Flat Four were at the drive-in last night.
Greedy (for more power ) in his Supercharged Kombi
had just done an initial test of water injection.
It was a temporary set up, needs refining , but what he found
- even though using too much water "2 L for 30 kms"
- It dramatically reduced Oil temp at freeway speeds, from 120 to 90.
- gave more acceleration " gave it real punch ".
- the water cost was quite low, maintenance will be improved with less water usage,
or even made to work on Boost only.:thumb

[Edited on 8-2-2003 by OvalGlen]

Greedy , Have you any updates for us ?

Hi all,

I was reading a Hot 4's mag a while ago and they mentioned a computer controlled water delivery system. They called it in cylendar intercooling.

The system used an injector and high pressure water pump to inject water at varying pressures. Being computer controlled you could control the injector pulse width at various boost pressures and rpm's.

A mechanical system would only allow you to have an on or off function, which you could turn on or off with a vdo pressure switch.

I don't have any experience with supercharged engines, but aren't they under boost all the time?

At what RPM's does the supercharger start making boost, and what is the maximum boost you get at max RPM? Because of the nature of boost in a supercharged system you would need a variable rate water delivery system, unless you wanted it on when you are thrashing the car only...

My turbo engine starts making noticable boost at 2600rpm, and is able to achieve 12lb at about 3.5K rpm.

From what I have read, the main thing to look out for with water injection is that you don't get stuck valves from having too much water delivered.

I think that some of the early ford carburatored engined cars around the 1970's had some sort of water intake system as well.

Cheers,
Ian.

I have had water injected cars, a v8 and a beetle, it is quite a good set up for any type of car, it will reduce head temp but not by much and it will reduce valves cokeing up (.this is the original idea for water injection i seem to remember), and with the ethanol mixes in our fuel nowdays water injection might just prove a savior .the systems i ran used about a litre per 500 km and was hooked up to the vacuum advance tube on the carb i never had any problem with it and i am considering installing it on my twin carb 1916
:thumb

I used it on a V8 Commodore to reduce pinging and it worked quite well.

Silver , I have connected mine on the Oval thriough the vacuum pipe as well.
Tis a good delivery point but one needs to make sure there is a loop of tubing that extends upward about 40mm to stop water being syphoned into the vacuum advance pot. (that is on the vacuum line to the pot ).
I put it on my Oval to stop pinging.
It worked.

Blowers are not on boost much at all. When used on the street.
Boost can be controlled by the excellerator pedal.
You could probably get maximum boost at the peak power point when at full throttle.
The only problem with this arguement is that supercharger effiency far out runs motor efficiency. It may depend upon the restrictive-ness of the carb / induction system.
However it is easy to contemplate a situation where say at 4000 rpm cruising at 140 km/h you could ease back on the accelerator to achieve a very slight vacuum ( or neutral - no vacuum ) and still maintain constant speed.

I used to run water injection, vacuum fed on a very highly modified Austin Healey 3000 in the '80s the car was tuned around it & I knew if I ran out of water due to pinging.
I thought it was wonderful & used to use 25% to 75% metho in it depending on road or race use, I didn't know you could stil get the old vacuum feed one, I would certainly use it.

geday all I have just finished putting water injection on my supercharged kambi and am very impressed so far and hopefully with a bit more fine tuning it will get even better:bounce

[Edited on 10-2-2003 by greedy51]

So whats the deal with water injection??

Great to hear, Greedy. Hopefully that will make the difference you need next time you venture into our hot Victorian climate!!

So, are we gonna see it at the next NSW dyno day? Or better still, how about our Melbourne Dyno Day on the 22nd (?) of March?

Oh by the way, I mergerd the threads, I figured they belong together, I hope nobody minds.

[Edited on 10-2-2003 by KruizinKombi]

merging is cool

Hey All,

I have just finished putting a water system into my 1600 beetle. Mainly because I want to reduce fuel consuption and engine temps.
I plumbed mine through the preheat tube on my intake manifold, just under the carb.
The car runs fine, but I have yet to notice any reasonable difference.
Three questions:
1. Is where I plumbed it alright, or will it cause problems?
2. Does adding metho to the mix improve anything?
3. What is the best usage per 100km I should tune mine to? (I added a screw adjustment on it)

Cheers
Tnate

Could one (or more) of you more enlightened fellows please add a little more info to the thread ?

