LETS TALK: Aquamist or Coolingmist water injection?

[silkcity100]

im looking into buying a water injection kit and cant make up my mind which do you recommend and are you running one?

 

[90blacktsiawd]

Can't speak for the auqumist kit but i do run a stage 1 cooling mist kit. Overall im happy with it. It was pretty easy to install, the gains are quite nice. I can run more boost on pump gas with out knock. I have seen how much yet since it's my DD but even at the same boost level it had more power. I run a mix of 75% methanol and 25% water. And if you really want to have some fun, drop some ice in the tank .

 

[silkcity100]

i thought the max was 50% methanol, best results were 75% water

 

[90blacktsiawd]

I don't think there's any "best mix" it all depends on the car. I played around with everything from 100% water to what i'm at now to find what seemed to work best for me.

 

[WillyC]

Have you ever looked into Snow Performance's Boost Cooler. Their Stage 2 is really nice. My friend has one on his STi. He said it was easy to set up and works great. I like it because it has the linear injection unit based of its standalone MAP sensor or you can get the box that interfaces with you MAF sensor. Coolingmist makes such a controller but its $200 dollars. Add that to their Stage 1 and you're looking at $500 plus. Snow Performance's is $400. I'll post an update when I get mine and am using it...probably early August.

 

[steel_3d]

Those "variable controllers" don't really work. They only control the voltage to the pump, which regulates the flow of the pump. However, even at very low duty cycles the shurflo pump flows more than enough to feed the nozzle, the pressure behind the nozzle doesn't change, so the actual flow out of the nozzle stays the same. Some of the water injection companies have moved away from these controllers for that reason.

You also have to realize that if you lower the pressure too much, atomization will suffer.

What you need is a pulse width modulated injector, like fuel injectors, and I haven't seen anyone offer that yet.

 

[silkcity100]

so water injection is no good?

 

[steel_3d]

Sorry, that's not what I said. Water injection is great.

The usefulness of variable water injection controllers however, is questionable. A dual stage setup is a better bet. BTW this is all info I got from a water injection vendor who used to sell a variable controller and later gave up on it for these reasons.

I'm not sure if the Aquamist variable setup is any better, I just know you can't have a proper variable rate setup with the shurflo pump.

In your case I'd go with whatever you find cheap, like the single stage (constant flow) Coolingmist kit, to get your feet wet (small pun intended ).

 

[silkcity100]

tnx,not looking for anything fancy,just want a basic setup to keep everything cooler and less knock

 

[Bohrn]

Aquamist is top notch, high level race proven. But it does cost significantly more.

I personally run a Shur-flo 100 psi pump with 2 Aquamist nozzles. These nozzles atomise very well and are designed to work day in, day out for a very long time in that environment.

You could run a simple system, 1 pump, one solenoid, one pressure switch and one nozzle, with some pressure hose and some feed hose. Oh and some basic wiring. Nothing fancy. I ran that for about a year, then I tee-d into the feed line and put in 2 nozzles. Still just single stage, no controller, just set it to come on a whatever PSI you'd like.

It works well. I run a 14b on pump gas at 23 PSI with a smallish Saab front mount intercooler.

 

[bfdahl]

when I brought this question up at RRE last week they recomended staying away from any type of water injection. There reasoning was that if the car was tunned and the injection failed bye bye engine!

food for thought

 

[steel_3d]

That's true, but it won't keep most people from doing it

If you want to be really safe, there are options. I would at least hook up a low fluid light. Some of the systems now offer clogged nozzle detection. You can also hook up loss of pressure detection with some sort of pressure sensor. If you wire that into a dual stage boost controller, you're set. Some ecu's like ecu+ also have features to safen the tune when excessive knock is detected (ie lower timing and add fuel) which may help to some degree. Some ecu's offer switchable tuning maps, that you might be able to hook up to the clogged nozzle/lost pressure signal.

 

[larsrya8]

when I brought this question up at RRE last week they recomended staying away from any type of water injection. There reasoning was that if the car was tunned and the injection failed bye bye engine!

food for thought

Same thing could be said about a wastegate... or fuel filter (clogged), FPR, etc. You could say that it isn't safe because it allows you to run enough boost on pump gas that you could throw a rod out on a stock motor.

If you have a way to monitor knock, then you can just let off if it starts knocking really bad.

That's some very narrow-minded thinking by RRE...

 

[Bohrn]

its true, its a risk.

however, if you maintain it, and keep your head in the game, you will be fine.

I for one, can't afford to tune for c-16. Up here its $85 for a 5 gal drum, plus 2 taxes. A gal of blue washer fluid is $1.89 and will provide enough to go thru about half a tank of pump gas if pushed hard. If driven nicely, it will last for a full tank.

Plus, even if you ignore the low fluid warning LED, and can't hear the pump making noise, if you are still on a "stock" ECU, it will pull the hell out of your timing, saving the day. If you are tuned for 0-3 counts of knock at WOT up hill, even if you turn off your H2O, it won't kill it unless you stay on it hard despite all the warnings.

