water/methanol injection systems

[dogfishlake]

I'm looking at different water/methanol injection systems for my 80 and thought I'd ask opinions on anyone's favorites. The Snow Performance MAF stage 2 kit, is my frontrunner so far (I think this is the one Murf used in his write up). There seems to be a couple versions, but the best is the MAF style with the 300 psi pump. This kit runs 499 from snow. It would be cool if anyone had other favorites as well as the best place to buy.

 

[NLXTACY]

I'm in your same boat and so far its the same I will wind up getting.

 

[OGBeno]

Contact CDan.... He set up his system at least 15 year ago if not more.

 

[NLXTACY]

Contact CDan.... He set up his system at least 15 year ago if not more.

@cruiserdan and Photoman's are the same. @Photoman customized some stuff and the shopping list isn't fully known but what I gleaned from discussions and seeing pics:

• Methanol injection kit without using an IC
• Kennedys speed tune was used
• Flojet 90 PSI pump
• MSD rpm trigger switch
• Hobbs pressure switch
• Stainless steel 45º oil boiler nozzle (13g per hour)
• Armed when over 3psi and over 3100 rpm
• Modified the elbow, the second 90 into the blower, positions the nozzle at the mouth of the throttle body
• NOS solenoid shuts off with poisitive shut off
• 50/50 methanol at 90psi
• 70º lower in temp on average

I'm sure one of the two will chime in and correct me

 

[murf]

I got a lot of great information talking to a snow performance tech at their techline. Was impressed with their level of service, information, and suggestions.

 

[scottryana]

13gal/hr is pretty huge. It is probably why they are not kicking it on until 3100rpms. I would go smaller nozzle and kick it on sooner. The 90psi pump is also much lower pressure than most use now days. It has been the idea that a higher pressure pump will atomize better. Most pumps are 200psi or higher.

UNLESS they are using the meth as an additional fuel source since they are OBDI and I think the OBDI trucks tend to run lean. In an OBDII truck in open loop you already run rich so using the meth as a fuel source isn't really needed. In fact it would be way over kill, and you would want to run much more water than meth in your mix as water has a higher enthalpy for heat.

The other thing to think about is lets say you have a 1/2gal meth tank. If you use a 13gal/hr nozzle it is dry in 2min 20 seconds.

My system is a 220psi pump, a 3gal/hr nozzle, with appropriate filters and hoses, etc. Triggered at 2psi and 105 degree intake temps it runs more often but doesn't have large spikes of IAT's.

The more I think about it, I am pretty sure they are using it for additional fuel, which is going to be overkill on an OBDII truck.

@cruiserdan and Photoman's are the same. @Photoman customized some stuff and the shopping list isn't fully known but what I gleaned from discussions and seeing pics:

• Methanol injection kit without using an IC
• Kennedys speed tune was used
• Flojet 90 PSI pump
• MSD rpm trigger switch
• Hobbs pressure switch
• Stainless steel 45º oil boiler nozzle (13g per hour)
• Armed when over 3psi and over 3100 rpm
• Modified the elbow, the second 90 into the blower, positions the nozzle at the mouth of the throttle body
• NOS solenoid shuts off with poisitive shut off
• 50/50 methanol at 90psi
• 70º lower in temp on average

I'm sure one of the two will chime in and correct me

 

[scottryana]

Here is an old post I wrote about water meth to quickly answer some questions.

Ok since this is the tech section and because I am getting quite a few PM's asking, "why in the world I would spray water into my engine?" "I am going to hydrolock my motor" "I have always heard if you get water in your motor you can ruin it" I thought I might try and explain a little better or in detail how or what water/meth injection is.

So the first and biggest elephant is getting water in the engine.
-When you are doing water/meth injection you are using a very high pressure pump (for me 220psi) and a spray nozzle that atomizes to a very fine particle size. When that water mist hits the hot, fast moving air it flash evaporates. You basically have a very humid air just like you might see in Florida after a rain. You do not have large amounts of liquid water entering the engine.

Second big question, why?
- 2 Reasons

1. When you inject the water mist and it changes states from liquid to water vapor it requires quite a lot of energy. This is called the Enthalpy of Vaporization. For water to change from liquid to a gas there is a requirement of 2,260,000J/kg.
This converts to 1020 BTU's per 1lb of water.
A BTU can cool 1lb of water 1 degree Fahrenheit
So you can see that there is a lot of capacity in water injection as an intercooler. This energy comes directly out of the heat in the air in the intake making it cool and dense.

