Water injection

WHO?
WHEN?
HOW?
WHY?

CAN I DO IT FOR MY D22

Just tryin to start a good thread and further my knowledge.

I searched the net for basic water injection and found a UK Nav site which 'Tweake' commented on a couple of posts.
Does anyone have the know how, the money or spare time to give it ago?
Joshy??lol

Stuart

Devilsown Methanol Alcohol Water Injection

i've been looking at it for a while. i've blown my budget so its on hold for another year.

good points..
should be cheaper than intercooler.
can boost power big time depending on how much alcohol your pour in.
works in conditions where intercoolers can't.
cleans motor out (eg cleans all the crap build up in the inlet manifold)

bad points....
need BIG water container. be lucky if 20 litres lasts a tank of gas. (tho it depends on setup)
pre turbo injection can have major problems if faults arise (dirty water fouls check valve so injector dribbles instead of sprays).
cost of alcohol (if you use it)
need clean water supply (no town or bore water to be used).

Do you think its complicated?

its not all that complicated.
you can do varies different setups depending on what you want to achieve. some do it just to lower EGT's (usually due to large amounts of fuel being poured in). it can be run via EGT sensor. boost sensor would be the most common. you can also do it via MAF sensor.

probably the biggest catch is lack of protection gear ie in case it fails. you may have to make it more basic (ie no pre turbo injection) to ensure reliability.
more so with small diesels as your on boost almost all the time.

most of the US setups tend to be either petrol or big diesel where your on boost (and use WI) only a small % of time. ie use it more like nitrous, that big hit when you stomp on the gas.
with the small diesels really need to either set it up to only work at max boost or run variable controller.
with basic boost switch setup you can get surging ie you hit cruise boost, WI kicks in more power so you take foot off gas to maintain steady speed. motor falls off boost WI turns off and you need to hit the gas hard to maintain speed. on/off right pain in the arse.

still biggest catch i think is the need for big tanks. not to bad if you have a flat deck, you can sneak 20+ litre water tank under it. very hard for a well side.

i should add that WI works in situations where intercooler do not work. ie going slow or in very hot conditions.

check this out

The Turbo Blog

sorry wrong site try this one about water injection

Do It Yourself Water Alcohol Methanol Injection | Parts List

you can build kit for $200 odd dollars

nissanmad said:

Do It Yourself Water Alcohol Methanol Injection | Parts List

Click to expand...

interesting that the only 2 pumps that are up to spec are the w/i vendor pumps. the listed shurflows are low pressure and low flow.

I've been reading a bit about this and it seems that the gains are there even if you run straight water in hot conditions. What I'm wondering is if its possible some of the water will get into your oil.

i think some water would get in the oil. however considering temp of oil and the amount of hot blowby it will be vented out via the crankcase breather. the amount of water getting past the rings will be tiny.

i've yet to hear of anyone with any water contaminated oil because of water injection.

No water will get into your sump.
Remember that water boils at 100deg, compression temperature alone will exceed this on a diesel.

A good system will be up around 200-300psi of water pressure.
It comes out looking like smoke instead of water droplets if you use the correct sized nozzle to atomize it properly.

So as you can appreciate the surface area of such finely misted water is immense and has the ability to soak alot of heat from the charge air that is carrying it.

The best setup as said, is either using a hobbs switch to activate the pump, or wiring it into a unichip or similar piggyback ecu that switches it on under only certain conditions.
Even 5L of water/meth will last for a decent period of time... Most of these Nozzles will flow only 50-60cc per minute at 200psi.
or 200-250ml per minute at maximum pump flow

Northside 4x4 said:

Even 5L of water/meth will last for a decent period of time...

Click to expand...

about 20 minutes use on these.

down side of small diesels is you can make use of it almost all the time. often people will limit it to full boost only just to reduce usage.

I see. Do you have this on your rig tweak'e? If you do how long has it been there?

ToyTruck said:

I see. Do you have this on your rig tweak'e? If you do how long has it been there?

Click to expand...

sorry to say i had to put a stop on all upgrades to the ute as it became property of the company. had most things worked out, nozzle locations, tank size/fitment etc.

water injection is planned for my toy but that may be a while as i haven't got the engine back in it yet. i know others who have had it running for a number of years so learnt a few things from their mistakes etc.
the navara is not all that much different.
also i have almost got my alcohol source all ready to roll, just got to get a basic still setup and i will be making my own from waste products.

@tweak'e
You can make your own methanol? Awesome man, be great living next to you. I actually have a kit already, been on the shelf for a while now.

What sort of things went wrong with your mates' kits if you don't mind? Have to confess being bit of a chicken about installing it.

@Northside 4x4
I thought the thing should be set to turn on at a certain boost level and stay on as long as the boost is that level or greater.

don't make methanol, brew ethanol. not quite as good as methanol but brewing 10-20% alcohol is fairly straight forward and cheaper than buying. big thing is cleaning it.

a good one to read up on is terry on toyota surf forum and Alcohol Injection Kits : Water Injection Systems : Water Methanol Injection : DevilsOwn Injection
. he damaged a turbo from using dirty water which fouled up the nozzle and poured water in instead of misting it.
a few have had problems with check valves dribbling due to dirt holding it open. solenoid works a lot better.

That's an expensive error. Really should've used distilled water. Or clean the piping before installing it as the dirt could've come from somewhere before the nozzle. Maybe placing the nozzle in between the turbo and intercooler is safer.

Here's a dyno sheet of a Nissan Elgrand comparing a stock run to straight water.



Question is, why did the AFR on the thing go lower if it were just straight water?

yeah distilled water is great. however i think he ran out of juice half way through a trip and used what he could get. the simple problem is how to fit big enough tanks to handle the volume required.

AFR going lower = leaner ?? if so i would suspect its getting more air shoved in ie the air is denser from being cooled.

No tweak'e the lower the AFR the richer as it's the ratio of air to fuel. Quite the opposite of the result I was expecting, actually. My understanding is that they use an O2 sensor at the exhaust to measure it. Don't know how the H20 injected would lower the O2 coming out of the tailpipe though.

i can't see water only making it richer. unless, either more diesel is being burnt (ie more efficient burn) or soot inside the engine is "burning" (steam reaction).
it could be that it was over fueling (as its on full throttle) to start with and had a fair bit of unburnt fuel going out the exhaust. that may also explain the reasonable increase in power.