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Engine Specific Info and Questions => IDI Engine => Topic started by: shakakan on October 05, 2004, 05:17:57 pm
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I just had a thought after reading through all the posts on this board. Noone has mentioned water injection in pursuit of more power. While my experience with these cars is limited, I know good power gains can be gained in competitive pulling tractors. I don't imagine a system would be that hard to fab up. Just a thought.
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ok i might be wrong but i thought water injection was used on gas cars to lower intake temps to reduce detonation. because deisels dont inject the fuel till its time to burn there isnt detonation unless you rig up a system to work with a propane injection system :D
anyway just my $.02
by the way if im wrong about anything plz tell me
mark
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Water did two things, Cooled intake charge Cooler=denser+more fuel =more power Second part, which I am not sure is true, under the instense pressure in the cylinder, water is broken into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen has the same effect as propane, and oxygen allows for much more thorough combustion. This should generate further power.
My experience is with an International 60xx series tractor that is heavily modified for pulling. Propane injection is not allowed in the class we pull in, but we do use water injection, and there is a substantial increase in power with injection.
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hmm.
i never thought of it that way. it shouldn't be that hard to do. i was actually designing one for my turbo 16v project that never happened. anyway i heard of people just spraying a stream of water right on the compressor blade and the spinning of it atomizes the water. anyway my plan was to use parts from a gas engine, fuel pump and injector and atomized the water before the turbo so it get even better atomized when it goes through it. anyway there would be more to it than that but thats the basis of it. the only problem is corosion form the water inside the pump and injector. but besides that i think it would work pretty good. my dads in the montreal and toronto area for the next 2 weeks so i cant get him to help me build it. if u have any suggestion id be very apreciative.
mark
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one more question. is that international 60xx a diesel or what kinda fuel does it run on?
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Definately a diesel. A gas tractor is like a diesel weed eater, it just don't work!
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I once heard about a racer who poured hydrogen peroxide into his gas tank claiming it increased power by splitting apart during combustion. I mixed hydrogen peroxide and gas together in a glass jar, and they separated immediately. Shake it up, and they'd separate immediately. I didn't pour any in my gas tank. If it's true about them splitting during diesel engine combustion, then hydrogen peroxide has (i think) a couple more O's than water. Any chemists here have any insight on this?
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Hydrogen peroxide readily breaks down into steam and oxygen when exposed to a catalyst, heated above 80ºC, shaken etc. The kind you get in the store (3% with water) is pretty much useless though. You need the 80-90% rocket fuel stuff, which is fairly dangerous and must be handled with great care. If injected into the intake, the peroxide would likely decompose during compression and cause engine damage. It would need to be mixed with the fuel using some kind of co-solvent, but then you would have a shock sensitive explosive. It might not be a good idea to pass this mix through a hot, high pressure injection pump.
Other oxygenates might work better. Nitromethane is very safe and could likely be blended with diesel. It might require a cosolvent like isopropyl alcohol. Ethers and alcohols themselves are also good candidates. These would be a bit hard on injection pump internals but might work for racing use.
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Water did two things, Cooled intake charge Cooler=denser+more fuel =more power Second part, which I am not sure is true, under the instense pressure in the cylinder, water is broken into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen has the same effect as propane, and oxygen allows for much more thorough combustion. This should generate further power.
Water does act as a charge coolant in a turbocharged diesel, but it does not break down into hydrogen and oxygen in the cylinders. The action of water in a cylinder depends on whether it is injected as a liquid or as a gas (in the chemical sense). If the water is injected sufficiently far upstream of the intake valve to fully evaporate, it enters the cylinder as a gas. This technique cools the intake charge but displaces air (and hence oxygen). Nonetheless, it is the prefered technique for turbocharged gasoline engines since their primary aim is to reduce or delay detonation. OTOH, if the water is injected close to the intake valve and is ingested as a liquid (tiny droplets), it displaces far less air. The water then evaporates as the piston ascends in the cylinder, again cooling the charge somewhat, but more importantly converting to steam. When water converts to steam at normal atmospheric pressure it displaces something over 1500 times its volume of air. For example, 1 cc of liquid water converts to 1500+ cc of steam. In a cylinder this steam increases the cylinder pressure and hence the torque of the compression stroke. That is the power increase you feel in your tractor, shakakan.
