What EXACTLY is water/meth injection
Apr 28, 2009, 02:47 AM
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What EXACTLY is water/meth injection
I've done my research and I'm starting to understand it a bit.. BUT not quite. Can someone explain in lamens or maybe compare it to something LOL. Shoot maybe even an illustration. Also how much would a car lowly modded (i.e. Tune, TBE) on 93 Oct would benefit from this. And is the Perrin PWI-2 a good choice..? Thanks
Apr 28, 2009, 03:10 AM
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This info was not written by me, Nor do I take reponsibility for it. All was borrowed write up written for www.nasioc.com , but the same info applies to most all cars. It sounds like you haven't done very much research yourself (no offence)
**note this was written to generalize about the SMC kits and were the info provided was put together based on subaru secific motors, however alot of the same appies to other cars as well
What does alcohol injection do? It injects a mist of alcohol directly into the intake stream, this has the effect of massive "chemical intercooling" along with greatly raising the octane level of the air/fuel charge. On 93 octane pump gas, the general concensus is that when the system is spraying, you are at or around 110 octane
So what does that do for my car? Well higher octane and a MUCH cooler air charge means a MUCH higher detonation threshold. It will take a LOT more to make your car knock
My car isnt knocking now, why do I care? Because one spot of bad gas can make it happen. And where "stage 2" wrx's last forever, there have been quite a few "stage 2" STIs blow up. You want as little chance to detonate as possible. With alcohol injection, its probably about 100 times less likely to detonate. And if you dont tune super agressively, you can pretty much set the car up to where its almost impossible to cause it to knock in any driving condition, with any weather change
What Benefits are there other than the above? POWER. You can tune leaner, running up to 12-1 under full boost. I run 11.7-1 at 19lbs and never see det. Your EGTS typically go down up to 200 degrees too. Mine are about 75 deg lower than pre alch. You can also run up to 5 degrees more timing and 2-4 more lbs of boost. Want detonation free 21lbs of daily driving boost on a stock STI turbo? You got it. It will be hard on the turbo, but those are cheap enough
Typically I would say running 2 more psi boost, 20% less fuel under boost and 3-4 more degrees timing would be a "normal" alcohol injection tune.
It also has the effect of "steam cleaning" the engine from the throttle body to the exh ports. No carbon buildup on the backs of your intake valves, and the domes of your pistons stay MUCh cleaner. Which means MUCh less chance of "hot spots" which cause detonation
But that sounds expensive to run Alcohol, in 1 gallon cans is about 7-11 dollars per can.
wow thats nuts, how long does 1 gallon last? Well the SMC kit uses your washer bottle, thats 1 gallon. Most people get 2 to 3 tanks of gas out of 1 fillup. I average about 2 1/2 tanks of gas for each alcohol fillup.
When you are tuning your car, it will go MUCH faster as you are spraying a lot more often. At a track day, it will REALLY go fast. I havent done a track day with it yet, but I would suggest you plan on AT LEAST 1 tank per session. If you use a 1 gallon tank, it MAY not even last the entire 20 min run session, or it might, you would have to talk to someone that has run it at a trackday. Best bet, if you are going to try it, is have EM that you can switch maps on the fly. That way if it runs low (watch for the light) you can switch to a non alch injection map on the fly. It may not be an issue, I have no honest idea. If you run a bigger tank, you shouldnt have a problem. If you are going to do a lot of track days and want to run this, you should consider buying the 12L Spec C tank and using that as your tank. SMC will install the pump in that for you if you would like
Can I mix the alcohol with anything to stretch my dollar?? YES!! Many, in fact, in the subaru world, most ppl run a 50/50 mix of distilled water and alcohol. The difference in what the alcohol injection does for your car is small. FIgure if straight alch would yeild you a 110octane charge, figure 50/50 would net you 108ish. I am totally talking off the top of my head, but I use those numbers to illustrate how small the difference is.
