knowing much about the flow rates to effects or any real progress, I wanted to give up on WI as I thought it was "shit" but when I had one engine fail I decided to look into it properly found the right nozzels, pulled my finger out and tested the flow rates, upgraded the ignition system and the rest as they say is history........ I would never ever run a car without water injection, the more I research it over these years and through my own experiences the more I love the stuff. Sadly its only a topic of interest for engineering types I have foudn over the years :( its because I honestly believe you need to have some formal thermodynamics and engineering exposure or qualifications to understand all of the old reports you can find these days thanks to the internet. Most enthusiast have no hope let alone performance shops and lord help us the current age of internet only businesses and forum guru's who seem to pop up at a seemingly exponential rate these days.

I love this forum and all of the smart people on it who have contributed and know just how great WI is, it feels a bit stupid talking about this as it was all done and realized to a very high level of understanding during the war in the 1940's, but we can only hope the good word gets spread and many others can benefit from what we are lucky to know

My fingers hurt :lol:

Thank you SO much for taking the time to explain your system! By far the cleanest and highest quality custom pre-turbo setup I have ever seen.

Have you done any experiments testing out pre and post turbo setups? What I am wondering specifically...is would adding a small nozzle pre-turbo benefit a properly tuned post turbo setup?

Some may find this little update interesting:

This afternoon (ambient 28deg C at time of test) could not control myself and needed to go for a drive :) during the week I simply adjusted the plug gap, changed the spacing of the leading plugs distance from the rotor face, took 2% out of my main ECU fuel table and turned my W/M back to 3 turns setting.

Drive it and its an animal :shock: pulled the best yet and I was game enough to look at the mixture meter before hitting 7800rpm in 3rd gear (100mph or so) and it was 10.5 to 10.6:1 AFR the power on the on board logger showed 415rwhp (est 498bhp). I was expecting the AFR to go leaner as last time I tested it in that spec on the water injection setting it was about 10.9:1 AFR (but I changed the plug gap *narrower*) and took a tiny bit of fuel out of the ECU map? and it went the other way?).

It was allot of fun :cool: and I hope also to get back one input box from Race Logic (sent for repair!) then I can hook up all the proper instruments and do some more tests, relative to the first one. My intention was to reduce the fuel mixture to somewhere around 11.8:1, but it feels very great as it is now + set like this is less stress full on the engine and turbo especially when pushing high gears and speeds for extended power use............. thoughts anyone?

Oh here is a pic of the WI testing (not sure if I posted this in other pages, I'd reload to check but I have the gayest internet speed in human existence)
http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/6...waterspray.jpg

odd that it went the other way. did you change the mixture at all? i don't know if changing plug gap could affect AFR readings...never heard of that...but thinking about it a little, anything that changes the burn could possibly affect the readings? pure speculation...

either way, more power is always good. i would suspect even more if you do manage to lean it out a bit more...

Yeah :? oh well my #1 priority is durability under hard stresses rather than output in one test, its a constant battle within. You settle on one target then you get that and you always want to move on to another... I find it best if I don't drive it all the time then when you get back in it your still surprised with how well it goes (prob a good general tip for life).

In another thread on here a few years back I posted my findings when using my works engine dyno for a Formula SAE engine we were calibrating and also tests I have with a Toyota Supra on a rolling dyno and noticed zero effects on power readings from these types of mixtures all the way to the *ideal* mixture settings, the one constant there was (I found) sufficient ignition energy/capacity. This could be what I am seeing with the reduced plug gap? Obviously BSFC is wildly effected but that is the least of my concern or should I say a low priority over durability then power output.

You were right :)

I took it out again today, but with computer hooked up and did 2 full 3rd gear pulls to 100mph and 8000rpm and what I saw the other day just glancing at the mixture meter was a rich spot that showed up after 7400rpm or so to 8000rpm, in the two tests today with 3 turns on the WI and 50/50 with 2% reduced fuel map was 11.0 to 10.8:1 AFR and in the rich zone down to 10.1:1. Moral is you can't trust yourself and must data log all of this stuff.

car is consistently more powerful, showing ~280rwkw (or 370rwhp) on small up hill accent with 1.2kg/cm boost pressure.

I did my final fuel trimming to set the base tuned AFR to 11.0:1 with the W/M activated, from here on in I can simply change the target AFR number and it will automatically adjust the fueling to whatever AFR I want to experiment with.

