hi guys does the aem meth kit come with fail safes if the pump fail to warn you? or trigger the the boost level to drop

 

Hey jos, the AEM water/methanol injection kit uses a controller that monitors system readiness. The controller checks the pump driver circuit for shorts and breaks in continuity. If you have a blown power fuse, broken wire, or an overheated pump the controller will trigger the "Boost Safe" output which can be configured to reduce boost or pull timing or even power a warning light. The "Boost Safe" will also trigger if you run low on fluid - the tank comes with a built in level switch.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

 

thx i buying a meth kit and i notice the aem is widely available but my friend told me it doesn't have a fail safe like aquamist brand which is more expensive

 

Like I posted before, the AEM injection kit does have a basic readiness failsafe that will protect against the majority of potential problems you're likely to encounter. I'm guessing your inquiry is more in the way of a flow based safety device. If you're interested in monitoring your flow rate then I suggest using our water/methanol injection flow gauge.



The gauge allows you to actively monitor the flow rate of your injection system at all times. After a few runs you'll be able to see exactly how much your system injects on a normal basis. If after some time you see the flow rate change either up or down you'll know it's time to closely inspect your system for leaks or clogs.

 

Only bad thing about using the guage is by the time you notice things aren't going well you already heard your engine go POP. I believe the AEM Controller does have an output that you can trigger a failsafe, such as a Relay or solenoid that can reduce boost. I have been deciding on doing a Meth Kit for almost 2 yrs. So many choices. I am trying to find a Boost Activated switch system that has a fail safe. I have yet to see that. That is all you really need. The progressive stuff is over rated. Thing is the vendors get you because the fail safes are only available on the progressive controlled units. At least the systems I have reviewed. If anyone knows of a Boost Switch activated system with a fail safe let me know.

 

The new Aquamist new HFS-3 is very reasonably priced, street price of $699 at Howerton Engineering. Turbine flow sensor based failsafe and dash gauge.

The system can be "progressive" or "on-off" , can be triggered by IDC or Boost.

 

thx for the info. so the solution is aquamist, or risk with the aem and a gauge that i notice to late. i will do some research. but i definitely need to increase my octane levels and i will have to decide.

 

You can make a boost referenced progressive controller work like a boost switch. Just make the start and full settings the same.

I don’t think it’s as clear cut as you think. In many ways a true flow gauge will give superior protection than some fail safes will give.

The basic flow based fail safes that are out there actually only let you set a single trigger point. It seems like the general recommendation is to set the trigger point to about half of your final flow rate so at flow rates below 50% the fail safe thinks there is a loss in flow and when flow is above 50% it thinks everything is okay. During a WOT pull you would have to have a 50% drop in flow before your fail safe would trigger. What if it only takes a 30% drop in flow to have detonation occur? Unless your fail safe triggers you just blissfully keep your foot buried in it until you notice a major drop in power but by then it’s too late.

What about the transient periods where flow is less than this 50% trigger point? In these conditions the fail safe can think there is low flow so it triggers its output which in turn shuts off your boost controller. So now boost can’t ever go above wastegate spring pressure because your EBC is off because the fail safe thinks there’s a problem and without more boost your boost referenced injection system won’t ever increase the flow rate which means the fail safe will always think there’s a low flow condition. It’s easy to see that this can be an undesirable setup so most fail safes that trigger based on a single point along the flow curve use a time delay to prevent false triggering but not all are adjustable. The fail safes that do have an adjustable delay are limited to only one or two seconds. This means that if you aren’t always purposefully or aggressively accelerating and reaching high levels of load and high injection flow that your failsafe could trigger. During light acceleration and low boost you could have false trigger events and to counter this you could try to increase the delay. Now the longer delay period applies to the entire flow curve so at WOT and max load you could have a 1.5 second time delay from the time the flow drops until the fail safe triggers. How much time does it take to run at WOT without water/methanol before you have engine damage?

Another approach is to have an adjustable trigger point based on flow and another input such as pump speed (or duty cycle). If the trigger point is set too high, say 75% duty cycle, then the fail safe isn’t even monitoring flow unless your injection system is attempting to flow at least 75% output. This means all the lower boost levels have zero protection. You could have a totally clogged nozzle and you’d never know it because the fail safe has not taken any action to warn you or reduce boost or pull timing.