Also, if you mix, you end up with 2 gallons of mix. Which means for about $13 max, you get 4-6 tanks of gas worth of alc injecting goodness. That drastically lowers the cost to run this
What kind of alcohol?? WHere do I get it? Home Depot is one of the most common places people get it. The type is "Denatured Alcohol". Rubbing alcohol can be used too! If you are tuned for denatured, and you cant find any for some reason, you can stop at any grocery store, or drug store, and buy rubbing alch, dump it in, fill that bottle with water, and dump that in. I did that just the other day, it worked great
What about Methanol? Works great. Tune will be SLIGHTLY different than denatured
* Methanol might be harder on the seals in the pump than Denatured, so before running it you should check with SMC (or whoever's kit you choose) to be sure their pump and such will be ok with it. I will email SMC and ask about it and update this as soon as I hear back from them
Doesnt alcohol eat rubber? Yes a little, but that doesnt matter as this never touches any rubber
Alcohol is flamable, will my car catch on fire?? If its straight alcohol, and you get hit hard enough to puncture the container, yes it could. But at that point, sorry to say but your car is most likely totalled anyway. The fire will just prevent the insurance company from trying to fix it and leaving you stuck with a car that has been in a BAD wreck and was repaired. If you run a 50/50 mix, it will not catch fire as the 50/50 mix does ignite. At least when several of us have tried to ignite it, it just will not light, so if you run 50/50 you are 99.99999999% safe
So is this dangerous for my motor?? Well if you are boosting hard, and it fails, there is a very high chance your motor will blow. However, this is ULTRA rare, in fact I have yet to ever hear of a single case where it has failed. I know it HAS happened, but so far, not in the subaru world, and from what I have heard and read, the cases where it failed, were bad installs. One guy with a VERY early SMC kit had a pump go bad, but his motor was fine
So how does this work?? Ok So, you have a few parts. This is standard with all the kits, some have a couple differences, but here are the basic parts.
Tank
Pump
Controller
Nozzle
Some kits have a single stage or dual stage controller that sprays at either a constant flow rate regardless of boost pressure, or sprays at a higher rate after a given boost pressure.
Yet other kits, such as the SMC kit or the Devils own kit use a progressive controller. This is by far superior. It starts spraying at a predetermined boost pressure, that YOU can set and ramps up to maximum spray at another, higher predetermined boost pressure that YOU set. The SMC kit, and I THINK the devils own kit come set to kick on at 7PSI, and max out by 15 PSI. This doesnt mean it doesnt spray past 15PSI< it means it is a constant rate past 15 PSI. And you could make it 20PSi if you wanted to, you arent limited to 15PSI, thats just the default.
Some people set it to only kick on at say 15 PSI or so, which saves a TON of juice, but you lose all the benefits of lower boost spray. 7PSI is great because then it will JUSt kick on when you are at part throttle boost.
More details please! (the info here is based on a progressive controller) Ok so you are cruising along, you hit the gas, you hit 7PSI and the spray control unit kicks on. It turns on a high pressure pump that sends the mix down a hose to the nozzle which is typically located 2-3 inches in front of your throttle body. TMIC people usually drill a hole in the bottom front of their tmic and put the nozzle there. FMIC guys typically put it in the pipe, again, 2-3 inches in front of the throttle body.
As boost increases, the pressure from the pump increases, which causes more to be sprayed into the intake stream, up to the max point (default is about 15PSI)
again I did not write this up myself. This is just some basic FAQs I found by searching around quickly. As far as the SMC kit goes alot of people here do not like it very much becuase it has failed on more than a few cars. Other companies make much safer solutions and products (I.E. Perrin, auqamist ect ect ect there are a bunch) I am sure the real meth heads will post up better info than I found ,but it is a start
**note this was written to generalize about the SMC kits and were the info provided was put together based on subaru secific motors, however alot of the same appies to other cars as well
What does alcohol injection do? It injects a mist of alcohol directly into the intake stream, this has the effect of massive "chemical intercooling" along with greatly raising the octane level of the air/fuel charge. On 93 octane pump gas, the general concensus is that when the system is spraying, you are at or around 110 octane
So what does that do for my car? Well higher octane and a MUCH cooler air charge means a MUCH higher detonation threshold. It will take a LOT more to make your car knock
My car isnt knocking now, why do I care? Because one spot of bad gas can make it happen. And where "stage 2" wrx's last forever, there have been quite a few "stage 2" STIs blow up. You want as little chance to detonate as possible. With alcohol injection, its probably about 100 times less likely to detonate. And if you dont tune super agressively, you can pretty much set the car up to where its almost impossible to cause it to knock in any driving condition, with any weather change
What Benefits are there other than the above? POWER. You can tune leaner, running up to 12-1 under full boost. I run 11.7-1 at 19lbs and never see det. Your EGTS typically go down up to 200 degrees too. Mine are about 75 deg lower than pre alch. You can also run up to 5 degrees more timing and 2-4 more lbs of boost. Want detonation free 21lbs of daily driving boost on a stock STI turbo? You got it. It will be hard on the turbo, but those are cheap enough
Typically I would say running 2 more psi boost, 20% less fuel under boost and 3-4 more degrees timing would be a "normal" alcohol injection tune.
