Water/Methanol injection Tech request.

Also known as ADI.

This technology has been around since WWII, where it was used on supercharged fighter planes.

And later on Turbo Corvairs, etc...

I've been reading up on it, and one sentence that keeps coming up is,
"Many water injection systems use a mixture of water and alcohol (approximately 50/50), with trace amounts of water-soluble oil"

I guess Wiki and the other sites are all copying this sentence from eachother.

But I havent been able to find out exactly what kind of water-soluble oil they are talking about.

I found some code for a BP product that was used in 1944 by the Brits, but it has been discontinued.

Something must have replaced it...



So what is it?

And where can it be found?

 

A "fuel lubricant" for methanol fueled engines may be what you want. You might want to talk to the guys at Klotz. I know of some people using their fuel lube in race engines.

http://www.klotzlube.com/techsheet.asp?ID=51&submit2=View

Plus, they advertise its "racy scent," so, you know, how can you go wrong?

Brian

 

"water-soluble oil"
sounds contradictory, but wtf do I know.

 

It's oil that's emulsified so it will mix with water, it's purpose was to lubricate the mechanicals in the ADI system, pump, valves, etc. One way to emulsify oil is to hydrogenate it. The purpose for using alcohol in the mixture was merely to keep it from freezing, more practical than heating the water injection systems at sub-freezing temperatures. Which, of course is true at al***udes above 10 to 12 thousand feet or thereabouts.



Edit; Pure water gave more power than a mix, but due to operational requirements the ADI fluid had to have an antifreeze component. We did tests with PW R4360-59B in 1956 with different ratios of water/alcohol, and using torquemeter readout it was determined that the higher the water ratio, the higher the torque gain was, when running on ADI.

 

----------------------------
Not quite true. The water cools the charge both in the intake
tract and inside the cylinder when it vapoprizes - but the methanol
also contributes quite a bit of cooling due to it's own very high latent
heat of evaporation. In addition to contributing substantially to the
cooling effect, the alcohol also acts a fual - an naturaly high-octane,
slow-burning, oxygen bearing fuel at that - so it also adds some
power. If the purpose of the methonol was only as an anti-freeze,
you would'nt use it anywhere near as high as a 50% concentration,
even in high al***ude aircraft and in summertime automotive
applications you wouldn't use it all.

Mart3406
===================================

 

That is pretty much the Info I have found sofar.

The Methanol definately has a advantage even here on the ground in hot and sunnny Arizona.

I built a home brewed system, and it works well.

But I'm interested in the oil, because I already had to remove my wastegate once to free it up again due to the extra moisture...


What is it called?

Brand name if possible...

Where do I buy some?

If anybody can help me with that Info, that would be great.


Thanks guys...

 

What about the oil you use in your A/C system? like PAG and ESTER oils? They hold water in your a/c system. don't know how that would work going through your engine though.....

 

most of your modern water/methanol injection systems don't need any kind of lubrication. in fact, most of the shurflo pumps have epdm valves in them and will fail if any kind of petroleum product is flowed through them.

fwiw you can use bean oil if you're dead set on needing some kind of lube. although the truth of the matter is that you don't.

 

Wonder if you could use the top lube/fragrance we mix with methanol in the altered?

cheap and readily available if it would work

 

Mart definitely hit the nail on the head. If you're going to inject anything why not inject more gas? Well running excessively rich to cool and control combustion to prevent detonation is basically wasting fuel. AFR's richer than 11.5:1 are needed in most cases but power increase is very minimal. Water alone definitely has a power gain but in every case I've seen (and I've seen a lot) the more methanol you have the more power you make. You can only inject so much water before you induce a misfire condition. Running a water/methanol mix allows you to inject more and have even better intake air charge cooling plus detonation control without misfires. Methanol burns cool and clean and it has twice the latent heat that gasoline does. Adding in more fuel via methanol will always make more power than using just water alone.

WWII airplane engines aren't really operated the same way a forced induction auto engine is.

 

also, anything petroleum based isn't going to want to mix with water.

 

OK, that pretty much answers my questions.

If the oil was only added to keep the pumps, etc, alive.
And if its obsolete and not needed for my system, I'm not going to worry about it.

( besides... I realised I made a error in my thinking
The wastegate is on the hot side of the engine, after the combustion chamber.
Any oil going into the inlet side wont be oil by the time it gets there...)


