Date:         Tue, 27 Jul 2004 15:54:58 -0700
Reply-To:     Dave Rogers <bikeguy184@YAHOO.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Dave Rogers <bikeguy184@YAHOO.COM>
Subject:      Re Experiment
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

In the days when I had 2 kids in college & worked 2 jobs I ran a rural paper delivery route with an aircooled bug. I drove the same mileage every night & filled up at the same gas station at 24 hr intervals. I noticed on rainy nights I always got better gas mileage, maybe 3 or 4 mpg better. I considered trying to rig something up, either a drip system or an atomizer but my time was very limited & I never got it done. I think windshield washer pumps were used on some jury rigged systems of the times & I think more frequent oil changes were advised with the systems although I can't remember why.  Jim,

The only down side I can think of is if something
goes wrong, either with
the engine running or while parked (more likely
scenario is while van is
parked). If for some reason your injector/s or
water valve fail or leak at
all and too much water is allowed to enter the
engine, you could end up with
hydraulic lock. That is sure to cause some
problems. Best case, you can't
crank the engine. Worst case, you bend something
expensive.

While I think that the chances of something like
this happening are remote,
you did ask if any harm could be done.

Interestingly, I was watching the Formula 1 race
this past weekend, and they
were talking about water injection (it might have
been during qualifying
that they were talking about it). Originally water
injection was used in
plane engines during WWII. The Formula 1 guys
adopted it during the turbo
era, but the F1 gods quickly banned it.

During the F1 turbo era, water injection was used
primarily to cool the
combustion chambers because temperatures had gone
out of control. However,
the F1 engineers also discovered that they could
get power gains from using
the water injection. The TV commentators said (they
said, not me) that even
the engineers weren't quite sure why they were
getting power gains. There
was speculation that it had to do with the extra
oxygen introduced into the
combustion chamber (the high temperatures and
pressures would cause the
water molecules to break into their basic hydrogen
and oxygen components). I
find the whole topic pretty interesting.

Now there is one area where I don't feel that water
"injection" has been
exploited to nearly the extent that it can be. Any
turbo motor with an
intercooler could benefit from a very, very fine
cooling mist of water shot
across the surface of the intercooler under high
boost conditions. This
would go far to cool the intake charge.

We also know that in many forms of drag racing (or
all (?), I'm not a drag
racing fan) nitrous injection is banned. Some
clever builders have set up
nitrous spray bars in front of their intercoolers
on turbo motors (primarily
on the newer import cars). Talk about a shot of
cold air! Now this is legal
because they aren't actually introducing the
nitrous into the intake track.
They are just using it to cool your intake charge
as it passes through the
intercooler. Unfortunately, this would hardly be
practical on a street car.

Well, this if probably far more than you wanted to
know.

At any rate, what is your goal with your water
injection? Are you after
cooler temperatures? Are you looking for more
power? I'd like to hear more
about what you are doing. By the way, if you want a
really high pressure
water pump, try a headlight washer pump from an
Audi. They put our some
pressure.

Keep us up to date.

Cheers,
Bruce
motorbruce
motorbruce@hotmail.com


>From: Jim Kennedy <JK@PROJECTDESIGN.COM>
>Reply-To: Jim Kennedy <JK@PROJECTDESIGN.COM>
>To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
>Subject: Experiment
>Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 10:59:29 -0700
>
>Vanagonians,
>
>I want to experiment (just for fun) with doing
water injection, such as a
>mister into the intake manifold.  Can any harm be
done in trying this?  I
>can't think of any.
>
>Jim
>'87 GL
>