- Thread starter
- #21
Brian,
Didn't mean to come off as saying you are incorrect on the IC situation, if I did, sorry. You are definitely right, I would much rather have a proper IC set-up than water injection. Just that for this application, I don't know that the delta T on an air/air IC would be worth the pressure drop. I could most certainly be wrong as I have not tried on a LC (if I had a quarter for everytime one of my *theories* didn't work in practice).
I've yet to see a good a/a IC that didn't cost you 1-2psi in the extra piping and flow across the heat exchanger. I'm sure there's one out there, just I have not come accross it yet. The a/a I have on my turbo car is a pretty well designed one (designed by Corky Bell himself) and still hits me for a little under 2psi.  oes not matter there though as I run about 12psi and the turbo I have is pretty efficient up to about 18psi.
The a/w IC's are really attractive. Very little to no pressure drop can be achieved and a/w's are very popular with SC's. Just the only one I'm aware of would run me close to $1,000 if I built it. It's a Spearco unit and I'd be happy to run through how the basic design works if anyone is interested. There's surely other ones out there that we could make work though......Laminova makes a great one.....I just don't know where to get it/cost. ???
As far as CON's for water injection. Sure there are some. First, it's a pain re-filling the water tank all the time. You'd likely be surprised how little water it takes, but if you're like Bill (who sounds like he's under boost all the time), it will likely become an irritation. Second, where do you put the water tank?? That's a really good question that I don't have an answer for yet. I've seen them under the hood, in fender wells, & in the trunk. Probably pros and cons to all these locations. The smaller the water tank, the easier it is to locate, the larger the tank, the less times you have to refill it. Hmmm..... I will likely try to put mine under the hood, after working on a Miata for a while the LC has got TONS of room under there! See if you think you can fit anything else under my Miata's hood:
http://miata.cardomain.com/member_pages/view_page.pl?page_id=213822&page=4
The first 2 pictures are my current turbo set-up with an a/a IC and the bottom picture is my old supercharger set-up with an a/w IC. Finally, the last con I can think of for water injection is I have heard that the system could *burp*, expell too much water at one time and hydrolock the motor. I've not seen an actual case of this myself, but it could happen. To combat this possibility, I plan on getting a quality WI unit, using distilled water to keep it clean and likely bypassing the unit when its not really warm outside or I'm not towing.
Bill - funny you mention your wife had a Miata. They are commonly referred to as "girlie" cars! My car has a whopping 1.6L 4 banger that put out 116hp stock. Mine now puts out 250+hp on stock internals. It's funny to me that little 2200 lb car puts out more hp than my cruiser currently does! :dunno: To answer your question as to why I would choose that particular water injection unit for the 4.5 LC, its just one that I know works well. It's a solid basic unit. It's made my aquamist www.aquamist.com. Aquamist units can be purchased from multiple vendors. Jackson Racing (the company that makes Eaton supercharger systems for Miatas, Hondas & Acuras) sells a unit too:http://www.jacksonracing.com/pages/partsmiata.html
It's all the way over to thr right of the screen. It's the same Aquamist unit though just in a pretty red color. I'd bet places like JCWhitney or Summitt Racing sell similar units. I'll likely buy from the original link I posted only because I trust those people and they have great product knowledge.
Dan - yes, it's a knock preventer. If fact that's really the whole point is to lower the charge temp and prevent detonation so that you can run more timing and get more power (can you say run-on sentence??). In fact, alcohol mixed in with the water should have a very wide mis-fire range and could produce a little more power while reducing knock. In *theory* of course.
Dan - As to how often to re-fill. That depends on how often you are in boost and how big of a tank you get. If you are in boost a lot or get a small tank, you *could* have to refill as often as you fill up for gas....you could go a month.
Now for the qualifiers. Guys, I in no way hold myself out to be an expert on this stuff. I'm not a mechanic, I'm just stupid enough to have wasted a ton of time and money playing with this crap over the years. As a result of racing my car I have been exposed to a lot of different type forced induction systems. I belong to a small car racing club and our current group has 5 aftermarket turbo systems and 3 aftermarket SC systems. All of which are a little different, all of which our group installed and push to and past their limits.
As of today, there is no SC system on my truck. It's in transit from www.toyotaguys.com. This thread was started as an information sharing deal on what my plans are.  an & Bill, I would hate for you to run out and purchase something because of me, that I have not tried yet myself. Hopefully within the next month I will have the SC and water injection installed and will be able to answer questions with real data and not just my theories.
Damn.....that was a long post.....Woody will probably kick me off this board for taking up too much room!!
Mike
PS - Don't you think I should get credit for more than one post for this one?