 

[WillyC]

Thats a good point....someone mentioned the ECU+ had the feature of pulling timing and I was thinking...hmmm kinda like the stock ECU does. So you guys are saying the variable controller is not worth it huh? You might be right. I was thinking of saving for the Snow Performance kit, but I may just go for a cheap Coolingmist single stage. Now that I just got done pimping the car around town a little I don't really know how much I need dual stage anyway. My mods aren't updated, but I'm running a BB 60-1 T3 with Crower Stage 4's. I'm not hitting my ~ 20psi or so I run daily until 4500 or so. Below that I'm not knocking anyway and can run pretty aggressive AFR's. Basically what I'm saying is my lag makes it so that the power hits all at once anyway and could probably be just fine with a single stage. Good topic, good points everyone.

 

[Joesmoke]

I use the alkycontrol progressive controller. (www.alkycontrol.com)

Love it! Moved up from a DIY system and would never look back. Yes it controls voltage to the pump, but, it works very well.

My car relies on the injection. If it fails, and I dont back off fairly quick, Im hooped. The price Im willing to pay.

 

[mirkoelek]

Check enginerunup.com, All these W/i kits are almost the same.... Guy at enginerunup is great in cust support. I thaught i could throw this in, I was pleased.
I didnt do much tuning with W/I yet, but seems it does its job....I'm dealing with 105deg+ outside temp here in arizona

Anyway is there anyone here from arizona and runing W/I kit succesfully?

 

[Defiant]

http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/DSM_water_injection/

ANY water, so long as it's not enough to approach hydrolock, is excellent for an engine. It doesn't need to be fancy, it doesn't need to be indexed off the boost levels. A huge and often-overlooked benefit is that it keeps the combustion chambers sparkling clean from the steam-cleaning effect, and that can be done just by letting the motor draw in its own while running under vacuum.

And there's many threads about it already.

 

[Tom N]

I use the alkycontrol progressive controller. (www.alkycontrol.com)

Love it! Moved up from a DIY system and would never look back. Yes it controls voltage to the pump, but, it works very well.

My car relies on the injection. If it fails, and I dont back off fairly quick, Im hooped. The price Im willing to pay.

I also run this system.
Julio is the man when it comes to alcohol injection.
Not to mention he is super helpful on the phone.

 

[T9S1i]

What you need is a pulse width modulated injector, like fuel injectors, and I haven't seen anyone offer that yet.

/\/\/\/\/\Aquamist HSV (high speed valve) in a nutshell...
You also need the FIA2 with it to tap into your injector harness to get the timing of the HSV right, but it seems to be the best, and most expensive, way of accurately spraying the right amount of h20/alcohol at a certain rpm and certain airflow. Aquamist got the "progressive controller" thing right with the HSV/fia2 combo, even though its not a progressive controller.

Do a search for aquamist hsv and you will find everything you need to know about it.

I myself run the aquastealth kit, 100% methanol. (havent played with anything else yet)

 

[Jaraxle]

I bought a shurflo pump from the web, and parts from coolingmist. Knock is completely gone, and I'm increasing timing to 19deg for another dyno tune. I will then have before and after dyno pulls for the addition of cold-air, 12->19deg timing, and water injection. I mounted the pump to a custom plate where the stock SMIC was. It pulls water from the rear tank through a 3/8 fuel hose. Trigger is 15psi, which works great, no hesitation. When it was set to ~10psi, it caused sputtering. I'm running distilled water: to fight knock only. No methanol. The idea of unmetered fuel freaks me out. My 660 greddy injectors can do that job. I only want to quench knock.

-Jaraxle

 

[90blacktsiawd]

I bought a shurflo pump from the web, and parts from coolingmist. Knock is completely gone, and I'm increasing timing to 19deg for another dyno tune. I will then have before and after dyno pulls for the addition of cold-air, 12->19deg timing, and water injection. I mounted the pump to a custom plate where the stock SMIC was. It pulls water from the rear tank through a 3/8 fuel hose. Trigger is 15psi, which works great, no hesitation. When it was set to ~10psi, it caused sputtering. I'm running distilled water: to fight knock only. No methanol. The idea of unmetered fuel freaks me out. My 660 greddy injectors can do that job. I only want to quench knock.

-Jaraxle

If you took the time to figure out how much gets injected you could probably get a good idea how much octane your running. And how would it be unmetered? You have something to log with. So you'll be able to get it in check.

 

[GILZTSIAWD]

I got my snow performance kit in today. I will be testing it at the track tomorrow night and report back with results.

 

[Tom N]

I can say this.
With the www.alkycontrol.com kit I run 30psi of boost on a gt35 with pump gas and meth injection.
I see no knock and intake temps in the 80degrees range at the top of 4th.
The stuff just works.

 

[Bohrn]

yea but Joesmoke, you are using methanol as fuel, straight up, you run 450cc injectors

If you have enough fuel, its just to clean combustion chambers and control detonation.