2. The second reason to inject water/meth is the methanol component. While methanol also has some of the cooling properties of water, methanol's Enthalpy of Vaporization is less than half that of water's, the benefit of the methanol is that it is a high octane fuel additive. Pure methanol has an octane rating of 113. Making 91 or 93 seem quite pedestrian. When you are doing a forced induction(FI) setup controlling the combustion time becomes critical. The higher combustion chamber pressures and hotter intake air temps make FI very prone to (preignition/knock/detonation). This can be catastrophic to an engine, reducing the air temps as well as increasing the octane rating gives you great protection.

Ok but why windshield washer fluid?
- Windshield washer fluid is most often around a 70/30 mix of water and methanol. It is relatively cheap, it is easy to find at just about any gas station or auto parts store, it resists freezing because of the methanol content. Really it is kind of the perfect packaging for not only cleaning windows but forced inducted motors too lol. You could spend a lot more on expensive brand names like "Boost Juice" which are nothing more than 51/49 water to methanol but is $9/gal.
http://www.snowperformance.net/boost-juice.html

 

[scottryana]

One more

Hey Noah, I saw your PM, hope you don't mind but I am just going to try and answer them here so that anyone else that might have the same questions might also get them answered.

I didn't do a write up on my kit besides the posting of the entire parts selection and terrible paint drawing a few pages back. My setup is a little unique in that I already had a big water tank that was fabricated for the A/W intercooler and windshield washer tank. It is around 5 gallons. I also did not use a water/meth spray controller because I am using the standalone Haltech and it can be programmed to trigger the relay when I want the pump to fire.

In a more traditional setup you would have a plastic tank of some sort probably around a gallon or 3/4 of a gallon, it would only be for the water/meth system. In that tank you would have a low fluid warning LED that would be wired into the cab (I don't have this as I have a huge tank I just check at fuel ups. I haven't used even a 1/4 of a gallon per tank of fuel). Most water/meth kits use push on tubing, I wanted -an 6 line, so different there, I also wanted an inline filter because I have a lot going on in my tank.

For the TRD system like you have, I would recommend a complete ready to go system. A place like Snow Performance has setup some nice kits. One that would work well with the SC is:

http://www.snowperformance.net/stage-2-maf-boost-cooler.html

You would wire it into your MAF sensor and you could adjust the spray based off of MAF voltage. The Snow performance setup does progressive spay so you could do maybe 30%@2v, 60%@3v, and 100%@4v+ just make sure that you use one of the smaller nozzles. With a positive displacement blower you are always making boost even if you are not positive manifold pressure so their other kit that is tuned off of manifold pressure might not work as well for you.

The other thing to remember is that since you are not looking to substitute methanol as a fuel and are just looking for the water/meth to be a cooling agent the exact and precise tuning is not needed. Additionally if your system fails for some reason, you won't be looking at catastrophic engine loss like the guys that are pumping huge amounts of meth and pushing the timing and boost up. The nozzle that I am using is between the Snow Performance #2 and #3 either would work well.

Now for your need to remove it for inspection, yes you could do that very easily. The only real modification you would need to make would be a way to thread the spray nozzle into the airflow after the SC output before the throttle body, I would assume you could find the same size plug and just thread it in when you pull the nozzle out. I am not sure how picky they are about the other components as long as the nozzle was not connected I would think everything else could stay?

 

[1973Guppie]

I do like the snow performance kits and may decide to run one some day. I had plans to run an air to air intercooler along with the snow kit but nixed that plan and sold the parts as I decided I did not want my engine bay to be that "busy" and to have to modify stuff to smog here in CA. For me the snow kit along with a smaller pulley is a mid range solution that is easily removable/modified for when I have to smog. Plus it keeps things fairly clean looking in the engine bay, no cutting of hood, etc. The only negative I could see to methanol only is running out of the boost juice but I am guessing this is mitigated by the fact that you can use most readily available windshield washer fluid at a parts store.

Now I just gotta find the money to buy it and the smaller pulley.

 

[dogfishlake]

The snow MAF set up is nice because according to Snow, the injection trigger is more precise than boost reference. I emailed them as to the optimal injection point and they said to inject after the MAF and before the throttle body (which bolts to the blower). On a roots style blower (never on a centrifugal blower) they like the mix to help cool the charge and it doesn't harm it. For me, that would be pre intercooler as well but they didn't think it would be a problem. I did some searching as to the idea of water/methanol going through a roots blower and it seems to be accepted practice.

