Date:         Thu, 20 Jul 1995 12:01:26 -0700
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         wabbott@townshend.Corp.Megatest.COM (William Abbott)
Subject:      Water injection.

	My friend Scott has a water injection rig on his Honda (ok, ok) and
swears by it- says that his they suffer from carbon build-up otherwise.
	Water mist injection will have several obvious benefits:

	1) slightly more power from water-steam phase change expansion-
every 18ml (2/3 oz) of water expands to 22.4 liters of water vapor (steam)

	2) slightly more power from cooler-denser mixture. Water that
evaporates in the inlet tract will cool the air, making it denser. Of course,
having already become vapor, that part of the water that evaporates in
the intake doesn't produce any advantage #1 above

	3) higher knock-threshold- both because the mixture is cooler
and because the liquid water droplets serve to absorb the heat of compression.

	I've heard that steam will remove carbon, but can't swear to this.

	WWII fighters, and possibly bombers, had water & methanol injection
which produced more power for limited amounts of time. Straight water
may have been used as well. I'm certain that the F4U Corsair had
water & methanol injection, and its likely the F6F Hellcat did too. 
I'm not sure about non-US planes or bombers/transports. It makes sense.
Civil propellor airliners may have used water or water & methanol for
take off power.

	Early jet engines used water injection for more power on take-off
too- including civil airliners like the 707.

	Water absorbs very large quantities of heat per unit volume
or wieght, which is why its popular as a coolant or the base of a coolant.
It also affects the way our water covered planet works, since it buffers the
climate shifts that would otherwise accompany day-night cycles and the
changing seasons.

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