There's no technical reason not to do it. It is effective at cooling the intake charge and doesn't impact O2 sensors or emissions. It even keeps the combustion chamber clean of carbon deposits, which can be a precursor to detonation. But a good injection kit only costs a few bills, so maybe the perceived benefit isn't there . . .

 

Hey Grumpy, been following your posts. I know folks who are running windshield wiper fluid though their methly set up but that seems odd.

I would assume there is other stuff in there that should not be going through the engine? Detergents?

<Windshield wiper solution contains methanol (37%-100%), detergent, and water. Due to its hazardous nature, windshield wiper solution is required to have a child-proof safety cap. Most windshield washer fluids contain between 30 percent and 60 percent methanol.

 

Victor plans on doing water injection ...he is finishing up the 80mm TB project first however.

 

I wouldn't do meth injection for all the tea in China. I have several friends who have used it to no avail and a few have poped thier engines. Look at all the Evo gus blowing thier engines.

 

I don't understand why Methanol would be the root cause for an engine failure. Perhaps the Evo guys are running 25-40 psi and using methanol to help mitigate running lean w/ high EGTs but they are pushing their luck too far?

<<12. Will water/methanol harm my engine?

In theory, at recommended quantities, most of the mixture is evaporated before it hits the combustion chamber. Also, injection only takes place at high boost levels minimizing cylinder wash concerns. Engines that have been torn down after two years of water/methanol usage have shown no wear issues only clean combustion chambers. In fact, water/methanol reduces the probability of engine destroying detonation. Think of it as an insurance policy against detonation.

http://www.snowperformance.net/faq.asp

 

Right now the car is set up to introduce the mix at 4psi to 14-15psi (Hennessy pully). Grumpy -- would you move that up to say 6-7psi based on this below from Snowperformance.net?

Thanks

<<9. At what boost level do I introduce Water/Methanol?

Centrifugal superchargers/large turbos: Generally, at 50% of peak boost the recommended quantity should be introduced. Positive displacement superchargers/ fast spooling turbos: injection should occur at or near peak boost to avoid combustion quench since peak boost occurs so fast.

 

Because almost all of the systems out are pieces of crap and they break at the worst times.

 

And some contain glycol, but the quantities of these additives (a few percent of the total) are not high enough to cause a concern.


Like the article says, boost builds quickly in a positive displacement supercharger. I doubt if there would much of a difference in activation time between 4 & 6 psi. Do what makes you feel comfortable.


These types of careless, uninformed comments add no value to this thread. All they tend to do is confuse those who are trying to learn and make an intelligent decision.

 

Got a few updates...I saw the dyno chart but it is kinda useless with no A/F curve so I am doing one tomorrow with the A/F, and IAT readings and putting it in dyno mode as well as running the ecu "tune up" trick.

Dyno 436.07/522 HP/T at wheels...not the 414 i mentioned above but still something is wrong. (Pull was 3rd gear from ~52mph to ~124mph)

Does a Winpep7 dynoject automatically provide the atmospheric corrected HP/T? Inital run had a STD: 1.03 with 98F, 29.9 bar, 16% humidity.

49% methly/51% water was used -- NOT the 20-80 mix I mentioned...Again I was working on some pretty imperfect data passed on to me.

With methly--

HP/T at wheels 474.13/549.25 with STD: 1.02 -- 91F. 29.9 bar, 19% humidity.

The methly install is super trick hiden in the interior panels in the back trunk...you have to take a screw out to see it and I can fill it easily. To arm the system I have a button next to my cutout electronic opener where my ash tray was. When the bottle is empty a green light goes on.

The methly tap point is right before the throttle body.

So the HP pick up at the wheels looks like 40 but something seems very wrong with my current HP. I have gone from 401 stock to 394 with a hose leak (K2) to 484 (k2) to now 436 (k2). Only thing I can think is that I have another leak that I can't find, the pump is broken or something else. Hopefully the issue is resolved with a 4th gear pull instead of 3rd and in dyno mode.

Any other ideas? I was hoping to see like 510hp at the wheels from my 484 old base. I am perplexed.

If anyone has any uestions about the install/pricing please call Wes at the # listed on www.fcct.net.

 

E55 Baller: Let me clarify the function of methanol/water injection.

It is not used to add power.

It is used to allow sustained combustion beyong anti-knock ability of fuel used. In simple words it is an octane booster.

If your current setup in not causing unstable combustion, i.e. detonation, than adding water injection will only cause loss of power. Which is exactly what happened to you.