Stan
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quicktd,
are you saying that just like dumping methanol in the tank with the diesel would work or do you mean put methanol in the water injection system??
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Bruce, You're going to have to grow a long grey beard and start wearing only loincloths, cuz I'm going to start calling you Wise Old Man. (hm.. WOman for short.. heehee!)
[ For example, 1 cc of liquid water converts to 1500+ cc of steam. In a cylinder this steam increases the cylinder pressure and hence the torque of the compression stroke. That is the power increase you feel in your tractor, shakakan.
Stan
AHA!! thankyou Stan.
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quicktd,
are you saying that just like dumping methanol in the tank with the diesel would work or do you mean put methanol in the water injection system??
No, methanol will not mix well with diesel and is highly corrosive to aluminum so it would be hard on the pump. Isopropyl will mix to some degree. I believe powerservice "Diesel 911" de-icer is mostly isopropyl alcohol. I would encourage you to test before trying and be prepared to lose an injection pump or 2 to "science". The gains from alcohols will be very minimal but might be worthwhile in an all out drag car. You have to remember that the energy density of most alcohols is much lower than diesel so injected quantity would have to be increased when running such a blend. Most alchohols are mildly corrosive to aluminum, so the mix would need to be flushed from the pump before shutting the car down.
TDIRS has injected methanol directly into the intake with good success. I would be surprised if its detonation threshold (octane) were higher than propane so, like propane, it may not work well in indirect injection diesels.
I'd like to get a bucket of nitromethane and play around with that. It's a good oxygenate and improves power in almost any engine it is used in. Years ago bardahl sold cans of the stuff blended with a cosolvent for mixing with gasoline. Not sure if this stuff is still available.
Nitromethane/methanol blends (model aircraft fuel) are not mixable with petroleum fuels. Cheaters in motorcycle racing used this to their advantage. They would "float" gasoline above a nitro/alcohol mix in their tanks, like a bar shooter. The carbs had to be jetted for the nitro/alcohol mix, so the engines ran horribly once it was used up. By this time though, they were well in front of the pack. At the end of the race all that was left in the tank was legal race gas...
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i was reading on a ford idi powerstroke forum of someone that had a water injection system useing windshield washer fluid. he injected it straight into the intake manifold and said theres was about a 200 degree drop in egt's and an increase in power. what is in windsheild washer fluid because i dont think i would wantt hat running through my car's engine, well actually i wouldn't really care because my engine needs to be replaced anyway.
mark
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Windshield washer fluid consists of methanol, water, detergents/surfactants and dye. It probably wouldn't hurt anything if it went into the cylinder as a vapor. I would worry about oil breakdown from the detergents if it made it to the cylinders as a liquid though.
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Bruce, You're going to have to grow a long grey beard and start wearing only loincloths, cuz I'm going to start calling you Wise Old Man. (hm.. WOman for short.. heehee!)
Who's Bruce...? 8)
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Who's Bruce...?
That would be me.
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ok,
so would windsheild washer fluid add power then if it has methanol in it? im not worryed about oil breakdown because im rebuilding my engine soon anyway. the way i see it the water would do its evaporating thing and add more cylinder pressure so more torque while acting as a charge coolant so the methanol doesn't detonate. then the methanol would add power. and the detergents would just shorten the life of my engine.
i really want to get as much power out of this thing that i can except i don't have thousands of dollars to spend on it. so do you think the power gains would be worth the time and money to build such a system?
anyway thanks alot for the help so far
mark
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If you want me to tell you it'll all work out just fine, it ain't gonna happen. :D Like any modification, it's an experiment. Be prepared to lose an engine over it and don't blame me for the loss. I've never tried this because I need my car for daily transportation. I have spoken to others that have used methanol and water injection with some success.
