Mileage Mod or Green Technology

[ORCoaster]

I have searched the forum here but do not find much mention of water vapor injection.  I would like to run the blowby from the rocker cover through a volume of water and then have it pumped into the top of the intake box behind the air filter.   This kind of water injection was common 20 to 30 years ago and now it has been converted to the HHO idea.  I do not want to go with that idea.  Why tax the alternator and reduce millage that way? 

Has anyone tried this method?  I have the understanding that it benefits our diesels in several ways.  Mileage increase (10%), Cleaner burning of the fuel we do use so less black out the back, and the vapor cleans Coke out of the pistons.  No not that cola drink goof ball.  The hard nasty black crap we have to chisel out of the rings. 

So given a great weekend in Portland I think this will be my next mod.  I will be able to test it out come Thursday on my drive back to the coast.

Any feedback?  Good, bad or indifferent, I will read and respond to all.

Thanks.

[RadoTD]

I think I'm missing something here.

On the stock system, crankcase blowby is already thrown into the intake. What would running it through water first change other than making it more humid?

You say the idea has been converted to HHO, but that requires breaking the water down into oxygen and hydrogen

[ORCoaster]

RadoTD,

You are correct that the stock system feeds crankcase blow by to the intake.  That means the oil gets consumed in the subsequent combustion of the next strokes.  Nothing new there.  But now take that oil laden air and run it through some water and yes the vapor now returns to the intake.  It is the little bit of moisture in the air combined with the injection of the diesel that creates a slightly different combustion flavor if you will.  There is a twist on this method that I will look into once I get the basics down, and it is to use a combination of methanol and water in a 25 75 mix.  That adds a different flavor to the burn of the diesel and provides a different result.

What I mean about the HHOl is that they are taking stainless steel rods and screen and applying a charge across them to get the gases in the water to come out and be blown into the intake much the same as I described with the plain water.  So it is just the idea of cycling the blow by through charged water for the HHO folks. 

I think simpler is better and do not see why electricity needs to be involved here.  That seems counter productive at best.  I kind of like the idea that the engine only needs one charged wire to keep it running.  A fuse and a switch on the fuel solenoid is a good deterrent to those that would try to steal my car.  If folks knew it got the kind of mileage it does they might want to be all over it.

[DJPyro]

Ok, that's kinda what it sounded like, so basically you're proposing to run your PCV into the tank of a water/meth injection system and spit the oily water in, rather than just one or t'other... I'm not sure how this would be that much better than running a catch can, and a water/meth injection system...

[burn_your_money]

The thing that worries me is shutdown. Your engine will have just inhaled a bunch of moist "air" and you may be putting your cylinder walls at a greater risk of rusting.

Other than that I am skeptical but would love to see results.

[ORCoaster]

I don't think the amount of water that gets taken into the intake air is all that much.  Compare the amount of blow by volume coming out the pipe to the total amount going into any one cylinder.  One half gallon (2 L) of water lasts a long time as it never gets directly delivered to the cylinder.  It must go through a change of state from liquid to gas before it can move out of the storage bottle. 

I really am more interested in the cleaning aspects of this method than the mileage.  But a clean engine always runs more efficient than a dirty/out of tune one right? 

I also am just a tinkerer at heart I guess, if I can get 50 mpg with the set up I have can I get 55 mpg with something else that will pay me back in short order.  I do not have a turbo and probably won't get one either.  I will just run it stock and keep it simple and take longer to get there.  But I do understand the value of running a few psi boost to lean out the combustion mix and get more MPG.

[Mark(The Miser)UK]

But a clean engine always runs more efficient than a dirty/out of tune one right? 

Interesting topic, and I'm sure the expansion of water, cooling of peak temps,etc will have some benefits, but where did you learn the above nugget?
I'm a little skeptical, especially on an engine in less than perfect condition...

[ORCoaster]

I started my search months ago looking at CNG systems.  Then thought Propane would be a better choice as it is more available.  From there I looked at the HHO systems as that was a gas thing similar to the others but lately I thought NO, just go back to the water only thing.

See my dad was a testing engineer for the Ford Motor Co. in Dearbon, MI.  Not exactly a radical but he would tune the family vacation prior to our 10 hr drive to grandma and pa's house and get 20 mpg out of a fully loaded Country Squire station wagon.  7 kids, a cartop carrier and 70 mph.  So I thought he pretty much knew what he was doing.  He would use a hand held spray bottle held over the open carb and rev the engine with one hand and squirt with the other.  After that application of fluid the car ran real good.  I think he used a mixture of water and ethanol but who knows really.  He didn't share that knowledge. 

So read the links below.  I have hit them and they seem to be a quick summary of what I have found.  Hope they spark your interest.