You can try to use a lower set point, again using the 50% example, so the fail safe is working most of the time but a clog at WOT and max load that drops flow by 45% won’t trigger at all. Without any indication of a problem you’d make another pull but it could be too late.

Obviously there are some fail safes that are more capable and let you monitor more of a flow curve versus a single flow point but don’t assume that all flow based fail safes have this functionality.

The beauty of an analog-style flow gauge is that it tells you exactly what your injection system is flowing all the time. If at WOT your system typically flows 500 cc/min and then you see it suddenly drop to 460 cc/min you would know there is a potential problem. This is something that most fail safes simply won’t detect. A high accuracy flow gauge lets you see the deterioration of flow over time, letting you do something about it before it stops flowing altogether, not after. Our gauges display actual flow to a very high accuracy, usually down to 10cc/min, not a few bars where each LED represents 100 cc/min or more!

Keep in mind that the demand for a fail safe in this market stems from not having an acceptable way to see what the system was doing at any given moment. Now to give a little perspective from an engine management and gauge manufacturer’s point of view, we find this very interesting because something like your oil pressure or even air fuel ratio is just as important, if not more important but we don’t hear everyone talking about fail safe systems to protect against low oil pressure or a lean out. A good, accurate gauge is what is desired. You can see quick dropouts in pressure and flow that a fail safe won’t likely trigger on and most of the bar graph style displays built into safety devices won’t even show. You can see the nozzle starting to clog and your flow rate drop by only 5% or 10% but you see it happening before a regular fail safe can even do anything about it.

 

$699 is reasonable for an Aquamist system but the HFS-3 still lacks a tank which is a necessity in probably all cases. The AEM 5 Gallon Injection system is on sale for the next six months for a street price of $399. Sourcing a comparable 5 gallon tank to complete your HFS-3 system is another $80-$100 so the $699 kit is now closer to $800.

Take the AEM 5 Gallon kit, throw in the AEM flow gauge with a street price of $199 and you've got a totally complete kit with flow monitoring capabilities and a real gauge for $598. Our analog gauges have a 320 degree display sweep with 960 discrete steps. The bar graph "gauge" display gives 6 useful LEDs or steps which is an unreasonably low resolution.

 

I am intrested in this system. You can simply hook up a flow gauge to any system though. What type of flow sensor or fail safe system does the AEM kit use? I like to err on the side of caution...

I am in the market to upgrade my system just need some more convinceing before making the final decsion.

 

The Guage Idea only works if people are paying attention. On a dyno or something stationary of course you can eye ball the guage. In "real" life, hitting the gas getting the freeway, or on a weekend having fun at the track, you are watching the road, not a guage. So that is why I feel the guage isn't a good idea. Same goes for the lights. I mean, most people put them in a place where they can't see them. Or just are not paying attention. So fail safes are really all people have to ensure the engine is safe.

Everything else, brand, and what not is all personal preference. The thing is, most kids that come with fail safes only come with a "progressive" controller. Which kinda blows cause you really don't need it. So, you buy one device, that needs to be hooked up to another device, that the fail safes hook up to. Would just be nice to by pass the progressive controller to save cost since you really don't need that anyway, have a system that monitors flow or whatever that triggers a fail safe in the event something comes up. Is there a company that has that? I have not seen one yet. Thats all my point is.

So is the cost worth it? Sure it is, if you want the most power out of your car, but like every modification there is always a pro vs con. You just have to decide if the Pros' are worth the $$$. Hard to argue the cost vs hp advantage of Methanol that is for sure.

 

What are you refering to in regards to the progressive controller? The HFS-1 is on or off. It kicks at a certain IDC % and flows 100% of capacity. I have mine triggered to drop to wastegate off of my ebc. Others are using their ecu to change to a secondary map which is safer, pump only. I have to agree that watching a guage is not going to work in the heat of the moment while driving. That is why I am curious to see what failsafes if any that this system employes...

Right now I am still leaning on changing over to the HFS-3.

 

That's the beauty behind the gauge. The AEM flow gauge can be hooked up to any system that uses 1/4" OD tubing regardless of the brand. And you get the most precise water/methanol injection flow gauge available today. I think we can take a step back from this and compare it to a slightly different situation most of us are probably familiar with.