 

[scottryana]

No need to inject pre blower, you run the risk of deterioration of the blades if you inject pre compresser. Water is not compensable and it's flash temp is higher than Methanol, injecting pre compresser you are basically injecting at ambient air temps, so the water might not vaporize. If youre going to run high meth content you also run the risk of corrosion on your intercooler if you inject pre intercooler. Meth strips away the protective aluminum oxide coating and since intercooler fins are so thin so that they can transfer heat they are at risk.

Also if you set your system to have to run on high meth content, because you're injecting precompresser, etc, it takes away your option of using pain water if you're in the middle of no where and run out.

A few different things to think about in an 80 series water/meth setup than a street strip setup that can take 5 gals of meth with them to the dragstrip.

 

[dogfishlake]

Yep, I'm aware of these considerations. The Snow guys were big on it helping on a roots blower. Seems sketchy to me too. I will try to find the articles I read when I get a chance

 

[dogfishlake]

I did inform Snow on exactly what I have and that this is for a 1fz-fe land cruiser

 

[cruiserdan]

@cruiserdan and Photoman's are the same. @Photoman customized some stuff and the shopping list isn't fully known but what I gleaned from discussions and seeing pics:

• Methanol injection kit without using an IC
• Kennedys speed tune was used
• Flojet 90 PSI pump
• MSD rpm trigger switch
• Hobbs pressure switch
• Stainless steel 45º oil boiler nozzle (13g per hour)
• Armed when over 3psi and over 3100 rpm
• Modified the elbow, the second 90 into the blower, positions the nozzle at the mouth of the throttle body
• NOS solenoid shuts off with poisitive shut off
• 50/50 methanol at 90psi
• 70º lower in temp on average

I'm sure one of the two will chime in and correct me

Kennedy's Dynotune actually.....http://kennedysdynotune.com/

14GPH nozzle

It is used for cooling and enrichment.

I did try different size nozzles and bringing it online at a lower RPM. 14GPH at 3,100 works the best for my engine.

Bill did a variant with two 7GPH nozzles but I do not know if he actually ran it.

Mine has been in operation for ~12 years. I have replaced the high pressure side hose between the pump and nozzle once. Other than that everything else is from day-one.

Now that I have said that it will crap-out next week.....

 

[cruiserdan]

No need to inject pre blower, you run the risk of deterioration of the blades if you inject pre compresser. Water is not compensable and it's flash temp is higher than Methanol, injecting pre compresser you are basically injecting at ambient air temps, so the water might not vaporize. If youre going to run high meth content you also run the risk of corrosion on your intercooler if you inject pre intercooler. Meth strips away the protective aluminum oxide coating and since intercooler fins are so thin so that they can transfer heat they are at risk.

My blower just came back from overhaul at PSE. It had 113,000 miles on it with meth/water the whole time. The rotors looked pretty good to me when I pulled it and Ed said the rotors were in excellent condition.

 

[scottryana]

Yeah makes sense with the OBDI's that run lean to have to run such a big nozzle since you are using the meth for fueling enrichment as well. The OBDII trucks wouldn't benefit much from this though I think.

Everyone on the board considering water/meth is pretty smart so I will just leave it alone and let everyone make their own plans on what they think will work best for their particular setup.

 

[scottryana]

Where are you injecting? Are you running 50/50 water/meth? Measured by weight or volume?

The flash point of methanol is 54F with a boiling point of about 140F, while water won't flash and boils at 212, if you are using a lot of methanol it could vaporize in the close to ambient air pre compressor, but I wouldn't trust water to do that.

If you ran out of your water/meth mix, I wouldn't dump 14GPH of straight water into the blades. But I wouldn't hesitate to do it after since it is going to significantly hotter.

But like you said you are using the Methanol for enrichment because you need it being an OBDI truck, unnecessary on an OBDII truck.

My blower just came back from overhaul at PSE. It had 113,000 miles on it with meth/water the whole time. The rotors looked pretty good to me when I pulled it and Ed said the rotors were in excellent condition.

 

[cruiserdan]

I'm not pretty smart. I relied on Kennedy's recommendation and Bill's help.

Do continue to comment, please.

 

[cruiserdan]

Where are you injecting? Are you running 50/50 water/meth? Measured by weight or volume?

50/50 by volume, distilled or reverse-osmosis if distilled is not available.

The nozzle is in the second elbow pointed at the throttle body inlet.

 

[cruiserdan]

If you ran out of your water/meth mix, I wouldn't dump 14GPH of straight water into the blades.

Good to know. I have never been in that situation.

What would you expect to see if the methanol ratio was increased. Say 75% or greater? Maybe straight?

Kaboom?