Ambient air temperature today was 18 deg C during the test and at the end of 3rd gear the AIT was 45deg C, the second test was a long probably 20 degree incline hill and the start AIT was 30 deg C and again at the end of 3rd gear it was 45 to 46 deg C, this is measured after the throttle body and maybe a foot from the inlet port, with high speed sensor. Goes really well for low level of boost (220kpa absolute) and heavy AF mixture.

sweet!

that is a cool feature being able to auto-adjust to a target AFR. I would start leaning it out maybe just .1 at a time and see what happens.

I forgot to add the reference time for 90kph to 140kph pull in third gear was 2.84 seconds (last was 3.11 seconds) so its a fair bit quicker :) this was not in my ideal test location (had uphill gradient, makes it even more impressive.) and last test was in 10 deg C v's today closer to 20 deg C. You can see on my site how this 90-140 time compares to lots of other cars I test http://www.riceracing.com.au/vbox-ii...ing-tuning.htm

This was before I did the final trimming of the AFR curve too ;) when I get the same conditions and the other VBOX module back I will post up the full data log back to back to the first reference test. The car is a rocket :) today is the first time I have had a massive smile and laughed out loud after passing a truck and a few cars banked up in front of me. I doubt I will waste time optimizing it any further, but you never know :lol:

something tells me you will...just a hunch, lol...

cool man, i look forward to future updates.

have you played around with post-turbo injection setups as well? or just the pre-turbo stuff?

only pre turbo, Richard made me up some custom kits many years ago now and they were the ultimate, featured pre and post turbo situations for injection.... I personally did not get around to using them sadly and decided to refine my own basic set up.

All of the data I have found to date has showed pre turbo is more advantageous for a power increase comparing running with and without, where as post while reducing knock does not give the performance gains. Though I have never tested that myself personally I must mention.

The aquamist stuff is really nice, I agree. I am currently running an old SMC kit which I picked up used...it does the job well enough for now. I run a 50/50 mix post turbo and definitely picked up some solid gains...I would say around 40whp...plus quicker spool, and smoother acceleration. I do not do my own tuning, but from viewing the logs it appears to be a combination of the typical...leaner mixture, more boost, more timing. Better fuel economy too...I picked up about 30 miles or so per tank.

From what I have read, it would seem that the main advantage to injecting pre-turbo is that injecting there actually effectively changes the compressor map and improves the overall efficiency of the turbo itself, in addition to all the other commonly known benefits.

Personally, I am debating whether or not to add another nozzle pre-turbo...somehow try and get the best of both worlds.

This is a bunch of great info. Has me inspired to get a nozzle and start experimenting.

Looks like you have quite the following on other forums as well;

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/nitr...ved-today.html :lol:

This is what I like about friendly forum like this with similar thinking individuals, we can all do our little bit of testing and gain inspiration from each other (which is important if you have been doing it for many years on end!) some days cars and testing can get the better of you :roll:

My own view is that at least I probably am still learning from all of the stuff done in prior history, I am trying to be thorough with it and invested in the Race Logic VBOX3i gear so I could for myself as much as for others have something where I can know what has a positive effect or negative (in terms of car performance). Its great if more and more of us *time/wifes/life permitting* keep learning and not only help ourselves but each other in getting the most out of this stuff.

Nice posted link too, I signed up there but it would not let me post for some reason, then I though I am on so many forums I just can not justify the time to repeat myself over and over.......... though I would love to help as many people as is possible when it comes to my own experiences with water injection. It is the thing I find most interesting out of all of the engineering aspects on cars, I am still fascinated by it & that is saying something :lol:

Thanks for sharing the technology behind your clever system. I have seen quite a few systems around but with a lesser tunability than yours. You are miles ahead on controlling flow.

You are correct, the forum is for anyone who is interested in the concept of WI, at any level of understanding. I keep the commercial part on the sponsers forum. I got drawn in to this many years ago, was inspired by an engineer. As usual, the curosity got the better of me and never looked back. I was lucky that I already have a ready made workshop where electronics and mechanical parts can be develeped, just need the will.

I think you can further this system by adding an air pump so it can be injected post turbo, not that it is needed. If you seriously want to market this to the masses, This issue will be raised by your copycat competitiors.

I have first read this on a book where VW have experimented water injection with air assisted nozzle. I will try to scan it an dpost it here - if I can find it.

Keep up with the good work.

Will do and thanks Richard and everyone else for making me so welcome here.

Now, I just cant stop wanting to drive the car :smile: I have my local VBOX supplier sending me his own frequency input module until they figure out what to do with mine so I can recommence some proper testing, it may be here hopefully by the end of the week and I will put up some fancy graphs for you all to look over. This will be without EGT readings though, the very fine exposed tip thermocouples I used in both front and rear rotor have gone open circuit, they both failed within 100km of each other after around ~3500km of use. Its quite complex a task to replace these so wont be done any time soon, however they did last long enough for me to get the balance right across all manifold pressures and rpm ranges between both rotors.

