Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 18:32:02 GMT From: "James Sweet" <jamessweetnospamail.com> Subject: Re: Aquamist/water injection systems
> > His conclusions were : > i) There is a lot of utter drivel spoken and written on this subject. Entirely believable, there's a lot of utter drivel spoken by "experts" of many different subjects. > ii) The belief that water will increase power is unjustified under most > conditions. The water injection itself won't increase horsepower, at least not significantly, the idea is that it allows you to increase the boost pressure without detonation occurring, severe detonation can damage the engine faster than you know what's happening. > iii) Benefit might occur in regions where only low octane fuel is available, > in exceptionally high ambient temperatures, or if maximum boost pressure has > been raised from the manufacturer's original setting. I think most people who would bother with water injection have already substantially increased the boost pressure past the manufacture's setting, factory boost is usually rather conservative and increasing it is one of the first things most people do to up the power. > iv) Improved intercooling offers similar benefits under the same > circumstances. Improved intercooling is definitly a good idea, but there's only so much you can do, both a better intercooler and water injection combined will allow even higher boost, of course past a point the turbocharger itself needs to be upgraded because past a certain point you're well outside it's peak efficiency envelope. > v) If the engine does not suffer from pre-ignition (pinking / knock) then > you do not need to bother with water injection. No, but with enough boost the engine *will* suffer pre-ignition, at which point it may be too late. > > On the subject corrosion, it seems most unlikely that water injection will > have a deleterious effect on the turbo or anything else. Reason - the main > products of fuel combustion are carbon dioxide and ........... wait for it > .............. H2O. Lots and lots of water vapour passes through your turbo > every time you use the car whether or not you have water injection or not! But you're forgetting that the intake and exhaust sides of the turbo are different, the exhaust side is made to withstand very high temperature and the nasty byproducts of combustion, the intake/compressor side is lighter weight and shaped quite a bit differently, designed only for compressing clean air. I've seen setups that placed the turbo between the carburetor and the intake manifold and it did indeed erode the turbine blades, a little droplet of liquid can really pack a punch when the turbine is spinning at 80k RPM.
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