I made one 25 years ago with a vacuum switch, a windshield washer tank/pump and a needle valve. The switch came out of an early '70's Ford and turned on a light that said poor fuel economy. I put one nozzle in the air cleaner lid. Use a Vega oil pressure switch that turns off the electric fuel pump when the engine is not running to control the water injection so it does not run if the switch is on but the engine isn't. If you want to get fancy install two vacuum switches set at different pressures and run one through a resistor so you get light flow at medium vacuum and more flow at no vacuum. The last batch of these made by Edelbrock, etc. varied the flow with RPM.
ive been plannin on doin a tech post about water injection... actually water/alchahol injection (75% distilled water, 25% denatured alch). Maybe now ill get off my **** and take the pics and write it.. Run it on my '55 plymouth with a warmed over 383- lets me get by with 89 octane... and on my daily driver, 200k mile POS 318 powered dodge truck... curbs detonation quite well. Yeah... a lot of people are gonna say "retard the ignition, and you dont need the damn water injection"... BUT it lets me run a mean advance curve, with all the benefits, and i dont have to run only high grade gas... Plus i get about another mile per gallon on the daily driver... All the parts are redily available, between the auto parts store, and home depot... for about $20. Also McMaster Carr, Grainger, and other industrial suppliers (that ship internationally) carry the parts... in particular, the mist nozzle/jet, and check valve, which are the only parts the auto parts house dosent carry... ill get the pics and stuff, and post it tonight... as for sites: http://www.dawesdevices.com/howto.html It details the install on a turbo car... just ignore the boost switch, subs***ute a vacuum operated switch, and it gives you a good idea...
Yeah, Ol'55, Darren Dawes knows his stuff. It isn't really water injection, think of it more as "mist" injection. If you have a frying pan on the stove with nothing in it, and you DUMP a cup of water on it, it'll spatter all over the place and steam and get violent. BUT if you sprayed it with a light mist, it wouldn't have enough volume to cause anything bad to happen, it would instantly evaporate, which is a cooling process. Same thing in your engine, if you mist the water into the engine, you won't hydrolock it, but you'll reduce the temps enough to play with timing or run cheap gas, or in the case of Mr. Dawes, run more boost.
I believe that the most extensive data on water injection would have to be found in the unlimited air racers. 5,000 h.p. for a long race in a desert, with high compression, high temps. "Yep..., it's drinking time!" Give me a few minutes and I'll s**** up the "Tech" manual! Mark
Well in Realstate this equates to a couple of minutes...,(six hours ) but here's the info I promised! www.h2oinjection.com and a simulator site! http://www.aafo.com/flightsims/xtreme/g-1/ http://www.aafo.com/flightsims/reno/index3.htm Lots of fun reading..., I hope that answers some questions! Mark
The Jalopy Journal
