a turbo without an intercooler?

[91-gsx]

hey guys just bored and had a thought. more and more people have started to run a water or alcohol injection system in our forums and it has become pretty famous for dropping inlet temps and raising octane. the idea i had was very simple, but it takes some info. now if i was to run the 14b without an intercooler, what do you guys think is the most you could run in psi? the idea i had was to eliminate the stock or aftermarket intercooler for a 3-4 nozzle water or alcohol injection kit. you basically put the bov right at the outlet of the turbo and the mas in draw in position(on the intake) and recirculate. but all you run after the bov is a 2.5" tube from your turbo to your throttle body. now you have the nozzles placed about 6-8" apart on the tube so that you can get the air to cool down a lot. now all you would need to know is how much boost you can run without the intercooler, then you can have these turn on at that point. this way you have a setup close tot he air to water intercoolers, but without the restriction and added lag of an intercooler, thus running an even bigger turbo with less lag, or a small one with almost no lag. this is just an idea, please be open minded because i have a fmic, and i love it, but if somebody did not experiment, then we would not have had that today.
later

 

[sweet97]

Probably 6 lbs. of boost. There is a limit as to how much water/alky you can add before it becomes detrimental. Lag is not that much of an issue with a stutterbox or some juice. Add the alky injection to your existing FMIC for the gains you are looking for. I have read a lot of good about the alky injection. Do a search. Good stuff. mark

 

[91-gsx]

i understand that lag is not an issue when you launch. but it is a very big issue when it comes to drivability for some of us. another upside to this would be the amount of work the turbo has to do, you always lose some psi due to the intercooler. also the response of the turbo changes greatly when you switch gears, you will have a lot better of response. check out the new shep racing video and compare it to his old ones. he is running 7's now, and he does not have an intercooler, and the video of when he has an in car shot, you can tell the turbo does not take as long as it use to when it comes to kicking back in. you could also save more weight from the intercooler and the tubing. better response. and it has been said before that if you were to inject alcohol or water before the intercooler, that it would greatly reduce the efficiency of the intercooler and makes it useless. i do not know how to explain this but it is known by all of us that the intercooler is very air restricting and that is designed to be that way so that you can get more surface area on the intercooler and reduce the temps even more, so eliminating it should raise power. if you notice that most people that have a water to air intercooler, though there are few of them, all usually have pretty good 1/4 mile times. i am just saying that it would make it easier for a lot more people to run way bigger turbos, daily.
continue the conversation, this might get very interesting.

 

[eclipsh]

If you're after eliminating lag you might consider using a supercharger/turbo combo like they are starting to do on Mini Coopers. I just saw an ad for this setup in a tuner magazine. It would definately help with lag.

I'm still waiting for an electronic assist turbo to show up on the market. Boost as soon as you hit the throttle That'd sure get rid of lag.

If you were using alcohol I think you'd run into serious tuning issues very quickly.

How about that CryO2 intake insert that is on the market? If you ran two of those in sequence instead of an IC you might be able to swing it. You'd just need to carry a lot of CO2 in your ride (weight issues).

Or you could do it by running A/C lines through the intake and have a switch so the lines don't always run inside the car. I don't know if you'd get back the H/P loss from running the A/C though.

 

[91-gsx]

i do not know if you read the thread on a evo forum, think that is were it was. but anyway, the guy had an evo with a supercharger and turbo. the supercharge would kick off as soon as the turbo kicked in. it was a really big turbo, he said it built 10 psi at 7500 rpms... the car was supposed to push i think close to 900hp, he used 2 intercoolers, the ac as an intercooler to. and all of this weighs a lot. i understand what you said about the alcohol being a tuning issue due to the fact you have it kick in too soon, but you can have smaller nozzles with their own boost switch that would, lets say kick in at 5psi, and the other big ones would help out at 10psi. that way you do not drown the engine. very interesting topic, and it would be very worth it if you had the right tuning.

 

[xcz504d]

Depending on the car, a turbo can actually produce more low end and consistant torque than a supercharger. Good example is my 2001 Corvette, a supercharger, even a roots supercharger like magnuson makes (roots superchargers give more low end torque than a centrifugal) produces less low end torque than a twin turbo setup would.