I have played with meth/water injections many times. The only way it makes power is when more boost is added to the car.

Lets look beyong marketing hype.

To make power we need 3 things - air, fuel and spark.

In simple terms - fill the cylinder with air, add fuel, light it up at the right time and bang we got combustion that drives down the piston.

To make combustion more efficient and increase power, we need more air. Add more fuel to keep A/F ratio around 11-12, find optimum time when to light it up, make sure you have enough energy for that spark to happen and off we go.

Now, this is an overly simplified picture, but I think you are still with me.

Now lets see what happens when we add meth/water mix. Since it is not really combustible what it does is simply takes part of combustion chamber volume.

Now the mixture goes rich, since we have less air now and we loose power.

On turbo engine we can overcome this by simply adding more boost and thus more air. Now playing with fuel and timing we can take advantage of being able to control higher cylinder pressures. After spending a considerable amount of time and effort we are now able to run more boost with low grade gas and make more power.


Is it worth it?

It depends who you ask. For a drag car, that is constantly monitored after every run and allows one to get away from properly building the engine and still run crazy boost - the answer is - Yes.

On the street car, something will eventually fail in water injection circuit and now you have lost your ability to control detonation. Next time you get into it, boom - there go piston rings. For most people simply using race fuel is an easier solution.

On M112/M113 kompressor engines, 55s and 32s, twin spark plugs do a very admirable job of lighting up fuel, even under very high pressures.

I have run 23.5 psi on my C32 with 91 octane, car was putting down mid 380s at the wheels. Going to 104 octane enabled more advance and thus produced low 420s. Trying to use water injection as octane booster we were only able to get into low 400s, no matter how hard we played with fuel and timing. In other words simply going with proper octane fuel was a better solution.

In the end I went back to smaller crank pulley. Kompressor clutch could not handle crazy RPMs it took to be at that boost level.

 

If you can, please add timing to the data log.


It looks like it does - here's a blurb from DynoJet's site:
If you're sure the IC pump is working, check to see if the IC system has air in it. Vrus drained and refilled his and found lost power.

 

I think you have misread his posts. His power loss occurred prior to the water/methanol injection. The injection actually increased power, which would be indicative of elevated IAT.


These comments are overly fatalistic and somewhat outdated. The current crop of injection kits have available safety features, such as check valves and flow sensors that will set triggers that can be used to vent boost through solenoids or wastegates. Even if you cheap out and don't install the safety aids, the current generation of ECUs will protect the engine from detonation (as you well know). Even my 6-year old GMC truck will kick into a low-power mode if I abuse the boost too much when running 87-octane gas.


This sounds about right. Normal water/methanol injection percentages will will give upper 90s equivalent octane rating, so there will be a small compromise compared to 104 octane fuel. But in a street application, the expense of high-octane fuel far outweighs its benefit for an occasional WOT blast. Having a safe, low-cost, high-90s-octane alternative is a much better solution for occasional use.

 

I successfully ran an Aquamist pro unit on my M3 turbo (quick spool) for a while. It helped with the crappy 91 octane here in CA. The car was boosted to 15psi on stock compression 10.5 to 1. We tried all kinds of programs for the 91 octane but the computer would still pull back the timing and still detonate. The water/meth injection definitely helped but was a pain in the **** to keep filled all of the time. I used my washer fluid tank as the reservoir and would blow through the fluid in a weekend. I eventually removed the Aquamist and went with a larger intercooler with electric fans and ran a 50/50 mix of 100/91 octane. This worked better and was less of a hassle. The overall performance on the dyno was much better than the water/meth by 15hp with a very smooth dyno graph. I'm with Vadim on this one. It is probably better to run a higher octane than to monkey with these types of systems. One positive was when we pulled the head after running the Aquamist the pistons were very clean, nothing like a little steam cleaning. Have you tried running a higher octane to compare the results from the water/meth mix?

 

Based on your post, I would have to conclude that the bottom of your gas pedal doesn't collect much dust . . .

If you had tried the water injection with the bigger IC, I think you would have experienced the same result as the gas mix, since the resultant octane would have been about the same. With the high price of 100 octane fuel, I would certainly try to find a way around the small washer fluid tank problem - like a larger tank mounted in the trunk.

You're right about the steam cleaning - it would be worthwhile to install a system and just activate once per week for the cleaning benefit.

 

Grumpy,

Your right! The bottom of that pedal never saw much daylight and the cost of high octane really lightened my wallet. Wait a minute, let's see less weight= better power to weight ratio. I guess the 100 octane has an added benefit!