You want to be careful of the quantity injected. Start small. Too much will hydraulic lock the engine and bend the rods. At low RPM the risk of hydraulic lock is much greater due to the quantity per cycle being larger. Also watch out for "pooling" of the fluid in the intercooler and piping. If the engine gets a big gulp of liquid it will be destroyed. When injecting anything flammable into the intake of a diesel, make absolutely sure to have a fail safe method of turning it off that is within easy reach of the driver. The engine will run away if fuel is provided. I wouldn't recommend injecting anything ahead of the turbo. Droplets will erode the blades of the compressor. You need a pump capable of overcoming boost pressure to get it in downsteam of the turbo. Something that develops 50-60psi would be good. Make sure to install a check valve in the line to prevent boost pressure from pressurizing the tank when the pump is switched off. I would set it up to turn on only at WOT (switch on throttle linkage) and full boost (pressure switch) and only when manually armed by a dash mounted switch.
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ok thanks,
that was my new idea after reading about it. something like a 100 psi pump and injecting it into the bottom of my last intercooler tube at 10 psi boost, WOT, and have an arming switch. start with a 0.02 gpm injector and work my way up till it starts not being happy with it. my intercooler was also modified and mounted in a way that it is possible to drain it out. im talkin more of oil because my turbo is acting like a secondary oil pump. yes i kno what the dangers are of putting liquid into my engine but i am willing to take that risk. my only question was do you think it will add enough power to make up for the time involed in building and testing such a system? cuz i don't wanna spend the next week builing it to find that it makes not much of a difference at all. does anyone have a calulation that shows airflow into 1.6L TD engines? so i can figure out how much water is needed?
thanks for the help.
mark
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i use it,,i made a dirtball setup that sprays in the intake,,the turbo books ive read,says thats ok,,put a momentary button on the shifter,got an ol washer bottle located in pass.side footwell routed to the hole in the int tube that normally held bov hose,ploayed w.some spray tips+old carb jets+stuff,,make it secure,remember to think in yer design,if it falls off u eat mr turbo,,,,i spray it in top gears, like 4th-5th,drops egt 150f or so easy,better systems use boost to = the psi,so you can spray it in compressed side of int,,mine works,and costs me a bottle of blue washer fluid every 500-750 up to 1k miles,,doesnt freeze,,has some meth in it for better cooling+power,,the poor mans naws :D :evil:
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This is a good resource of parts:
http://www.alkycontrol.com/
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my setup was made fromstock vw parts,,and iinject water into the turbo inlet,,no need for hi psi pump,,,i use washer fluid,,been doin it for a few years,,,iknow it works,,,heres proof,,,,,drivin onrt 80 thru pa,,going up a hill,,and holding steady throttle to hold speed up hill,,,activate the water,,and iihave to let up on throttle,,cause itll accelerate,if i want to hold steadyspeed,,,,like,to hold a steadyspeed up a hill i may need like 8 psi boost,,,,but then i water inj. it,and let up on throttle,to hold speed,,itll drop to 5-6 psi,,,,,i used a a2 washer bottle,mounted onpass side floor,,routed line to intake,and used a carb jet from my old 73 suzuki 125,,and this is funny,,the jet is marked "125" also,,,,glued jet in hose securely,,cause it would suck (literaly),to injest a jet into the turbo,,,but no probs sofar,,when im really beating on it, i notice 150-200f reduction in egt,,,ihave it setupwith a button on the shifter,,,suppose you could activate it with a wot switch,,but i like mybutton,,the button scared the tire guy who installed new tires+alignment,,,he thought it was nos,,i just let him keep thinkin,,,,,,, :D
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