Water Injection Project 496 HO

[kc0000]

NOS.... I mean water injection, the nozzle will spary a 20 degree funnel across the air intake path

[kc0000]

route across the motor to the back of the boat, in the back is a small plastic basket containing the pump, electronics and electrical.

[kc0000]

Water input coming from the speedometer feed

[kc0000]

The ERL water pump will deliver 150ml per minute at 100 psi. Trun on the ignition, the fuel injection charges up, then the water system charges up, start the motor and everything comes to life - in theory. I need to drop the boat into the water before I can dial in the rpms and water map. In Havasu heat, this should bring my motor to a performance level simular to a cold December day. Maybe next weekend we will attempt on of the local lakes.

More to follow after the trip to Lake Powel at the end of July.

KC & Karen

[kevnmcd]

KC - If you are running your supply line off the speedo pick-up then you will be running salt water through your engine if you run in the ocean? What ramifications does this have on the longevity of the motor? Can't you run from a fresh water supply bottle?

[kc0000]

Very good point Kev, fresh water bottle will work or I can unplug the system in salt water.... no salt water in the motor, that would be very bad.... Still have not taken the boat into salt water....

[kc0000]

It works.... At Powell I'm starting Saturday with the 24p.

[kevnmcd]

How did it effect your performance? Did you gain any hp or rpm?

[kc0000]

We did not conduct any tests with it on and with it off. It was on all day with the 24p. The mid range accelleration would put you into the back of the seat and it was 120 degrees out there and dry as a bone.

I could feel that the boat was under propped. At Powell I'm going to start with the 24p and see what I have for top rpm with the water injection on, then same test with it off. If that proves of value then I'll test with the 26p. I'm assuming that I will be able to run Powell with the 24p and the water turned on with no problem. The water injection is probably more effective in Havasu than Powell.

[Essex502]

What's the altitude at Powell? I heard of another 28' Heat with a 502 that had to run a 22P to keep the RPM's up.

[kc0000]

I think the map said 3150, It would be nice if I can run the 24p.

[kevnmcd]

KC - I think that water elevation is about 3615' right now.

[kc0000]

3615, we might need to call whipple before driving up to Powell...

[Essex502]

That's, what....3000 feet above Havasu? http://www.lasvegashotboats.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/crazy.gif

[kevnmcd]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Essex502 @ July 14 2003, 11:00 am)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">That's, what....3000 feet above Havasu? Â* http://www.lasvegashotboats.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/crazy.gif[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
Yeah....you will lose a few ponies up there, not to mention a few mph too! http://www.lasvegashotboats.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

[Essex502]

From a chart I found...the air density at 3000' is only 75% if the density at sea level. 24P * .75 = 18P ? http://www.lasvegashotboats.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

[kc0000]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Essex502 @ July 14 2003, 1:36 pm)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">From a chart I found...the air density at 3000' is only 75% if the density at sea level. 24P * .75 = 18P ? http://www.lasvegashotboats.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
that sucks! I'm calling whipple now, maybe they can meet me in las vegas for a realtime installation before Lake Powell....

anyone have a 18p? do they make such a thing? would that be for a trolling motor on a bass boat?

Sorry, no stinking fishing poles on our boat!

[kevnmcd]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (kc0000 @ July 14 2003, 1:50 pm)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Sorry, no stinking fishing poles on our boat![/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
Mine, either! http://www.lasvegashotboats.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[kc0000]

this is a good explaination of what is going on with water injection - again my objective is to combat the heat of Lake Havasu that is taking HP out of the motor....


Water injection is not a new idea, being first used in the 1930s, yet the principles remain the same today and are popular with the rallying fraternity, and it is now common knowledge that in the recent past, the factory rally teams of Peugeot and Renault, as well as the Volvo Touring Car teams have used water injection and you'll also find them fitted to the first Escort Cosworths and even the latest turbo'd Saab road cars are fitted with water injection as standard.

It is a well known fact that water does not burn but it is an efficient coolant (why else would most engines be water rather than air cooled), so it makes good sense to use it to reduce peak combustion and inlet air temperatures. This is achieved due to water having a high specific heat capacity and latent heat of evaporation, or in English, it's excellent at absorbing heat. It can therefore be used to control induction temperatures on high performance normally aspirated and turbo'd engines. Also water injection can be used to reduce high air temperatures making the air denser. If you get more air into the engine you can add more fuel and gain power.

