water/meth injection

[Jungleboi]

Hi guys, not sure if this is the right section, but couldn't find too much in the search section.

anyways.

i'm curious to know if anyone here uses water/meth injection?
i'm thinking about it, not really for the performance gains (would be a bonus though) but for milage and cost

is the an decrease in L/100km?

if so, is the cost of the water/meth and fuel used cheaper in general than just using fuel?

and how much water/meth do you go through?

Thanks

[noone]

I thing the cost of installation and then cost of meth would outweigh any fuel savings.
I've only heard of it being used in high boost applications.

[Greg Roles]

If you own a chook farm and distill your own methanol, you'd save money. Otherwise in a petrol car it's a mild power adder and mainly a chemical intercooler. In a diesel it's additional fuel and it's possible to get a fuel saving, but I reckon also unlikely.

Methanol is an accumulative poison and rather smelly, so it's not a simple thing to play with. It's the component in moonshine that makes you go blind, amongst other things, and is absorbed through your skin.

The progressive kits that could possibly save fuel are the expensive ones, my Snow kit was about $1k landed. That's a lot of fuel.....

Trust the turbo back is going ok!

[Bug_racer]

If your looking at fuel savings then you need to run straight water injection . That way you can use a lower octane fuel and you wont suffer from pre-ignition or knocking . The savings arent huge though , couple of dollars every tank

[popeclement]

See the recent post by J Robbo under Cars of Tigersoft - he mentions the Snow Performance methanol injection on his E39 supercharged M5.

http://www.vwwatercooled.org.au/forums/f188/cars-tigersoft-jrobbos-m5-collection-74566.html

[Scuby_snax84]

I thought about going down the path of water/meth but i heard too many horror stories of blown engines and even witnessed a burnt out bmw 135 caused from water/meth. From what i hear you need to make sure you tank is always full, if you run it empty with the foot flat it could end in disaster.

Im still curious to see what other people say but.

[Greg Roles]

At 50% or below water methanol mix isn't flamable. People think more is better, and yep, it becomes quite dangerous above that ratio. The only way water meth would damage your engine is if you had a tune specific to the water meth, and then when it runs out, you don't have the additional cooling. It's dead simple to add a float switch to the tank, you have to mount them about 2cm high anyway, and it certainly lets you know when you are getting down. I think if an injection kit is laid over a normal ECU tune, then it's fine to run it dry.

The biggest problem is keeping it watertight with no leaks, as it's very smelly and again, quite poisionous.

[Preen59]

Excellent tech info, Greg.


Methanol on it's own burns cooler than petrol. You can also generally run 30% either side of stoich and not suffer any issues. It's extremely forgiving. Anyone blaming water/meth for an engine failure is either misguided or lying.


I wouldn't consider it ridiculously poisonous. We've gotten enough of it on ourselves over the years.. Any speedway racer or drag racer will attest to it being relatively safe. It's only truly harmful if you ingest it or take baths in it for extended periods.


If you're worried about methanol, read the MSDS on nitromethane...

[Greg Roles]

Yeah but Drag Racers can be blind Preeny, you just put them dead straight in staging and tell them not to turn for several seconds.....

[Preen59]

Yeah but Drag Racers can be blind Preeny, you just put them dead straight in staging and tell them not to turn for several seconds.....

Hahaha. I'm not going to bite.


Have you ever read the MSDS (now called an SDS, so I found out yesterday) on Diesel? Yikes!! Methanol's good, clean living compared to that ****! Haha.

[Scuby_snax84]

I think if an injection kit is laid over a normal ECU tune, then it's fine to run it dry.

Do you think you would still see noticeable gains running w/m on a normal tune? I’m assuming if you had your car tuned to suit the w/m you would see more gain. I queried a tuning shop on the use of w/m and they said if you have a good intercooler there is no real point in running it. Thoughts on this?

[Preen59]

You should see some gain. The hotter the weather, the more gain you will see.

The more boost/ignition etc/cylinder pressure you start to develop, the more gain you will see. Basically, the more heat you are removing from the charge, the larger the improvement.

I see in your sig you are quoting 200wkw.. At that sort of level you should see an improvement with water/meth injection. Don't expect 80hp, but you should see a noticeable improvement.


You won't see and negative effects unless you run a far too high dose and the engine runs pig rich..

[kaanage]

I thought about going down the path of water/meth but i heard too many horror stories of blown engines and even witnessed a burnt out bmw 135 caused from water/meth. From what i hear you need to make sure you tank is always full, if you run it empty with the foot flat it could end in disaster.

The "danger" is in an aggressive tune that expect the higher octane rating, lower charge temp/EGT of the water/meth injected intake when driven at high throttle and loading. As Greg says, a float to indicate low mix is a simple indicator of when to back off and maybe switch tunes. If the warning is ignored and engine gets cooked, then that's the driver's fault (same as hammering on 92 octane fuel with a 98 octane tune).

It also helps keep the intake side clean, especially with direct injection engines.

[Greg Roles]

Here's an interesting development from Snow, something I found after a recent event has renewed my interest in meth kits. Bet it will get Preeny's interest. No, I won't be trying it in my poor TDI....my kit has been donated to a "greater cause", I'll have to save up for another one.

Snow Performance : Nitro Booster

[Preen59]

Here's an interesting development from Snow, something I found after a recent event has renewed my interest in meth kits. Bet it will get Preeny's interest. No, I won't be trying it in my poor TDI....my kit has been donated to a "greater cause", I'll have to save up for another one.

Snow Performance : Nitro Booster

That would probably be in the range of 3-5%, I would imagine. I'd be very wary about it. Nitro is like your mate's rottweiler.. Sure, you can have good fun playing with it, but if you don't respect it, it'll bite.

Also, Nitro's very corrosive. When you pull apart a cast iron fuel engine, there's a lot of surface rust on things. It also pits the bores if left to sit without flushing. You even have to service the fuel pump after every putting with oil to stop out seizing.