We all appreciate the data and knowledge you post up.

On a side note, I have number of TC's throughout the inlet track on my car and find that some fail very quickly from what seems to be high frequency vibration. I use small exposed element units as well. 3500km seems about average for some of the problem units I have. It's hard to find something that reacts fast enough but is durable as well.

Tell me about it, on this car I have recorded on average much higher EGT temps than I am usually used to but Ironically the pipes and turbo after a run show not as much basic color "glowing" I always used shielded probes and run them much closer to the wall of the pipe, this time I decided to use exposed versions of smaller wire diameter for both elements and allot closer to the center region of gas flow, the response was unreal and for the first time I was getting real EGT readings that were comparable to other data I have on file from SAE wankel engine reports *turbocharged* even have one from an old Lotus 4 cyl turbo which showed 1000+deg C temps pre turbo on moderate power of only about 200bhp or so and T3 frame turbo.

I believe I got the true readings but as you say the longevity is just not there, I guess there is no basic solution to this... all things like moving them closer to outer wall, using thicker wire constructions and even shielding will all help but you will never know the true temperatures :? They did do their job though so am happy, I established a pattern for fuel richness to EGT and try to strike a balance between those two and not have miss fire due to inadequate ignition energy. Thing I did notice (just as in one excellent paper I have on the topic) that excessive WI on a heavy mixture even with full spark and no apparent miss fire does cost a lot of power with coolish charge temperature.

Looks like you've been through a lot with the TC's. My intake are 1/16" SS sheath, exposed junction TC's. They definitely don't like any vibration, especially from an M45 SC up near 18000rpm. In the exhaust I probably am not getting the response you are or I would like, but it has lasted. It's got a much thicker sheath but still exposed junction. Here's what's in the exhaust;

http://tscsensors.com/egtep0720001ssnexhau.html

Not sure how it compares to yours, but so far so good.

They look really nice, I will order two of them, mine is basically the same except the exposed junction extends out past the end another 5mm or so, I believe the wire has broken on both. Those probes you pictured def wont suffer that problem.

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/nitr...p-33-69tq.html

I thought this was a nice simple basic test on that forum, for 50/50 Water Methanol and 500cc nozzel, note it is not pre turbo though. It shows no power gain (on/off) on same engine set up specifications. Its a bit too much fluid in my experience for that level of power, but non the less its good to see stuff like that posted.

R35 GTR tested yesterday at EC circuit. ~242kmh on straight max speed.

Boost up, exhaust, tune, smaller wheels, minus passenger seat and a bit of weight etc (1750kg run weight)

90km/h-140km/h time's 2.83 seconds to 3.04 seconds, not allowed to tell you lap time. But does show ~325awkw on VBOX on track and runs 125+mph at EC Drags too.

^ Some may find this a bit interesting given all of the hype around the R35GTR, shows a little old Mazda Rotary can hold its own I think. My VBOX module turned up today, I will run the current specification on 17.5psi boost pressure and put up the 90-140 analysis for you to look over.

Re: RICESP Water Injected RX7
 

Getting better and better by the day. :)

Re: RICESP Water Injected RX7
 

Yes :) I am very happy with it, especially the power band of the engine mostly. These days too much emphasis is put on "hollywood" power outputs with no consideration given to the rest of the power story.

Massive rain storms here so no testing this week, but will recommence soon.

Re: RICESP Water Injected RX7
 

Well I tested it today with the VBOX3i hooked up.

My on board Blitz boost/power meter showed 278rwkw @ 6600rpm and the VBOX3i with my own formula gave 273rwkw @ 6650rpm :)

I have done up an Excel sheet summarizing the 90-140 time V's the R35 GTR

<resized>
http://www.aquamist.co.uk/forum/gall...0140test-2.gif

<original>
http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/7232/vbox90140test.jpg

In summary the power went up from 235rwkw to around 273rwkw @ peak (16.8psi v's 14.5psi), on a linearized scale (for boost difference) you can see that the Water/Meth mixture account for another 20+rwkw as I measured it. I did test at a higher location (100meters higher than normal location) and the weather was about 7 deg more than the base run. I have trimmed the fuel a bit more after this run today (you can see it went rich) I have also put the WI system back to 2.5 turns), these adjustments should bring it back to my target of around 11.5:1 or so.