It also has the effect of "steam cleaning" the engine from the throttle body to the exh ports. No carbon buildup on the backs of your intake valves, and the domes of your pistons stay MUCh cleaner. Which means MUCh less chance of "hot spots" which cause detonation
But that sounds expensive to run Alcohol, in 1 gallon cans is about 7-11 dollars per can.
wow thats nuts, how long does 1 gallon last? Well the SMC kit uses your washer bottle, thats 1 gallon. Most people get 2 to 3 tanks of gas out of 1 fillup. I average about 2 1/2 tanks of gas for each alcohol fillup.
When you are tuning your car, it will go MUCH faster as you are spraying a lot more often. At a track day, it will REALLY go fast. I havent done a track day with it yet, but I would suggest you plan on AT LEAST 1 tank per session. If you use a 1 gallon tank, it MAY not even last the entire 20 min run session, or it might, you would have to talk to someone that has run it at a trackday. Best bet, if you are going to try it, is have EM that you can switch maps on the fly. That way if it runs low (watch for the light) you can switch to a non alch injection map on the fly. It may not be an issue, I have no honest idea. If you run a bigger tank, you shouldnt have a problem. If you are going to do a lot of track days and want to run this, you should consider buying the 12L Spec C tank and using that as your tank. SMC will install the pump in that for you if you would like
Can I mix the alcohol with anything to stretch my dollar?? YES!! Many, in fact, in the subaru world, most ppl run a 50/50 mix of distilled water and alcohol. The difference in what the alcohol injection does for your car is small. FIgure if straight alch would yeild you a 110octane charge, figure 50/50 would net you 108ish. I am totally talking off the top of my head, but I use those numbers to illustrate how small the difference is.
Also, if you mix, you end up with 2 gallons of mix. Which means for about $13 max, you get 4-6 tanks of gas worth of alc injecting goodness. That drastically lowers the cost to run this
What kind of alcohol?? WHere do I get it? Home Depot is one of the most common places people get it. The type is "Denatured Alcohol". Rubbing alcohol can be used too! If you are tuned for denatured, and you cant find any for some reason, you can stop at any grocery store, or drug store, and buy rubbing alch, dump it in, fill that bottle with water, and dump that in. I did that just the other day, it worked great
What about Methanol? Works great. Tune will be SLIGHTLY different than denatured
* Methanol might be harder on the seals in the pump than Denatured, so before running it you should check with SMC (or whoever's kit you choose) to be sure their pump and such will be ok with it. I will email SMC and ask about it and update this as soon as I hear back from them
Doesnt alcohol eat rubber? Yes a little, but that doesnt matter as this never touches any rubber
Alcohol is flamable, will my car catch on fire?? If its straight alcohol, and you get hit hard enough to puncture the container, yes it could. But at that point, sorry to say but your car is most likely totalled anyway. The fire will just prevent the insurance company from trying to fix it and leaving you stuck with a car that has been in a BAD wreck and was repaired. If you run a 50/50 mix, it will not catch fire as the 50/50 mix does ignite. At least when several of us have tried to ignite it, it just will not light, so if you run 50/50 you are 99.99999999% safe
So is this dangerous for my motor?? Well if you are boosting hard, and it fails, there is a very high chance your motor will blow. However, this is ULTRA rare, in fact I have yet to ever hear of a single case where it has failed. I know it HAS happened, but so far, not in the subaru world, and from what I have heard and read, the cases where it failed, were bad installs. One guy with a VERY early SMC kit had a pump go bad, but his motor was fine
So how does this work?? Ok So, you have a few parts. This is standard with all the kits, some have a couple differences, but here are the basic parts.