 

Vadim,

I follow you but I am down 50hp for some odd reason BEFORE the methly/water. Methly/Water got me back within 10hp at the wheels. Grumpy, I will ask to include the timing read in the dyno today.

 

Isaac,

I suspect that you've got a leak or a fault in your intercooler pump circuit again. I drained and refilled my system and so far no more supercharger shutoffs..

These systems are very sensitive and quite frankly a pain in the a$$. Do the drain and refill and see if that helps.

Also, if you want to be thorough, inspect the air tubes and air boxes. Make sure there arent any obstructions blocking airflow.

Good luck.

 

Ohh.. BTW..

If you are going to do a water/meth injection system, you need to use a system that regulates the injected mixture based on RPM. Systems that cant do that are worthless and should not even be considered. In other words, the car will run like crap if it injects the same volume of water/meth at 2,000RPM as it does at 6,000RPM.

 

Lets see, last system I played with - was top of the line Auaqamist Race on E36M3 AA turbo and that was less than six months ago. It had $1100 retail in addition to 8 hours of labor to properly install it, in addition to 6 hours on the dyno, in addition to 3 hours on the street to get it to make any difference.

11 RWHP for almost $3000. Hardly worth the effort. Think of all how many gallons of race gas you can by and how many years it will take you to burn it.

One months into it's life, ECU went dead. New replacement just arrived from Britain last month.

Yes, it can work, but only for some one who is willing to be under his hood at least weekly, if not daily. A customer who can afford to spend this kind of money is not that guy.

In the end Water Injection is a band aid for improper tune, improperly built engine and not enough octane. It can work and has worked at the drags, however on the street it just adds another level of complication to allready complex engine control systems.

I agree with Victor, make sure IAT is OK. At the end of the run you should be at the most 50F-60F above ambient.

 

Alright, I think I found an issue with the freaking dyno plot. This dyno has been operating by printing out actual HP given atmospheric conditions instead of CORRECTED STANDARDIZED figures. Arggggg.

I have no idea why ANYONE would want to see HP/TQ measured this way since you need to analyze incremental changes and eliminate the confounding issues of the weather.

On the strip its nice to know your power but DA meters exist for this.

So what does this mean???

1. My 484/559 RWHP/RWTQ needs to be adjusted downward to 470/542 -- this is dead on with what Victor saw -- we have for the most part the same mods.

2. My new baseline K2 dyno needs to be adjusted up from 436/522 to 449/538

= I am down down an adjusted 21 rwhp and 4 rwtq. Perhaps this is fully attributable to the 3rd vs. 4th gear pull and/or no dyno mode run on #2, or level of heat soak?

3. My methyl run needs to be corrected up from 474/549 to 484/560.

= assuming everthing is adjusted properly I **potentially** gained 10 rwhp and 11 rwtq

funny thing is my HP/TQ in my signature doesn't need to change.

Should have another dyno run today, tomorrow at the latest.

Victor -- I will check on the rpm based loading to make sure it has that capability, I hope it does.

 

If you search the web and peruse the various car forums, you will find literally hundreds of positive experiences for every negative one. I don't think your inability to get water injection to work on this Bimmer is justification for declaring it unworthy.


This is simply not true, unless you're referring to engines with too much timing, too much boost, or are prone to detonation. In which case, the same can be said for race fuel, since it reacts the same as water injection in these engines. And it is a much more expensive band-aid.

As you stated in your original post, water/methanol injection is a tool for extending the performance of an engine by allowing higher cylinder pressures - just like race fuel. But unlike race fuel, it also lowers IAT, which is always a good thing.

 

Some water injection kit manufacturers offer MAF-based systems to meter the injection mixture based on actual air flow. This could potentially be more accurate (from an A/F ratio perspective) than an RPM-based system. Here's one from Snow:

http://www.snowperformance.net/prodd...p?prod=auto022

 

Could you please post the relavent dyno plots when you get a chance. Thanks.

 

I am familiar with the different systems available, but, since our cars dont have a MAF, that's why I said what I did.. The only thing we can do on the E55 is use boost reference for onset of injection and use a RPM reference for volume of injection.

The kit that I had put together is a 3D system.. It uses injector pulse and RPM to determine the correct volume of the injected mixture.. It is probably the most accurate you can get.

 

You are still missing my point.

Yes, water injection works, but for a 55 customer water injection requires maintenance and knowledge that most of them do not have.