Didn't mean to come off as saying you are incorrect on the IC situation, if I did, sorry. You are definitely right, I would much rather have a proper IC set-up than water injection. Just that for this application, I don't know that the delta T on an air/air IC would be worth the pressure drop. I could most certainly be wrong as I have not tried on a LC (if I had a quarter for everytime one of my *theories* didn't work in practice).
I've yet to see a good a/a IC that didn't cost you 1-2psi in the extra piping and flow across the heat exchanger. I'm sure there's one out there, just I have not come accross it yet. The a/a I have on my turbo car is a pretty well designed one (designed by Corky Bell himself) and still hits me for a little under 2psi.  oes not matter there though as I run about 12psi and the turbo I have is pretty efficient up to about 18psi.The a/w IC's are really attractive. Very little to no pressure drop can be achieved and a/w's are very popular with SC's. Just the only one I'm aware of would run me close to $1,000 if I built it. It's a Spearco unit and I'd be happy to run through how the basic design works if anyone is interested. There's surely other ones out there that we could make work though......Laminova makes a great one.....I just don't know where to get it/cost. ???
As far as CON's for water injection. Sure there are some. First, it's a pain re-filling the water tank all the time. You'd likely be surprised how little water it takes, but if you're like Bill (who sounds like he's under boost all the time), it will likely become an irritation. Second, where do you put the water tank?? That's a really good question that I don't have an answer for yet. I've seen them under the hood, in fender wells, & in the trunk. Probably pros and cons to all these locations. The smaller the water tank, the easier it is to locate, the larger the tank, the less times you have to refill it. Hmmm..... I will likely try to put mine under the hood, after working on a Miata for a while the LC has got TONS of room under there!
See if you think you can fit anything else under my Miata's hood:http://miata.cardomain.com/member_pages/view_page.pl?page_id=213822&page=4
The first 2 pictures are my current turbo set-up with an a/a IC and the bottom picture is my old supercharger set-up with an a/w IC. Finally, the last con I can think of for water injection is I have heard that the system could *burp*, expell too much water at one time and hydrolock the motor.
I've not seen an actual case of this myself, but it could happen. To combat this possibility, I plan on getting a quality WI unit, using distilled water to keep it clean and likely bypassing the unit when its not really warm outside or I'm not towing.Bill - funny you mention your wife had a Miata. They are commonly referred to as "girlie" cars!
My car has a whopping 1.6L 4 banger that put out 116hp stock. Mine now puts out 250+hp on stock internals. It's funny to me that little 2200 lb car puts out more hp than my cruiser currently does! :dunno: To answer your question as to why I would choose that particular water injection unit for the 4.5 LC, its just one that I know works well. It's a solid basic unit. It's made my aquamist www.aquamist.com. Aquamist units can be purchased from multiple vendors. Jackson Racing (the company that makes Eaton supercharger systems for Miatas, Hondas & Acuras) sells a unit too:http://www.jacksonracing.com/pages/partsmiata.htmlIt's all the way over to thr right of the screen. It's the same Aquamist unit though just in a pretty red color. I'd bet places like JCWhitney or Summitt Racing sell similar units. I'll likely buy from the original link I posted only because I trust those people and they have great product knowledge.
Dan - yes, it's a knock preventer. If fact that's really the whole point is to lower the charge temp and prevent detonation so that you can run more timing and get more power (can you say run-on sentence??). In fact, alcohol mixed in with the water should have a very wide mis-fire range and could produce a little more power while reducing knock. In *theory* of course.
Dan - As to how often to re-fill. That depends on how often you are in boost and how big of a tank you get. If you are in boost a lot or get a small tank, you *could* have to refill as often as you fill up for gas....you could go a month.
Now for the qualifiers. Guys, I in no way hold myself out to be an expert on this stuff. I'm not a mechanic, I'm just stupid enough to have wasted a ton of time and money playing with this crap over the years. As a result of racing my car I have been exposed to a lot of different type forced induction systems. I belong to a small car racing club and our current group has 5 aftermarket turbo systems and 3 aftermarket SC systems. All of which are a little different, all of which our group installed and push to and past their limits.
As of today, there is no SC system on my truck. It's in transit from www.toyotaguys.com. This thread was started as an information sharing deal on what my plans are.  
an & Bill, I would hate for you to run out and purchase something because of me, that I have not tried yet myself. Hopefully within the next month I will have the SC and water injection installed and will be able to answer questions with real data and not just my theories.Damn.....that was a long post.....Woody will probably kick me off this board for taking up too much room!!
Mike
PS - Don't you think I should get credit for more than one post for this one?