Granted a V-8 is pushing out alot more exhaust gases to spool it, but only 4 cylinders push each turbo. Mustang owners have also discovered this and use twin turbo setups to produce more usable power.

I'm curious about a comparison with the DSM's... Anyone ever supercharged a 4G63 and dynoed it?

 

[Old Mitsu Tech]

Actually Mitsubishi did use belt driven supercharger. It was on their Cyclone v-6 engines. I have the picture saved if anyone wants to see it.

Good Luck

 

[91-gsx]

i am all for this setup because i love trying and doing new things that not many have thought of, that is why this is of much interest to me. but there are downsides to all ideas, and here is one for this idea. the amount of alcohol used would be really high. it would be of great benefit to inject alcohol in large amounts on lets say an intercooled setup, but if i were to run this setup it would definitely have to be just water. water in this sort of setup would work really well because of the large amount of heat exchange that would be required. i would imagine that the water would almost instantly turn into steam once it hits the really hot air. just had a quick question, water injection was discovered for WWII planes that were both supercharged and turbocharged, or just turbocharged, but the question is they did not use any intercoolers did they? and if they did or they did not, i bet they ran really high amounts of boost to get the thousands of horsepower that they push. what i would do is have 4 injectors, one right after the BOV and one in the middle of the pipe, they would turn on at 5psi and keep running until 10-12psi, and then the bigger injectors would kick in. i think this would allow you to run more boost then before because the air is not as hot due to the boost lost from the intercooler, and if you spread the injectors throughout the pipe, it makes for better cooling and the pipe would never heat soak either. i have heard of the variable controllers, but i heard that they could cause puddling if the pressure is not high enough for a fine mist. and the way these progressive controllers work is by running less voltage to the pump when under low boost, and the voltage goes up slowly as boost does. and if you use a filter you can use as much water as you need because the filter can purify the tap water. i heard that is what some people use is tap water.
what do you guys think about this setup that i just described? ups or downs to it?

 

[napkinthief]

well if you have a chance to try this setup out keep us posted, i see what you are trying to say, but i dont have time, money, or a turbo to try it would definetly be new.

and since we are going all out with ideas, what about having fins on the actual piping? dunno if it would help

 

[eclipsh]

Depending on the car, a turbo can actually produce more low end and consistant torque than a supercharger. Good example is my 2001 Corvette, a supercharger, even a roots supercharger like magnuson makes (roots superchargers give more low end torque than a centrifugal) produces less low end torque than a twin turbo setup would.

Granted a V-8 is pushing out alot more exhaust gases to spool it, but only 4 cylinders push each turbo. Mustang owners have also discovered this and use twin turbo setups to produce more usable power.

I'm curious about a comparison with the DSM's... Anyone ever supercharged a 4G63 and dynoed it?

What I'm thinking would be more effective with this setup is a small supercharger set up before the turbo in the intake setup. Something that would make small boost (5 psi) at very low RPMs (1500,) long before any decent sized turbo will spool up. Theoretically it would actually make a big turbo spool at lower RPMs due to the increased airflow from the charger.

Edit: The only problem I see is you would need to run a small I/C for the charger so the air wasn't so hot when it hit the turbo compressor that your overall air map would suffer.

ReEdit: I'm picturing a very messy line of pipes to do this. Maybe an output line from the charger to a very small SMIC, back to the turbo inlet, out to a FMIC and back to the T/B. It would probably be a huge mess actually... You'd definately want to run a GMMAF so it read the airflow at the right time...

ReReEdit: Oh, and no, I didn't read the EVO forums post.

 

[xcz504d]

I don't know that water/alky injection would drop the temp far enough to get a decent effect. Hahn Race Craft makes a non-intercooled versio for the 420a engine, it's been years since I looked at their site, but Im sure that they dont recommend more than 6 psi of boost.

Air coming off the turbo can easily hit 200 degrees farenhiet, I dont know that water/alky could drop the temp like a small intercooler could...

 

[95GSXBLUR]

just had a quick question, water injection was discovered for WWII planes that were both supercharged and turbocharged, or just turbocharged, but the question is they did not use any intercoolers did they? and if they did or they did not, i bet they ran really high amounts of boost to get the thousands of horsepower that they push.

what you have to remember is that these planes were @ multiple hundreds of miles an hour (400ish) to keep things cool. they did use water and nitrous injection for added power and stability. they made roughly 1000-1500 hp but these were on multi cylinder radial motors.. it's a little easier to boost semi-high and keep it cool w/o intercoolers at higher levels altitude (much colder) and moving much quicker (relative temp reached sooner). Make sense?