The combustion process mixes air and fuel which is burnt to create energy, once you have an efficient fuel metering system the power output is governed by the amount of air that the engine can draw into its cylinders. With intake restriction removed, a normally aspirated engine is limited by atmospheric pressure, unless you add a turbo or supercharger. These devices compress the air as they force it into the engine at a greater pressure, known as boost pressure. Water injection is just another device for increasing the amount of air drawn into the engine as cooling the air makes it denser so there's more to mix with fuel.

You should notice that your car performs better in cool, damp weather conditions and this is because the air is denser which means more fuel will be burnt with the extra air and the resulting air/fuel ratio will be neater to optimum(assuming the engine is jetted correctly normally in cold conditions). By adding a water injection system to your vehicle it is possible to artificially simulating these conditions and adjusting the turbo boost level or advancing the timing it is possible to achieve an increased power and fuel economy, whilst suppressing detonation and producing less harmful emissions, cleaner pistons, valves and plugs.

A simple way of testing this theory is to measure acceleration on two days with opposite weather conditions.
First try it on a hot, dry day when the air is warm and thin, then compare it with a cold wet winter's day and you will see that the car will be faster on the cold wet day, because the cold, wet air is denser (more of it) than the warm air and as most simple fuel metering devices can detect dense air the fuel is increased to match. Another application for water injection is to reduce or prevent detonation by reducing the combustion temperature. If an engine starts to detonate, injecting water into the inlet tract will stop it occurring. With this in mind it is possible to advance your engines ignition timing to achieve more power (which would normally put the engine at risk of detonation), and to prevent engine failure by injecting water. A test was carried out on a normally aspirated engine, which proved the ignition timing could be advanced by 6 degrees more than normal and low octane unleaded fuel used instead of four star when a water injection system was fitted. This worked out to produce a saving of 20% on fuel costs.

With turbo charged cars, there is an uncontrollable temptation by the vehicle owners to keep winding up the boost a little more, or add a turbo upgrade, both of which pressurise and heat the gases even more than the increased levels that the initial turbo set up achieves. Adding an up rated inter cooler in an attempt to combat the temperatures will certainly help, but temperatures are still bound to rise uncontrollably above acceptable levels. lf the temperatures and pressures rise too high, detonation occurs, with the fuel auto igniting before the spark plug should be doing its job. It's the same as running massive amounts of ignition advance, and ends the same by melting piston crowns. The aim of water injection is to get the inlet temperature down to the optimum temperature of, as above this temperature the risk of detonation increases. Intake air at a turbo outlet is capable of reaching 120C at a boost of I bar and as high as 165C at 1.5 bar, so you can see why there is a problem. A standard inter cooler will normally fail to cool effectively, and a 50% increase in inter cooler size will only reduce temperatures by 60 - 75C, depending on boost pressure and vehicle specification. Water can prevent these temperature rises when injected into the air intake stream by reducing the inlet charge temperature, giving rise to improved volumetric efficiency of the engine. Additionally the evaporating water reduces the charge temperature prior to ignition, reducing the possibility of pre-ignition due to hot spots in the cylinder head. Water is the best choice for intake charge cooling because it's readily available, cheap and can be stored under the bonnet in a suitable reservoir, plus it absorbs heat better than most other liquids.


Lets see how good water is as a coolant, by passing air at 120C through a tube at a rate of 5kg per minute. At the center of that tube, we sprayed 50gms per minute of water at 25C. and found the final air temperature was 95C. a large reduction. For l00g of water per minute, the final air temperature was 70C, a reduction of 43% in temperature, while 200g reduced air temperature to 25C an 80% reduction. In other words, a flow of 200g of water per minute injected into the air stream, totally absorbed all of the heat in the air. Obviously modified engines will benefit most due to their higher pre-combustion pressures and temperatures (usually caused by higher compression ratios)


On a test car which had an induction air temperature at the butterfly of 70C at full boost a 43% reduction was needed to reach the optimum of 40C. The equations indicated 100g/min of water would be required to achieve the desired temperature drop. Several tests at different induction temperature levels were carried out to see if perÂ*formance was affected. The tests started with 100 to 150g per minute and revealed that slightly more cooling was needed, the jet was changed accordÂ*ingly and brought the charge temperature at the butterfly from 70C right down to 43C. Another series of tests were carried out, when the ignition was advanced and boost increased progressively to show the benefits of water injection. With the timing at 15 degrees and 12psi boost there was no difference in power with the water injection operated. As the boost was increased however, some big power gains were achieved. An average RS Turbo engine with standard compression would normally run about 11 degrees advance and detonation would occur at about 14 psi of boost. With an unusually advanced 15degrees of timing it would knock above 13 psi, but the tests showed it was possible to ignore timing and boost limitations and find 210 bhp and 233 lb-ft without any sign of detonation. An added bonus was driving the car on the road, the improved smoothness of the engine at high revs was very noticeable. The potential of water injection for anyone wanting to run high boost safely is obvious and it's also applicable to engines that run lots of advance and suffer detonation. With water injection you get peace of mind even if you don't go for more power.