Re: RICESP Water Injected RX7
 

O.k. Here are the testing graphs I promised. In summary they are the first ever setting ~230rwkw region on water. Then I changed to 50/50 and up rated the boost to 1.2kg/cm setting (can see actual logs figures across RPM ranges on various graphs) along with refinement of fuel mixture to point of last graph where its at the target range of 11.2:1 or there abouts.

The difference on road is excellent with power all the way to 8000rpm. In 2nd gear traction control needs to be turned on.... I have done a months worth of testing at this level and its very strong with no problems, system parts can tolerate the mixture too (tested 2 months now or more).

The last graph today was a bit warmer in weather, but test location was exactly the same and it shows the extra power in last few hundred rpm due to just the mixture change alone. All tests car was exactly 1320kg as tested (complete with driver) :)

I will eventually turn it up to 1.4 to 1.5kg/cm boost but am happy with the way it is now has more than enough power for track work and an good spread too. My experience with the meth mix in my own case yielded some more power for like conditions so I am glad I went down that path, improved 90-140 from 3.11 seconds to repeated 2.89~2.87 second range (probably faster as these tests were 100m higher and also in ~10deg C hotter test conditions).

1.00kg/cm boost setting WATER
http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/9...idynosheet.jpg

1.20kg/cm boost setting Water/Methanol, to rich at high revs
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/456...idynosheet.jpg

1.20kg/cm boost setting Water/Methanol, better mixture across range
http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/8...tbettermix.jpg

Spread sheet of VBOX data showing average data for both 1.20kg/cm boost tests (repeated sub 2.9 sec 90-140 tests, note higher average power in last part of rev range for correct mixture setting)

<resized>
http://www.aquamist.co.uk/forum/gall...box120kg-2.gif

<original>
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/447/vbox120kg.jpg

Re: RICESP Water Injected RX7
 

Forgot to add: (Avg-b) *for boost and power* between test lines are averages for those measures between test line obviously (separated in 10km/h) figures, and you can see the rpm at each 10kph test line. You can see the repeatability of performance for like figures and the obvious gain in average power for the last 10kph incremental (~6600rpm to ~7200rpm).
Peak power for both tests was 273rwkw and 271rwkw (first at 6600rpm and second 6800rpm, but holding near this peak level over a much broader range) and holding this to 7800rpm, rev limit is set to 8300rpm and changing point is ~8000rpm.

Hope people find this of some use.

Re: RICESP Water Injected RX7
 

Gave here a hit today and its up to 282rwkw on the on board power meter at 1.2kg boost, running 11.2:1 AFR and max power was at 7500rpm :)

Fine tuning to the AFR curve and spark timing and WI delivery all helped heaps ....... its awesome, want to try 1.4bar now ! hahaha

Re: RICESP Water Injected RX7
 

A lot of fun info for the weekend. Did get much time to enjoy those wonderful information yet. Thanks for posting.

Re: RICESP Water Injected RX7
 

Any time Richard :)

I am real happy with it as she makes solid power to near 8000rpm, I did have to modify a few spots to do with my Fuel table where interpolation was not enough between arbitrary 500rpm points, so at 6100rpm and I thing 7350rpm I had to put it specific lines to mention just 2.

All of these things add up to make a big difference in how the engine operates when trying to set it at this minimum AFR point while still giving plenty of fuel for cooling. As the motor was dropping into say high 10 AFR points it showed very obvious drop offs in power which you could feel in the drivers seat.

Once I got onto all of these such mapping points and it was hitting the target 11.2 through the whole rev range it literally transformed the way the engine worked (I think as I posted earlier? or that may have been the diff of going to 50/50? either way similar reaction was noted).

I feel now I have a good base to work from and the power for boost in street trim is right up there, the rest (more power) can either be from increased boost pressure or maybe overall trim to target AFR (might try 11.8:1 and then 12.5:1). There was a quantifiable difference in my own car to trimming up the AFR firstly on the water alone (from way back in early posts) then the W/M. There is obviously heaps to refining any one set up is the moral here I suppose. Only extensive testing and on road or dyno analysis will give you the answer maybe as to whats the best settings for any given car and its combination of parts.

Re: RICESP Water Injected RX7
 

That last sentence is the hardest thing to get across to most folks. I've seen seemingly identical cars react differently from what would appear to be different sensor readings(inputs) and ECU builds.

Everyone always asks what they will get get out of a system, and I have to say the same as you, it really depends on how much you datalog and refine it. Each car and application is somewhat unique.

Congrats on getting yours where it is. That sounds like a very fine setup.