 

[i1nk83]

actually most of the WWII planes that used water/alky injection were fighters and they were predominantly inline 12's. i believe the germans were also the first to use n20 in their me109's.

 

[94Jettameowpsst]

You could just switch to methanol.....then run as much boost as you want

 

[thegreatms]

me109 used the Daimler-Benz_DB_605.
Inverted V12; it was one of the first to use fuel injection, im pretty sure it didn't use n2o.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimler-Benz_DB_605

i think most WW2 fighters used V12 configuration, the me109, p51 mustang, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_engine

 

[dsm-onster]

I don't know that water/alky injection would drop the temp far enough to get a decent effect. Hahn Race Craft makes a non-intercooled versio for the 420a engine, it's been years since I looked at their site, but Im sure that they dont recommend more than 6 psi of boost.

Air coming off the turbo can easily hit 200 degrees farenhiet, I dont know that water/alky could drop the temp like a small intercooler could...

OH no!. I am really not flaming you because you sound unsure. But atomized water suspended in the intake manifold has many times the cooling effect of an intercooler. This is due in part to the large collective surface area of the particles (much larger than the area of fins you can fit in an intercooler) AND the ability of water to suck the heat energy out of the air because of its property of specific heat. But the greatest effect is when it enters the combustion chamber where it actually vaporizes completely, taking heat right out of the chamber (the heat enerjy is used up converting the water micro-dropletts to vapor). This in turn indirectly raised your octane level in the combustion chamber. It's like running 101 all the time with premium gas prices.

If you were to go with a "straight pipe" and just WI. I would activate the system early in the onset of boost and have it modulated by boost or mass air flow. It takes time (relatively) for the thermal processes to become effective. I know from personal experience that with my setup (smallish fmic + WI) after a hard 25psi run on a 90* day, my ENTIRE intake manifold is COLD to the touch (not just cool to the touch).

Go here for great WI info and even official government experimentation with water injection for their forced induced aircraft for world war two. Water injection: good enough for government work .

EDITED: for my spelling and typing issues

 

[95GSXBLUR]

oops.. my bad about the radial.. they were inline or V... durrrr... brain fart.

 

[kicker91laser]

I was going to try this a while back on my 89 Colt gt, which didn't come with an intercooler from the factory, and has a tiny 11b turbo, which is even smaller than a 13g It just has a pipe that comes off of the outlet, and right up into the throttle body elbow, with the bov in between. I believe that the idea would work great, but the only drawback is that you must rely on the water/alcy injection, or you will cause too much heat and detonation. Oh, and the Colt runs 12 psi of boost, and I have logged it with zero counts of knock, without an intercooler and no w/i. Maybe I should put a w/i kit together just to see how it would run on windshield washer fluid, after I swap the 14b, 90 ecu, and 450's.

 

[xcz504d]

I knew taht it dropped the temp, but I didn't think it would drop it to that effect, but wouldn't, 200 degree air just produce steam as the water hit it, causing the water to rapidly expand and spike your boost pressure?

 

[polarmoment]

I don't know that water/alky injection would drop the temp far enough to get a decent effect.

http://www.key-ideas.com/2ndWaterInjection.htm

this guy ran 19psi on his merkur and recorded better temp drops (150*F on average) on WI alone than with his AWIC alone- and this is with an $80 homemade kit. works out to somewhere around 65-70% intercooling efficiency.

as was said before though too, WI works where an IC can't: INSIDE the combustion chamber.

plenty of cars came from the factory without intercoolers. turbo tbirds, older saabs and volvos, TGP's, TGA/sunbirds.

champ cars don't use intercoolers, they use methanol injection (and methanol fuel, of course). there's an injector at the outlet of the turbo.

i see no reason why you shouldn't be able to run 15+psi on just WI. the T3-60 that ed key was running is far less efficient than a 14b at those PR's, so your inlet temps will likely be even lower than his. i'm going to disagree with the naysayers and say go for it.