Whilst the results of these tests are good it is possible to make the induction air temperature too cold and it is vitally important to inject the correct amount of water as at some point the volume of water needed to correct the temperature can be too much for correct combustion and power is lost. If the temperature drops below 40C, "fuel dropout" can occur, a phenomena where fuel vapours turn into droplets which won't burn as efficiently and can cause a weak mixture which can ultimately have the same catastrophic consequences as high inlet temperatures.

[STV_Keith]

Too bad it only works on 4-strokes. http://www.lasvegashotboats.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif

[kc0000]

it would work on a two stroke.....

use a windex bottle to spray into your intake and see if the motor coughs... kidding... but it is a way of testing...

It would work, basically the water injection is cooling the air as it evaporates and making the air more dense.... on a two stroke fuel injected motor the fuel injection should compensate for the denser air if there is a MAP sensor (manifold abolute presure)....

It would be like running your two stroke on a cool day in december, they have full power on cool days vs no power on hot days..... do you rejet the motor as the seasons change?

[Red Horse]

The B-52s use water injection and some airplanes still do. This is the first I have heard of using it on a boat. Is it a bottled, closed system, or does it use raw water??


We have used dry ice to cool fuel and intake air on race cars before.


You sure have allot of neat toys KC. When are you having a garage sale?? Any jet boat parts laying around?? http://www.lasvegashotboats.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif http://www.lasvegashotboats.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif

[kc0000]

I have been cleaning my garage ever since I moved in with Karen.... you missed:

Electromotive Direct Ignition, crank triggered
454Mag long block with 20 hours
Canton Racing Marine Oil Pan
Mercruiser 454Mag MPI system
Dart Pro 310cc intake alum heads

Bought lots of stuff last year as I started the project to upgrade the motor in the Elliminator, sold most of it on eBay and kept reusable components for myself - like the water injection. I'm condisering buying a second water injection system for my truck.

[kc0000]

On the Nordic, current design of the inmplementation is using the water feed that goes to the speedo as source for water. It runs through a filter that takes out all of the hard stuff that could clog the nozzle. As long as my speedo is working I know that the water injection is active.... If no water then it automatically shuts down the nozzle.

We only have one day of use on the system, one hose came loose, other than that the results are promising, especially in the 115 degree heat. I'm looking forward to conducting tests at Lake Powell but I'm not certain that my results will be near as promising as Havasu, might not be hot enough to truely see a difference.

First we will run for thirty minutes to heat soak the motor with the water on, conduct a gps speed test at specific trim and throttle position. Then unplug the power to the water injection and run for another ten minutes before conducting the second gps speed test at the same trim level and throttle position - the internal temps of the motor will climb without the water turned on.

If this test prove promising then we step up the pitch on the prop and test again.....

I'm thinking I will have significantly more mid range torgue with the water on, so much that my first two tests might not be as conclusive as the test with a larger prop..... my assumption is that the steam in the cylinder is going to give way more torque, enough to twist a larger prop in the mid range, but not enough to add higher rpms and higher top speed, simply because of the altitude of Lake Powell.

So I'm taking the 22p, 24p is on the boat, 26p to support testing. At Lake Powell altitude I should be running the 22p with my motor alone, no water injection. I'm hoping that the 24p performs poorly without the water and performs well with the water injection turned on. It would be amazing if the 26p could get the boat out of the hole without the water injection - It will be way interesting to see how the 26p performs if it CAN get the boat out of the hole with the water injection turned on.

I'm specifically testing for torque, not top speed.

[Essex502]

And while you're doing all this you're gonna party with the gang?

Make sure you take a humidity gauge and barometer to correctly measure whether or not the air is the same during all of the tests! Also, You'll probably need Karen to record all these figures in the lab book you're taking so getting her some practice at writing legibly during the hi speed runs might be in order. Test, test, test then let us know!! http://www.lasvegashotboats.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[kc0000]

chances are I'll have just enough time to put the boat in the water and play, might have to fore go the testing....
http://www.lasvegashotboats.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif http://www.lasvegashotboats.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif http://www.lasvegashotboats.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif http://www.lasvegashotboats.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif