Quote:
Originally Posted by Signal 2
AI [Water (distilled) or water/methanol injection] won't do anything for fuel economy. It's primary purpose is to remove heat from the intake charge and, ultimately, from the engine. Heat is stress. Turbos create alot of heat. Heat is reduced by AI. It also functions to reduce knock and control carbon build-up over time. So it is beneficial even on a near-stock car and stock boost levels. This is the case with my car and I have AI (water only).
You can google terms like Auxillary Injection and probably get alot better explanation than I can give you here.
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Water/methanol injection serves four purposes, three intentionally and one is a side effect.
The methanol atomizes almost instantly when it enters your intake piping. The process of atomizing leeches heat from the surrounding air, effectively cooling the intake charge. In addition to providing cooling to the air, the methanol adds a little bit of bang for your buck inside the combustion chamber, helping to partially mitigate the non-combustability of water.
Water does not atomize as easily as methanol, as a result you still have the mist of water entering into your combustion chamber. This mist flashes when the actual combustion takes place, it helps to absorb heat from that combustion cycle. The water won't do anything for latent heat during the combustion cycle it's present in, though it WILL help to dramatically reduce the possibility of predetonation. The cooling properties of the water come into play for the
following combustion cycle, as it helps remove latent heat from the chamber as it leaves (colder starting temp = colder ending temp).
On the side water and methanol will help keep your engine spotless when it comes to carbon buildup.
We just cracked my engine open this past Friday because I had a problem with a side seal taking a shit. The rotor face and housings were SPOTLESS! There was literally zero carbon buildup on the rotors, around the apex seals, or in the grooves for the apex seals. I was shocked as I expected there to be at least a little something there.
Cooling and power aside... the ability to combat predetonation and cleaning properties should be MORE than enough reason to spring the $400-$500 a decent A/I kit will run you. I'm personally a fan of the Aquamist kits, I picked up their (now discontinued) basic pressure activated kit while I was in England and recently moved on to their HFS-3 kit with rx-7 Summer Unit (damned A/I is smarter than I am, I'm positive!!) and am loving it!