ALKY saves motor

[Razor]

Truth be told..until you have tried it..cannot say there is a better way. After the feedback from supercharged and turbocharged vehicles running my progressive and keeping stable AFR using wide band O2 sensors.. dont knock it till ya try it.

I guess the electronics are there, and I could make it track under RPM's. But the fly in the ointment is that alcohol is needed to control detonation. On a forced induction vehicle detonation typically occurs with load/boost. Not RPM's. In other words if you rev the motor in neutral, do you want alcohol to spray? Would seem like a problem doing this. Maybe RPM and boost. Whereas track of off RPM's and only when Vac/Boost is at zero or above.

The original water injection systems were RPM controlled for normally aspirated engines. Like Varijection, from Edelbrock.

Depends on application.. call me and discuss it.. maybe we can get what you want made.

I'm always game to make something better..this keeps me ahead of everyone else..

HTH

Julio

 

[JDEstill]

Well, my reasoning is as follows:
- it would be best to treat water/alky just like fuel. Just like you want to be able to set control your air:fuel ratio, I think you also want to be able to control your air:alky ratio.
- if you have a setup that sprays a constant amount of alky all the time, then at low boost and low rpms you are probably "rich" with regard to the air:alky ratio, and then at high boost/high rpms you are "lean".
- similarly, if you had a very simple fuel controller, you might be able to make the car run with spraying a constant amount of fuel, but it would be rich down low and lean up top. It might run, but if it did it would not run to its potential.
- progessive injection vs. boost would be one way to help control the air:alky (and similarly air:fuel), at least as manifold pressure rises you get more injected, which is what is needed.
- progressive vs. rpm would be better, because air flow will change more between 3000 rpm and 6000 rpm at constant boost than it will from say 20 psi to 30 psi at constant rpm.
- therefore if the injection was progressive with rpm, you'd keep a lot closer to a constant air:alky ratio, and therefore maximize performance. No trying to tune out a rich bog down low while still maintaining a good flow at the top end.
- Plus, you know the rpms will vary during a run. Hopefully the boost will stay where you set it!
- I can see how on a centrifugally supercharged car, with the way it's boost level varies with rpm, would work as good or better with the progressive vs. boost instead of progressive vs. rpm. But I think a turbo car would be better suited for the rpm.
- of course, the absolute best answer would be to have it progressive with both rpm and boost. And now we have... a separate ecm! And don't think I haven't thought about it. That would be perfect - a separate ecm to control a water inj system. Perfection... *sigh*
- as for on/off, I'm thinking a Hobbs type switch or MAP sensor to turn the system off and on, and the rpm scaling to control the amount injected.

John

 

[Razor]

John, point taken... but heres a different way to look at things. See one problem you havent taken into consideration is pump tracking time. Whereas you expect a pump to make rapid shifts in pressure settings which cannot happen. We are dealing with a motor not a fuel injector. This will always be a problem of sorts. If you use a small pump, then flow is diminished but it tracks pressure better. The larger the pump, the more it can put out..but its mass is an issue...Like a small block vs big block rev'ing

So trying to vary pressure in minute changes doesnt make too much a difference to your alky/air fuel ratio. See when you tell the pump to spray, its spraying against a pressurized track of air. So its having to fight this obstacle, then you have the mass of the pump which has to pressurize lines above and beyond to get the liquid misted into the motor. And this air thats now saturated with alky is getting sucked into the cylinders. A lot of stuff is happening really quick. Using a smaller pump will track pressure better, but then has reduced output capabilities. Like the difference between the Shurflo/flojet pump and an EFI pump. The EFI pump will accellerate faster to the pressure due to its size, but then has the flow/pressure problem. It cannot move the same volume. Let alone the media we spray we need reliable pumps.. I have a mini version of the Shurflo i'm currently performing tests on..just for pressure tracking purposes.

The engine can only take air thats saturated in alky up to a point. Beyond that alky bogs the motor down..its not like an infinite fuel that you can keep increasing pressure and have success. everything has a limit. The point where it reduces performance is then the time to figure out what to do next.

The idea of the progressive is to offer increased alky flow at higher demand levels, yet keep these pressure levels low to when the motor doesnt need it. So we dont have AFR going down to 8:1 when the alky hits the motor. Its really more of a drivability thing. Once you figure how much alky the motor needs at 26 PSI.. There is nothing in the world that is going to make more power.. problem has been getting to the 26 PSI and when the car is at 27 or 25 and your setup for 26.

I mean to really get things complicated, use the new NOS NOSzzles and inject alcohol along with an additional nozzle in the up-pipe for air saturation. Then control both systems of off vehicle load, IAT, knock, rpms, boost, etc.. make an ECU for the alky. have it track of off boost and make it a separate fuel system.

At the present time while sounds like a great idea, its one of those that a really complicated system $$$ wont move. Few want to spend 1000 bucks on a sophisticated controller that will require tons of time to dial in. And in the end the gain may be less than .1-.2 tenths at the track.

