• Marc
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Topic: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

just a random thought on boosted vehicles in lemons.

The absolute cheapest way to boost "safely" is to substitute water injection instead of an intercooler. it also allows cheaper suck-through turbo setups that can't have an intercooler.

the next problem with this idea of course is you need to control the water flow. so what would happen if you added a 2nd much smaller carburetor to the system that was fed water instead of fuel? you'd have to fatten the mixture a bit on the fuel carb and you could control it's throttle plate with a low pressure wastegate actuator setup to fight a spring so it comes on progressively.

to prevent rust you'd have to switch it to gasoline before shutting down for the evening, but that's not that big of a deal, i think you'd just need a shut-off valve for the water let the carb suck dry, fill bowl with gasoline and let it suck dry again. refill bowl with gasoline and you're good for the evening.

thoughts?

2 Reply by Spinnetti (edited by Spinnetti 2012-05-09 03:41 PM)

  • From: Northern Kentucky
  • Registered: 2009-05-02
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Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

Precision agricultural mister (think mister at grocery store that they use on the veggies), a check valve and a windshield washer pump. Use methanol or alcohol with the water. I've got that sitting on my desk right now. I also have a predictive controller that uses injector bandwidth along with IAT to determine when to spray, but the first bit should be enough for lemons. I would think carb idea won't atomize as well as its at atmos vs. being under pressure? Heck, with your skill you could do the same with a PIC for no money.

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  • gunn
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Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

Q: Will your windshield washer pump put enough pressure to adequately spray out of the "precision agricultural mister?"
If not, you may need something else.

A friend gave me some nozzles from his home A/C mister (mists on the heat exchanger -- he lives in TX so he was trying to get every last BTU out of his house in the dead of summer). For my steering wheel button - windshield washer pump - radiator mister solution, I had to go through several nozzle heads until I found one that would spray well (the others were too clogged to generate any mist with the pressure my old ford windshield washer pump could generate).

I also like your idea of using a PIC to monitor injector bandwidth + IAT to decide when to spray.
-g

  • From: Mini-so-ta
  • Registered: 2010-09-08
  • Posts: 1,072

Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

I've thought about this also.  I'm not sure whether the carb would atomize the water well enough to cool the intake charge effectively.

I also looked into the injection approach, but my hangup was finding a LeMons-priced water pump that would produce enough pressure for the water to atomize well through an injector.  I don't think a windshield washer pump would do the job, but I'd love for you to prove me wrong.  As for control circuitry, I have some experience with that.

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  • Marc
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Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

yeah, the carb may be over thinking it.

anywhere else this would have been followed by "you're retarded, you must have been dropped on your head as a child". i love this place smile

as for a pump, you can get 30psi cheap here: http://www.surpluscenter.com/item.asp?i … name=water

or 60psi for a bit more: http://www.surpluscenter.com/item.asp?i … name=water

max flow does not matter, i can't see needing more than .1 gal/min and realistically probably no more than .025 gal/min

and yes, i could whip together a PIC easily. i'd probably use something more complicated i already have hardware and code written for but the point remains the same.

heck, it would be fun to roll your own entire ECU for lemons, i bet the judges would let it fly to see it fail smile

  • Baron
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Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

The sensory assault guys had a setup running on one of their cars, maybe knew of them will chime in.

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  • From: East Troy, WI
  • Registered: 2009-12-15
  • Posts: 174

Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

The automotive world has already figured out how to spray something into the intake, it's called efi.  Use a fuel pump in a water tank, high pressure fuel hose, regulator and fuel injector.  Use a hobbs switch to turn on the injector at a preset pressure.  All this can be had for next to zero money with JY parts.

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  • olaaf
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Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

I too was thinking about this, especially as a way to use overflow/melted ice from the cooltank with a transfer pump and a level sensor. For triggering, you could use a simple microswitch on the gas pedal for WOT, or a push to pass button on the steering wheel. Still, the power/weight ratio just isn’t in the favor of water injection for an enduro..

  • RobL
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Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

The "best" way to do this is to have a pressure switch (assuming forced injection) activating a solenoid that connects to a high pressure reservoir fed by a high pressure pump.  I used to have two stage water injection on an MR2 turbo that I owned and I count myself among some of the most knowledgeable people in water injection. 

I have done a lot of stupid things in LeMons.  Relying on water injection to cool the intake change on an endurance car will never be counted among them.  Too many things can go wrong that will land your car in the pits with internal engine damage.