Basically i understand the idea of water injection for turbo'd or charged cars as a tool to reduce intate temp's and increase power.

What advantage is there to adding water injection to a standard or slightly modified engine, in these type's of engines there is no requirement to reduce intake temperatures and if running correctly there should not be any temp problems for head's or oil etc.

The other question is just what is involved with adding water injection to a carbie'd motor ? where would you inect and what kind of kit / cost is involved ?
:bounce:bounce:bounce:bounce:bounce

Just a few points , as more will be added , most likely in the negative.
You can add water injection to a fairly standard engine in
order to increase fuel consumption but
this is only because water will reduce the adverse effects of running leaner mixtures and greater advance on ignition.
-
Water can be sucked in by vacuum through the carburetor.
The best place to have the tubing go into the carb is in the narrow part ( Venturi ) and above the butterfly. You know exactly where the Vacuum pipe for the vacuum advance pot goes in.
The idea being that when the butterfly is closed - at idle there is no vacuum.
Unlike a tube stuck in to the manifold after the butterfly which has maximum vacuum at idle.

I have an Edelbrock water injection system I bought it for my chevy years ago and never installed it. It consists of an electronic control box a variable speed pump and an injector nozel which is designed to sit above a carby venturi (under the air cleaner).
The advertised benifits are Reduced pinging improved fuel economy, decoking the intake system and cooler running.
It is also possible to use the unit to add high octane fuels .
The claim is that it produces a higher density fuel mix a due to the water vapour and results in more complete and cleaner combustion. It also claims that timming can be advanced further without pinging occuring.
As I said Inever ran the thing and am no expert.
I will dig the thing out and have a closer look perhaps someone might take it off my hands and let us know if it does what is claimed.m.

[Edited on 11-2-2003 by waltermitty]

Howdy all greedy has been busy i have moved the water injection from the manafold after the carby because as i had it pointed out to when the bus is at idle that is when the butterflies are closed and thats when you have the most vacume developed so now it goes through the aircleaner and is still operated by vacume the more it push the go pedal the more vac the better and cooler fuel
it used the fogger nozel from the garden watering systerm and a length of vacume hose and a small tap used in a garden dripper systerm so i can regulate the amount of water used by turning a tap
i really can feel the extra power it generates by upping the compression alone but i like the cooler fuel going in also it seems to keep the blower temp down here is a photo of the in put
an there are a few more on my photo site
http://au.photos.yahoo.com/breedy51 
see ya later
yes col cooler is better mate

i was luckey the other day to see a head of a water injected motor and was it bloody clean yes sir re it really was if for no other reason it's worth it for the decoke effect

Woozy, the water injection has several positive effects. As Greedy mentioned, it helps keep the heads cleaner, but don't ask me why. It also cools the intake air which not only increases the inlet air density (more air into the cylinder = more power), but also helps to reduce pinging or detonation because the water cools the air, and also slows the speed at which the flame-front travels.

Stock motors don't need water injection, but it can't hurt if the flow rates are correct. OvalGlen's method with the vacuum-operated water intake is probably the simplest effective method. It will allow more water to flow when the engine is really working, which is when the water can give the most benefit.

I know nothing about the water injection, but I would question the use of a vacuum system for injection. I have been watching the vacuum gauge (manifold vacuum) in my 2L dual carb. kombi closely as I am playing with an automatic oiler (for upper cylinder lubricant). Most manufacturers of the lube recommend an automatic oiler, but from what I have seen they are not much use also.
My motor is getting pretty tired, but still gets 18inHg at idle, but when ever I'm driving, it spends most of it's time well below 10inHg, and is almost on zero when cruising at 110km/hr.
So on a lung run up the highway the automatic oiler will supply almost no oil to the motor just when it needs it most, and it gets a gob full at idle. Not too good if you ask me.
So I assume you would get a similar effect for a vacuum water injection system.
Andy

I'd expect that you are reading vacuum AFTER the butterfly valve, not before it.....