Thanks for the Info guys.


But some interesting things were mentioned...

I've seen graphs of tests that were done with 100% water, 50/50% water/ methanol, 60/40% methanol/ water, and 100% methanol.
( old tests, probably done for airplanes )
I'll have to see if I can find them again...


And I've read in other places, that you cant really over feed a engine ( on boost and at RPM )
I guess hydrolocking it would be a limit...


But can you overdo it?

Is there a point where you take too much heat out of the combustion chamber?

Or wash away too much of the oil film on the cylinder walls?

 

yes you can technically over inject too much water/methanol but the chance of hydrolock is nil. it'll misfire waaaay before you could ever hurt anything.

in most cases your water/methanol to fuel ratio is 10-20% (high boost and high heat applications can take 25%-30%) which isn't very much. well you know that you could easily run 10% more fuel and never even think once about washing down the cylinder walls so introducing 10% more of a different kind of fluid (which is in vapor form by time it gets into the combustion chamber) shouldn't wash down the cylinder walls either.

if you think about it, there is about 10 times more fuel present in the combustion chamber as there is water/methanol. if wash down was going to happen wouldn't it happen with the fluid that you have more of?

anyways it's late and i'm tired so i'm rambling but no you won't wash down the cylinders. water/methanol injection is pretty much stupid proof and safe on any motor. btw i don't disclose this much but i'm the product development engineer in charge of this product line. let me know if you have any other questions.

 

Cool...

Thank you very much for all the Info.

I may have some more questions later.

 

BTW, I did have it to the point of misfiring...

( moderately high RPM, no load so little or no boost, 50/50 mix )

But I've toned down the system a bit since then.

 

ah well you found your misfire threshold. either decrease your overall flow rate or increase the methanol concentration (more fuel means more of the fluid is combustible so more fluid can be injected). is your system on/off or is it progressively controlled? what type of vehicle? what type of forced induction? how much boost? intercooled? details on how your injection system is setup?

 

On/Off, but it is two stage.

Boost controlled by two Hobbs Switches reading the manifold pressure.

I use a nitrous plate as as a injector, but maybe the secondary side ( the one that was supposed to flow the nitous ) lets too much through?
( secondary side is off right now, but I think I'll hook it back up, coming in at a higher pressure)

The nitrous plate is sandwiched beween the intake manifold and the Accel adaptor ( on the pressure side )

2775 Pound car( including driver ) with a 351W.

Vintage Accel Draw Through Turbo.

8PSI wastegate

850Holley

No intercooler.

I can set the pressure of the W/M , and I have played with pressures of 12 PSI to 20 PSI sofar.
( once set they stay at that pressure untill I adjust it to a different setting )

 

I saw an article about this in an old Super Stock Magazine I was flipping through a while back. I'll see if I can find it again and scan it for you.

 

Cool..

Thanks.

 

Cheap way out is to use winter windshield washer fluid that comes in the gallon bottles and is available in every Wally mart if you run out in some backwoods area.

 

Yep, I've heard that too.

How does that compare to the 50/50 Distilled water/Methanol mix I'm using now?

 

This is my actual experience as a hobbyist mechanic. I used a water/methanol injection system(ADI) on the 302 GMC in my 37 Chevy truck.The engine was detonating at full throttle around 3000 rpm.This engine isn't supercharged,the system had a digital controller witha lot of tuning for how long and how much was injected.
I was told and read these systems are very effective on supercharged engines and not so effective on non supercharged. Some "experts" also told me the water and or alcohol injected can ruin piston rings and that sorta **** from the oil being washed off the cylinder walls.
Anyways,the system kinda worked,it never completey eliminated the detonation.Might have been because of the deign of the inline intake with a single central injection point. I used Denatured alcohol and water.Denatured alcohol is mostly Ethanol with a little Methanol added to make it non drinkable.I noticed a light power increase,most likely from the reduction in detonation.
After ****ing around alot I decided the system wasn't what I expected,a cure all.I spent time messing with the spark advance curve and carburetor hi speed jetting to get the detonation under control.
I have a lot of WW2 aircraft technical ****.In some cases the ADI injection rate was about 10-20 percent of the gasoline flow.Some of the engines were running upwards of 30 psi boost.Nothing is mentioned off any added lubricant,but that might be a given that isn't mentioned.Plus the fighter aircraft using hi boost had engine lives of less than 400 hours anyways.