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  • tSoG
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Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

pressurize the water tank via 't' fitting in boost gauge? 20psi of boost = 20 psi of sprayer pressure. smile

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11 Reply by obsolete (edited by obsolete 2012-05-09 10:04 PM)

  • From: Mini-so-ta
  • Registered: 2010-09-08
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Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

Marc wrote:

heck, it would be fun to roll your own entire ECU for lemons, i bet the judges would let it fly to see it fail smile

Believe me, after we built the fuel injector tester, my teammates began prodding me to develop it into a fully custom ECU...won't happen. tongue

Anarchyjet wrote:

The automotive world has already figured out how to spray something into the intake, it's called efi.  Use a fuel pump in a water tank, high pressure fuel hose, regulator and fuel injector.  Use a hobbs switch to turn on the injector at a preset pressure.  All this can be had for next to zero money with JY parts.

I don't think a fuel pump would last very long pumping water before it corroded to death.  Again, I'd love to be proven wrong here...

tSoG wrote:

pressurize the water tank via 't' fitting in boost gauge? 20psi of boost = 20 psi of sprayer pressure. smile

And inject the water in front of the turbo?

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12 Reply by RobL (edited by RobL 2012-05-10 06:02 AM)

  • RobL
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Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

obsolete wrote:
tSoG wrote:

pressurize the water tank via 't' fitting in boost gauge? 20psi of boost = 20 psi of sprayer pressure. smile

And inject the water in front of the turbo?

Quick way to destroy the turbo.  I have pictures from someone who did that, the water droplets destroyed the leading edge of the compressor wheel.

You need at least 100psi to get good atomization of the water.  Otherwise the droplets of water will follow the easiest path into the cylinders - IE the majority of water will flow into the closest or most direct intake runners and the other will be left without the benefit of the injection.

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We got screwed at The Real Hoopties of New Jersey  and we took cars down with us.
We got the curse at Capitol Offense but they wouldn't let us destroy the car.

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  • RobL
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Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

Marc wrote:

max flow does not matter, i can't see needing more than .1 gal/min and realistically probably no more than .025 gal/min

When I was running that MR2 - I was off the efficiency islands of the turbo.  For reference - I was running 6gph worth of water injection (2 and 4 GPH nozzles) at max boost (25psi) and high rpm (>5000rpm) on a 2 liter engine.  That is at least double what would recommend for a more sane engine.

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  • Marc
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Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

this site talks about a lot of the actual math: http://www.rbracing-rsr.com/waterinjection.html

they also sell what looks to be a pretty nice pump if you were doing this on something other than a lemons car.


it seems like the reliable/cheap setup would be to use port injectors for the water with just a pressure controled solenoid to turn it on/off. you could put two stages if necessary.

to make cheap injectors i bet you could just gut the insides out of a modern high atomization fuel injector and plumb high pressure water in there. just make sure you get them from a really small motor and test their flow.

  • RobL
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Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

Just as an fyi, there is a NSFW picture down near the end of that page.

--Rob Leone Schumacher Taxi Service
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We got screwed at The Real Hoopties of New Jersey  and we took cars down with us.
We got the curse at Capitol Offense but they wouldn't let us destroy the car.

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  • From: VA
  • Registered: 2010-05-05
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Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

Interesting topic, but none of this would ever find it's way onto our car.

Adding a big intercooler is cheap.  Turning down the boost or pulling timing is even cheaper.

It's still fun to see what people come up with to solve a simple problem using complicated solutions.

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  • From: Columbus, OH
  • Registered: 2009-05-26
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Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

tSoG wrote:

pressurize the water tank via 't' fitting in boost gauge? 20psi of boost = 20 psi of sprayer pressure. smile

That's genius.  He's not talking about using the boost gauge lines to carry the water, just as an air pressure source.  Sure it might not work but that's thinking outside the box.

Think of it:

Pressure from manifold -> Tee 1: top (air space) of water reservoir  Tee 2: To boost gauge

Then the outlet of the water reservoir would just be to a check valve and mister head.

Simplicity defined!

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  • RobL
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Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

dculberson wrote:
tSoG wrote:

pressurize the water tank via 't' fitting in boost gauge? 20psi of boost = 20 psi of sprayer pressure. smile

That's genius.  He's not talking about using the boost gauge lines to carry the water, just as an air pressure source.  Sure it might not work but that's thinking outside the box.

Think of it:

Pressure from manifold -> Tee 1: top (air space) of water reservoir  Tee 2: To boost gauge

Then the outlet of the water reservoir would just be to a check valve and mister head.

Simplicity defined!