 

[dsm-onster]

I knew taht it dropped the temp, but I didn't think it would drop it to that effect, but wouldn't, 200 degree air just produce steam as the water hit it, causing the water to rapidly expand and spike your boost pressure?

As the air heats up the water, the heat energy leaves the air. Same amount of heat energy with more particles to heat equals cooler temperatures. It takes ALOT of air at 212 degrees farenheit to heat water to steam. If this happens, get a larger water injector. But nevertheless, it doesn't mater as much if the air doesn't cool because once the water reaches the combustion chamber the heat energy there is absorbed by the water and indirectly raising the octane of the gas. The cooling of the combustion chamber and the steam that remains actually controls the flame front and keeps it from expanding too rapidly which is detonation.

 

[91-gsx]

i see this idea is catching on quickly. well i think i could possibly run 12psi or so on the 14b without and intercooler, maybe... what do you guys think would work better for this setup, alcohol or water. water would be much cheaper for me and i can always get that, but alcohol can be injected at 3 times the amount of water. so this brings me to my next question, if you injected 500cc of water or 1500cc of alcohol, which one would have a better cooling affect? i already know which one adds more octane, the alcohol, but at 3 times the amount i would imagine that it would surpass the water in its cooling affect. would appreciate any help using exact numbers to determine which is better. i know cc for cc the water absorbs more heat, but if you triple the amount of alcohol, I'm pretty sure you can raise the octane way more and if this trial falls through, i can still use the kit.... but i am very willing to try this.
later

 

[dsm-onster]

if you injected 500cc of water or 1500cc of alcohol, which one would have a better cooling affect? i already know which one adds more octane, the alcohol, but at 3 times the amount i would imagine that it would surpass the water in its cooling affect. would appreciate any help using exact numbers to determine which is better. i know cc for cc the water absorbs more heat, but if you triple the amount of alcohol, I'm pretty sure you can raise the octane way more and if this trial falls through, i can still use the kit.... but i am very willing to try this.
later

As for numbers. I think water absorbs about twice the heat. Injecting just alcohol will increase your fill-up times. and it is not as free as water . Everyone says a 50-50 mix works best. It also is a neccesity in the winter. I use 50% water 50% rubbing alcohol (which is 30% water). I have never had a frozen line in the winter. I tested with both straight water and the 50-50 mix and i got no knock either way at 20+ psi on stock fuel components, stock sidemount, and a small 16G.

 

[kicker91laser]

The cheapest would be the cheap blue windshield washer fluid, which is 50/50 water and methanol. If you get the winter formula, it contains more meth

 

[91-gsx]

As for numbers. I think water absorbs about twice the heat. Injecting just alcohol will increase your fill-up times. and it is not as free as water . Everyone says a 50-50 mix works best. It also is a neccesity in the winter. I use 50% water 50% rubbing alcohol (which is 30% water). I have never had a frozen line in the winter. I tested with both straight water and the 50-50 mix and i got no knock either way at 20+ psi on stock fuel components, stock sidemount, and a small 16G.

see that makes me want to do it even more, i do not know about you guys but how worth while is a stock sidemount anyway, i do not think it would do anything at all when you inject water. ya i am definitely going to do water mostly. i talked to coolingmist people today and asked if it would be a good idea to run water injection instead of an intercooler. he immediately said yes, but the nice thing about an intercooler is that it is a back up device if you run out of water or something, as opposed to just water injection without an intercooler because if you run out of water while boosting high your screwed. he also told me if i am running rich to compensate for the heat of the 14b, then it would be better to run just water because you can lean the curve out more and increase boost. the other thing i was wondering is were i would put the maft. i like it in blow thru because you get a more accurate air count right before it goes into the throttlebody, but if i were to run it in the pipe ( cant say upper pipe because there would only be one) it might heat the maf too much as the air has not been cooled yet. do you think the maf can handle really high heat? another thing is the maf takes up room were the injector can be placed right after the turbo, i would have to relocate the injectors higher in the piping. the easiest way would be to run the maft in the draw through position, dont you think?
anyway get back to me you guys on these questions, this is getting really interesting and if it goes well, this could mean you could run a bigger turbo with a lot faster spool, and more useable powerband. how much faster do you guys think this would make spool up, i know making the piping shorter on my 14b with the frontmount made the turbo spool much faster.
talk to you guys later