Alky saturates air. Trying to tame it like a fuel injector with exacting precision may not yield the results you expect. In a crude sense it works so well..it doesnt need this level of refinement, only on paper. Lots of stuff made for our cars with great hype..look at companies like Kenne Bell.. how much of that stuff really doesnt work but on paper

One of my first PAC kits went on a supercharged Camaro running a Paxton. Customer owns a wide band.. and gets flat 11.7:1 AFR from 3 to 8 PSI. When the car goes to 9 PSI..it adds a little more alky.when its at 7 it takes away. Yet on paper one would believe that RPM's would be better. FWIW, he previously had a system that switched on at 3 PSI and would drop the AFR's down to the lower 9's before changing over.

What can I say..trying to keep things as simple as possible. I'll keep the rpm experiment in mind

 

[EnzoFerrari]

How about controlling the alky injection with a pwm table within my ecu? I've been thinking about setting up a system with my car and my ecu has plenty of on/off tables as well as pwm tables that would be able to control alky inj depending on load/rpm.

 

[Razor]

I doubt your ecm can deliver 15 amps to a pump. So an interface will have to be made to modify the signal from the ecm and drive the pump. Like an amplifier of sorts.

I like the load idea.. problem is on our Buick ecm..it maxes out at 255...with an aftermarket ecm..thats a possibility. Same principle is to use the MAF signal. I may try the experiment of running a translator/extender and tracking off the signal wire. But...

So far i've been very happy tracking off of boost. It has been extremely efficient and simplistic. And not that I dont mind playing with ideas..just that when I see a problem, thats when I like addressing it. If i'm not having any AFR issues..its a lot of work and $$$ for no results.

Julio

 

[EnzoFerrari]

Forgot to mention im not using a stock ecu. Im using an autronic sm2, which has plently of options.
Im also thinking of using the aquamist high speed solenoid valve with will be controlled with my SM2.

I was thinking of using a pressure switch to requlate water pressure. This will also control the pump. So the ecu is not controlling the pump but rather requlating flow thru the high speed valve. Basically the same concept as the aquamist setup.

 

[Razor]

On a Buick we would need like 4 of those valves and 4 aquamist pumps. So I hope you map out your displacement and the size of those valves.

I assummed an aftermarket ECU due to the original post. And yes I'm aware of the aquamist setup. Let us know if you ever figure it out.

And you had to go and mention water... I now know you've been reading a lot of propaganda. Like oil treatments.. lots of stuff on paper says it does this and that..yet real world.. is another story. You'll be hard pressed to find anyone running high volumes of water and making any "real" power vs using higher concentrations of alcohol. Real as to on the track not on a dyno/it feels faster.. And I see it now..all the 200 HP guys will chime in..my car gets an extra 3 degrees timing on water. Not saying water doesnt work. But when you can replace fuel with alcohol... i'll leave this here

Get your pumps, selenoids, nozzles, lines all alcohol compatible..that way you can play with different levels of concentrations.. and you'll see what works and doesnt on your particular vehicle. But this is the first part.

Good luck

 

[EnzoFerrari]

How many jets do you guys use on buicks?
I'm definitely going to doing a lot of r&d to find with concentration works the best for me.
Also how much alky do you need to inject on a buick?
I was thinking about 300cc/min for my car running about 20~25lbs of boost.

 

[Razor]

Well depends on how fast a Buick.. the faster cars can handle a lot more. I would say something like 900cc per minute.

Nozzle flows 15 gallons per hour at 100 PSI. = 32 oz per minute. cc to oz conversion... 1oz = 29.5 cc

29.5cc x 32 = 944cc/min. A bit more than 300cc

This is on a 3.8 liter motor. Most 12 second cars can consume 4-6 ounces per pass. Thats between 20-30 oz per minute. Once the motor makes more power and flows better, you can see the number increasing.

The larger the displacement, the higher the demand/quantity that can be handled.

Ohh this is on a single nozzle at 100 PSI. Drop the pressure, the flow reduces, up the pressure the flow increases.

 

[JDEstill]

Originally posted by EnzoFerrari
Also how much alky do you need to inject on a buick?

I forget the results from the old NACA tests, if you hunt around you can find the papers on it. I want to say that you could take it up to 50% of the fuel flow? Or maybe it was 33% of the fuel flow... So, if you know your air flow or your fuel flow, you can figure out how much to inject. From there you can figure out how to make your setup inject the desired amount.

Look here, I think this guy has a copy of the relevant papers posted:
http://not2fast.wryday.com/NACA/

Whatever the case, I think the optimum is to have the alky flow proportional to the air flow (or the fuel flow, which is essentially the same thing). Maybe you can set that up in your ecm somehow. If so, let us know how you did it! and how well it works.

John

 

[SMC]

pump rust

Ok...it's really simple. If you want a metal pump to never rust in an SMC kit......DON'T USE WATER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Straight alcohol will work better anyway, I don't care what the theorists say.

SMC will soon be coming out with a deluxe pump option that uses a stainless steel pumphead. Impervious to anything, super high pressure and rebuildable. No one else has anything even close. But good things don't come cheap...when you mention "stainless steel" to a pump company they start salivating and getting out their calculators!