Years ago gauges like the one shown below were what was available for monitoring your exhaust gas oxygen content. We've all seen these old school narrowband setups and if anyone has every seriously used one they know that they were basically useless for anything other than a fancy looking dancing light bar. Other that saying you are “rich” or “lean” they didn’t really tell you anything.



It wasn't until a true wideband sensor was available that we could get useful data like an actual air fuel ratio value. Getting real AFR data from a dancing light bar is fruitless. Relying on one for tuning purposes is down right dangerous. We need to know what AFR we are running at, not just “rich” or “lean”.

A real gauge with a high resolution gives you the full range of AFR data. Take for example the new AEM E85 AFR gauge:



Now you have real useful data that you can accurately tune with and depend on. Again, we still haven't seen an AFR "fail safe" yet your AFR is arguably the most important piece of engine operation data.

High accuracy flow sensors are available now. We use one and I am confident that the competitor sensors are probably also quite good but failing to display the data in a useful manner pretty much negates any tuning benefit of having one.

It’s funny but I think we as water/methanol injection users either just don’t acknowledge or refuse to admit that the most common loss in flow failure is letting the tank go empty. So it’s not really a failure in that something in the system actually failed mechanically or otherwise but it’s really just an oversight of sorts. We think it’s better to go into a safe mode before the loss in flow occurs, not after, so we designed the standard AEM progressive controller to automatically trigger the "Boost Safe" output before your tank goes empty. You can get the full details on the “Boost Safe” function here: https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/wa...injection.html

Additionally, the AEM water/methanol injection system uses a system readiness fail safe. The controller checks the pump driver circuit for shorts and breaks in continuity. If you have a blown power fuse, broken wire, or an overheated pump the controller will also trigger the "Boost Safe" output. So, our strategy is to catch these failures before there is any flow at all.

To back this up further you can add the flow gauge which again gives you real flow data and not a “yes there is flow or no there isn’t flow” gauge.

You shouldn’t have to. The AEM “Boost Safe” will warn you if there is a catastrophic failure (system readiness, out of fluid etc). The only other real concern is a clogged nozzle and those rarely happen instantly. They will happen gradually, over time. Calcification from the water or accumulated gunk that made its way through the system will slowly degrade the flow rate. If you have a gauge you will see this and fix it long before it clogs up so bad that it would trigger a fail safe. Just like abnormally low oil pressure will tell you there is an engine problem before a total failure occurs, making the oil pressure drop to zero. A flow gauge can be checked occasionally and you can be sure that everything is 100% correct where a failsafe just tells you that a failure has already happened. You really need to catch it before it fails, not after. Running with reduced flow for a long period and having the fail safe not tell you because it is still flowing some rather than none is definitely not optimum. Also, if you can’t notice a 52mm gauge with a full dial display then you are definitely not going to be able to notice a small light bar.

I definitely won’t argue with the fact that having some form of a fail safe is better than nothing at all. All of the fail safe options available are better than nothing but every one of them could be made even better with the AEM flow gauge.

 

I like it that the gauge can be hooked up to any system with a 4mm line.

 

^^^ $80-$100 WATER tank??? are you high? lol I want a gold plated water tank please! lol

Its not easy for every car to fit the same size tank in there car. Its not one size fits all. The factory windshield tank holds one gallon and lasts a typical DD Evo 2-3 weeks on a 50/50 mix. (Thats with a %10+ flow primer pump)

5 gallons = 41.75 lbs! For most of these cars weight is the last thing we need.
For a road race setup 5 gallons can slosh hard enough that 3 gallons of liquid at 25.05 lbs pushing upon entry can really offset the car. Not to mention trying to fit a 5 gallon tank into the trunk lol.

Also check NHRA NASA SCCA and a majority of all you other races here in the USA, they all require the use of a fuel cell and stainless lines if using any form of methanol injection. SO your kit just wasted a $100 tank that cant be used anywhere but the street. I personally use a plastic tank but I use %100 H20 so Im ok.

If a tank and price is your only selling point on your kit I would go back to the drawing board if I were you. Aquamist has the far superior flow control kit, and reliability and quality are simply top notch. Sure Aem is working on there own "copy" of the HSV and FAV but Aquamist has been doing that since 2000 so welcome to the party.

Respectfully,

Evan Smith