 

This is what i ran on my 409 64 chevrolet for 11 years or so ( before i traded the car). Uses windshield solvent , allows only a mist or vapor to enter the engine and stopped spark knock ...works great..... air tex and others made these in a kit form.........i actuall have a few of the kits from the sixtys but this is a home made version..........

 

Mr Shapes
Some of the fellas use windshield washer fluid in them. The lubricant is already in there as it is the same type of pump and at least up here most windshield washer fluid has methanol in it to keep it from freezing.

 

Alex, I am sure you have talked to ElP about this? He is kinda guiding me on a future project. I am going to run a Snow system more than likely.

 

Caution! - Beware of 'Isopropyl' Alcohol!

Just a word of caution, re using windshield
washer fluid or any other pre-mixed 'store
bought' alcohol-containing fluid to inject as
an anti-detonation fluid in an engine. Make
absolutely sure that any pre-mixed fluid you
buy intended for some other use, actually
contains methyl alcohol (- ie -methanol).
Some compounds that you buy may contain
either ethyl aloohol (- ie - 'ethanol' or beverage
alcohol) or Isopropyl alcohol (which is a****
other things, commonly sold as 'rubbing
alcohol' and sometimes used as a medical
disinfectant, solvent, cleaning fluid additive
or anti-freeze compound) It may also be
blended with other types of alcohol - sometimes
with ethanol in order to 'denature[it, to render
it undrinkable. You especially want to avoid
anything containing any amount of isopropyl
alcohol. if you're going to inject it into your
engine. Ethanol, if you can get it in pure enough
form will work ok -just not quite as well as methanol
- because compared to methanol, it has a slightly
lower latet heat of evaporation, so it provides less
of a cooling effect, and has a slightly lower inheirant
octane rating than methanol. But by itself, ethanol,
will at least not hurt anything - it's just less effective
and you need more of it, than methanol. Isopropyl
acohol however, is a whole other story. It has a very
low inherant octane rating and using it will actually
induce detonation rather than prevent it! During WWII,
there's a story about a fleet of new Hawker Typhoon
ground attack aircraft using water-alcohol injection
that suddenly started suffering a rash of sudden and
catastrophic engine faiures. Engineers were rushed
out from Britain to discover the cause of the failures
but where mystified at first, because they coiuld find
nothing wrong with the engines themselves. Likewise,
the fuel was checked and found to be up to spec as
well. Finally the problem was traced down to a
particular batch of ADI fluid that had been shipped to
the unit. The formulation for the fluid specified a 50-50
mix of distilled water and "denatured alcohol"
(denatured , allegedly to keep pilots and ground crew
from drinking the stuff!). At the time, "denatured"
alcohol was either ethanol, cut with with methanol to
render it poisonous and therefore undrinkable , or
straight methanol. However, due to a shortage of
methanol, the company producing the ADI fluid -
without knowing that it would cause any problems,
unwittingly subsi***uted isopropyl alcohol for methanol
as the denaturing agent When the aircraft started using
this particular batch of ADI fluid, the engines suddenly
started experiencing severe detonation, leading to sudden
catostophic engine failure and the loss of several almost
new aircraft. The problem was eventualy traced to the
use of isopropyl alcohol in the ADI fluid and when the fluid
was switched for the proper fluid containing methanol, the
failures stopped. If you're going to buy any fluid not
originally intended to be injected into an engine as an
anti-detonation fluid , make sure you know exactly what
type or types of alcohol (and what other chemicals as
well) that the blend actually contains The safest thing to
do is simply to always blend your own fluid by buying
guarenteed straight methanol and mixing it with distilled
water. That way you know *exactly* what you're injecting
into your engine.

Mart3406
=============================

 

Good Information...

Thank you.

I'll stick to mixing my own.

 

As far as "Soluble oil " goes the stuff sold as cooling system anti-rust is usually soluble oil. S/O is also used in machining as a lube/coolant.

 

This article is from the July '65 issue of Drag Strip:

 

Neat setup. I think the mix of parts you're working with is leaving a lot on the table as far as usable power gains go. I see a couple things holding you back... low pressure, low atomization, unknown flow rate, etc. Shoot me an email tomorrow and I'll get you the nitty-gritty details: nstewart@aempower.com