For those of you with turbos and trying to cool those EGT down.  Take a look, you have to hook it up differently but it seems to add to the power, lowers the temps, and allows more boost and timing changes.

http://www.dave-cushman.net/misc/mannject.html  Pertains to card systems
http://www.coolingmist.com/   Not validating the vendor just the technology
http://www.labontemotorsports.com/ontrack/DIS_WP.pdf
http://www.greaseolineplus.co.cc/WaterInjection.html  Don't laugh to hard at the hillbilly spin on this site, the information is still there.  Just has a different delivery method.
And of course the absolute reference in the world.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_induction

[mtrans]

One half gallon (2 L) of water lasts a long time as it never gets directly delivered to the cylinder.  It must go through a change of state from liquid to gas before it can move out of the storage bottle. 

If real WI than 2 L is small,it`s more than 10L/100km if you use 6-10 bar,and it`s fog like you said.I use windscreen pump and consume about 1 L ,only hi rev or hill.
Mark there near you is http://www.interexmotorsport.co.uk/

[ORCoaster]

See this is the confusing thing about the topic WI (water injection)  It can mean squirting water into the air stream, water into the fuel, or water as a vapor.  They all class out as WI but the big difference is that some work on diesel, some on gasers.  I am really centered on the vaporization of water and having that routed to the intake air.  All done without high tech metering devices, feed back mechanisms or anything else like that. 

I went to Home Depot and picked up some vinyl hose, some fittings, and clamps.  It cost me less than 20 buck.  I drank the last of the milk in the half gallon container I had in the fridge, washed it out, drilled it up and installed it in 20 minutes.  It works, it bubbles any way.  Does it provide the cleaning, the cooling and the mileage.  Give me a couple of weeks to tweak it and I will let you know.  I should get myself a photobucket account and shoot some pictures today.  I am painting the outside of my place today but might just camera the car to have them for tonight.

Everybody interested?

[VW Smokr]

Your Dad's pre-vacation drive action of spraying water or water-alcohol into the throat of a carb, was an age-old way of knocking down the various carbon deposits around combustion chambers. It works, and as a result, you got to take those vacation cruises with the pre-knock sensor ignition timing advanced just a little, but not causing pinging... good for mileage and good for power in most of the older gassers (yes, I still have a Ford 'Squire' wagon!).

IMHO that's a totally different subject from water injection, and especially from using the small amount of water vapor that your VW diesel's crankcase pressure might push over into the intake stream to any advantage in the work of daily driving (or even vacation trip driving). Along with mtrans, I'm betting that you'll need a lot more water, and at higher pressures to gain enough aqueous "fog" (itself widely separated liquid drops, not really a true gaseous vapor, strictly speaking) to see any significant change in mileage, power, or even combustion temps.

OTOH it doesn't sound like anything that will kill your ride, so standard experimentation advice is in order... document all steps, pics of everything, chart lots of accurate data, and report back. Who knows; it will be interesting.

Cheers.


J.R.
SoCal

[ORCoaster]

I was responding to the question of where I got the nugget of information from when talking about good ole dad.  Yes, very big difference between a spray of water at slight rev than what I am trying to do.  

Did a 1974 Country Squire even have an ignition sensor?  Back then a guy could tweak a distributor with a wrench and a timing light.  Remember that?

For whatever reason my rate of airflow out the VC tube it pretty high.  Maybe a function of the vacuum pump dumping into the lower crankcase?  At any rate it does bubble the water to the point of creating a cloud of mist.  I can see it working its way to the intake in the cool of the morning.  I was thinking of gauging the output or the bottle to see what kind of pressure is there but my guess is that it is pretty low.  .25 lbs or so.  

I need to fill up prior to heading south then I will be able to separate this mod from the last.  Changing the fuel mix.  

[burn_your_money]

One other thing I just thought of, if I am imagining what you are describing accurately then you have just significantly increased the amount of crank case pressure. You may notice some oil leaks that you didn't have before.

Pictures please

[ORCoaster]

Give a guy a chance with the Photobucket learn'n curve.  Yikes!  Although I did mention them earlier.

Trying to eat and upload at the same time was not working.  Pictures taste terrible.

I wonder if I should be gauging the back pressure between the bottle and the takeoff at the VC?  I didn't think the inch or so of water showing in the hose before I start it up presents much of a head pressure on the system.  My dipstick isn't popping out of its holder yet and I don't have issues with leaks at this time.  

Should I post the bottle picture?  Photo bucket Orcoaster albums.
http://s1087.photobucket.com/albums/j475/Orcoaster/

[wdkingery]

Well considering the amount of blowby I have im certainly gonna be stealing this idea!