Yeah but the only way to make this work is to have the injector before the turbo otherwide you are trying to inject 20psi of water into an intake that is already pressurized to 20psi.  No water will be injected.  This is one of the reasons why fuel pressure regulators are based on plenum vacuum.

--Rob Leone Schumacher Taxi Service
We won the IOE at Southern Discomfort.
We got screwed at The Real Hoopties of New Jersey  and we took cars down with us.
We got the curse at Capitol Offense but they wouldn't let us destroy the car.

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  • From: Alvin, TX
  • Registered: 2010-02-22
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Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

We have been running lemony water injection on our turbo rotary for a while now.

System consists of a 5 gallon Ozarka water jug, a nitrouos fogger plumbed into our intercooler inlet, an on demand RV water pump, and a boost pressure activated switch.

We run about 10psi of boost and its a fun, fun ride. 

We are runnning a top mount intercooler with an STI-style lemony scoop.   It heatsoaks pretty badly during pit stops, but the water injection really seems to bring the intake temps down quickly.

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  • From: Doin' Crime in 21229
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Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

RobL wrote:
dculberson wrote:
tSoG wrote:

pressurize the water tank via 't' fitting in boost gauge? 20psi of boost = 20 psi of sprayer pressure. smile

That's genius.  He's not talking about using the boost gauge lines to carry the water, just as an air pressure source.  Sure it might not work but that's thinking outside the box.

Think of it:

Pressure from manifold -> Tee 1: top (air space) of water reservoir  Tee 2: To boost gauge

Then the outlet of the water reservoir would just be to a check valve and mister head.

Simplicity defined!

Yeah but the only way to make this work is to have the injector before the turbo otherwide you are trying to inject 20psi of water into an intake that is already pressurized to 20psi.  No water will be injected.  This is one of the reasons why fuel pressure regulators are based on plenum vacuum.

Don't try to confuse the conversation with math, physics, and logic.  I hate it when people do that.  Now, let me get back to working on my perpetual motion machine...

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  • Marc
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Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

mechimike wrote:

Don't try to confuse the conversation with math, physics, and logic.  I hate it when people do that.  Now, let me get back to working on my perpetual motion machine...

the good news is, your system should do great for throwing a bunch of water in the intake when the driver closes the throttle plate smile at that point there would be about a 30psi pressure differential smile

  • From: Columbus, OH
  • Registered: 2009-05-26
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Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

RobL wrote:
dculberson wrote:
tSoG wrote:

pressurize the water tank via 't' fitting in boost gauge? 20psi of boost = 20 psi of sprayer pressure. smile

That's genius.  He's not talking about using the boost gauge lines to carry the water, just as an air pressure source.  Sure it might not work but that's thinking outside the box.

Think of it:

Pressure from manifold -> Tee 1: top (air space) of water reservoir  Tee 2: To boost gauge

Then the outlet of the water reservoir would just be to a check valve and mister head.

Simplicity defined!

Yeah but the only way to make this work is to have the injector before the turbo otherwide you are trying to inject 20psi of water into an intake that is already pressurized to 20psi.  No water will be injected.  This is one of the reasons why fuel pressure regulators are based on plenum vacuum.

So simple an idiot (like me) could neglect that fact..  thanks.  And hahaha at myself. ;-)

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  • tSoG
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Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

I've seen pre turbo methanol misters run on turbocharged pressure on diesels. not saying it's ideal, but it's lemony and takes "what's the worst that could happen?" to heart. smile

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Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

RobL wrote:

Just as an fyi, there is a NSFW picture down near the end of that page.

Trying to increase traffic, are ya'? wink

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25 Reply by Spinnetti (edited by Spinnetti 2012-05-10 04:41 PM)

  • From: Northern Kentucky
  • Registered: 2009-05-02
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Re: budget water injection for lemony boosted vehicles?

Lots of good madness here. Its just not that tough. Nice bit about using a PIC/Stamp/BX24/Rasberrypi controller is you don't run it all the time and use some logic to only run when IATs are getting out of hand. Spray it upstream of the turbo to avoid the pressure issue. An EFI pump and a fuel injector should work fine too if you really want to go pressure side. we aren't talking working for 200,000 miles - just needs to last one race right? A precision low pressure nozzle will produce a fog - I have this one - its used for spraying the outside of the intercooler, but with a very small nozzle, why not spray it right before the compressor?

Oh, don't forget to mix with meth or alcohol - more boost possible, higher evaporative cooling.

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Maker of the "unofficial Lemons fish!" - If you ask nice, I'll likely give you one at the track.

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