Has anyone seen a basic water injection setup on twin carbs ?
What difficulties would there be there in getting everything balanced ?


btw my engine runs on kadron's

KruizinKombi, yes I'm reading manifold vacuum (after the carb). Before the carb it should be near enough atmospheric pressure (no vacuum) otherwise there's a problem in the air cleaner

Andy I plan to put an oiler on top of my blower.
Where did you get yours from ?.
I heard that some 4WD cars had them.
-
It would be interesting to put a T peice on to the tube to the Vacuum advance pot.
You will see maximum vacuum at maximum load.
I havent measured it , but I have a very restrictive pipe feeding in as described above.
When I suck on it I can only just move the water but there is obviously enough vacuum in situ because it certainly uses up the water when I drive.
When I watch the water pipe when idling , Nothing moves - nowater being sucked in at idle. Even revving without load only moves the water slowly.

Glen,
I have three different types of automatic oilers.
1) TruBlu http://www.trubluoil.com.au/products2c.html 
Cheap and nasty, don’t buy it. You can make this yourself with any old bottle and garden irrigation parts.
2) Flashlube http://www.flashlube.com.au/html/flashlube.html 
This is what I have on the Kombi, reasonable quality, and it meters the oil flow directly rather than by bleeding air into the line. Clogging of the fine needle seems to be a problem. I have made up a foam cover for it to filter the air going into the bottle.
3) To be authentic get the Ampco (my brother bought two to go with his ’55, now he just needs the Judson :-)).
http://www.ampcolubes.com/ 
http://vwjudsonregister.tripod.com/News%20Page.htm  (scroll down for this one)
They are still sold NEW and are actually WW2 excess stock!!!!!!
Nicely made and true period item.

Now comes the hard part. If your putting it into a standard motor, it really needs to go in the inlet manifold (after the carb or AFM for FI) reasonably close to the heads, and still allow it to split equally to each cyl. I’m not sure about FI systems, but on my Dual carb type 4 I drilled and tapped the inlet manifold just below the flange the carb bolts too, to add the jet that delivers the oil (one each side of course). This then has all the problems I mentioned earlier regarding manifold vacuum.
If you want it for your supercharger, that’s a whole other ball game. Here the oiler supplies the only oil the vanes of the supercharger will see, so it needs to go before it, but still after the carb or AFM. I have no idea what the vacuum is like here.
http://www.ampcolubes.com/install.jpg 
http://vwjudsonregister.tripod.com/VW%20Type%201%20inst%20page.htm 
It is not recommended to add it to the ‘ported’ vacuum going to the advance as it varies more, is cut off at idle and poses the risk of the altering the vacuum the advance can sees, as well as the chance oil will get into the advance can, not a good idea!!

Now for the worst part, what oil to use???? I have tried Lucas, Flashlube and TruBlu. I can’t say I’ve been impressed with any, and after spending months reading all the guf available on these products, they all make different claims, and none stands out from the crowd.

If you want it as an upper cyl. Lube, make up your own mind on what to use, but for the supercharger I would try and track down some Marvel Mystery oil. The needs of the supercharger are very different to the cyl. Lube products which will have a high detergent content, not healthy for the supercharger.
Anyway, enough of my rambling, I hope this is useful.

Just wondering.
If the injection system is sucking off the vacuum line, will it retard ignition due to less vacuum?

Pondering
Cheers
Tnate

Andy, I would expect that it doesn't need a lot of vacuum, just needs airspeed past the nozzle like a spray-gun.

Andy , thanks heaps.
I will check out all those links when I get time.
Yes the idea is to oil the blower lobes but also as upper cyl lube.In a boosted engine there is not as much oil drawn past the rings as is when piston actually sucks in each new charge.
Why would high detergent not be good for blower?
-
The use of vacuum pot line for sucking in water will probably reduce the "retarding action " of the pot to some degree.
lucky the water is there to stop it pinging Ha Ha.
Havent noticed any problems though.