Tank
Pump
Controller
Nozzle
Some kits have a single stage or dual stage controller that sprays at either a constant flow rate regardless of boost pressure, or sprays at a higher rate after a given boost pressure.
Yet other kits, such as the SMC kit or the Devils own kit use a progressive controller. This is by far superior. It starts spraying at a predetermined boost pressure, that YOU can set and ramps up to maximum spray at another, higher predetermined boost pressure that YOU set. The SMC kit, and I THINK the devils own kit come set to kick on at 7PSI, and max out by 15 PSI. This doesnt mean it doesnt spray past 15PSI< it means it is a constant rate past 15 PSI. And you could make it 20PSi if you wanted to, you arent limited to 15PSI, thats just the default.
Some people set it to only kick on at say 15 PSI or so, which saves a TON of juice, but you lose all the benefits of lower boost spray. 7PSI is great because then it will JUSt kick on when you are at part throttle boost.
More details please! (the info here is based on a progressive controller) Ok so you are cruising along, you hit the gas, you hit 7PSI and the spray control unit kicks on. It turns on a high pressure pump that sends the mix down a hose to the nozzle which is typically located 2-3 inches in front of your throttle body. TMIC people usually drill a hole in the bottom front of their tmic and put the nozzle there. FMIC guys typically put it in the pipe, again, 2-3 inches in front of the throttle body.
As boost increases, the pressure from the pump increases, which causes more to be sprayed into the intake stream, up to the max point (default is about 15PSI)
again I did not write this up myself. This is just some basic FAQs I found by searching around quickly. As far as the SMC kit goes alot of people here do not like it very much becuase it has failed on more than a few cars. Other companies make much safer solutions and products (I.E. Perrin, auqamist ect ect ect there are a bunch) I am sure the real meth heads will post up better info than I found ,but it is a start
Apr 28, 2009, 08:53 AM
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That about wrapped it up for me. Now I just need to find out if the local tuner shop near me can tune for meth/water injection. I was planning on getting a TBE then tune. Should I get the TBE then the injection kit THEN have them install and tune it to avoid having to re-tune?
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May 5, 2009, 01:31 AM
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Well and a high flow intake. I got in touch with my local tuner and they told me meth injection is overly complicated for a street car with not that many mods and I should look at other options, but they can tune cars on meth very well. That was very discouraging to hear.
May 25, 2009, 10:01 AM
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Another issue semi related is that for a long time the typical kit did not have a failsafe feature. For a tuner to see the results of using W/A injection, primary fuel needs to be removed. Removing some of the primary fuel via tuning so as to see the best results of W/A injection, means that without a properly functioning & working W/A system a "Lean tune" could be very dangerous to the engine....................this puts the tuner at risk for releasing a car as "being professionally tuned" that can be pretty ugly if W/A failure. A car tuned for W/A needs to have a failsafe feature in order for a tuner to trust it.
In simple terms a tuner needs to have faith in the hardware being used and know that the hardware will not let him/her down later on with regards to reputation/bad customer relations = blown motor due to W/A failure.
It may come off as a blatant plug, but the biggest two jumps in W/A technology has been to
1) improve on the quality of the hardware being used
and
2) a properly functioning system for monitoring and built in fail safe control.
As for # 1: Aquamist has been in the process of putting out products using quality hardware that are specificlly designed for W/A injection............not off the shelf existing hardware re-purposed for the task. As an example, when it came to factory backed rally racing the teams were using Aquamist = they recognized the benefit of water injection, so they looked for quality first, not cost savings.
As for #2: Years ago Aquamist recognized the importance of a properly functioning failsafe AND have it integrated into the system. This was before others were looking at doing this...........more advanced then just an idiot lamp denoting the system was on or armed. Aquamist's direction in this area is that the failsafe is part of the overall system and not an add on.
What I'm getting at is that I know some tuners who will not install W/A kits or tune for W/A injection unless the kit is an Aquamist kit........they do not want to play around with the low end systems so they elect to pass on some W/A tuning opportunities if they know the end user is using a low end kit or is not really interested in a true modern W/A kit. This is true not only for W/A injection but same as when other performance enhancing hardware is being used/implemented that has an effect on the tuners work.
Aug 25, 2010, 07:54 AM
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why in the world with E85 being available would you want to run meth or even water?
Its been proven to be the cause of most engine failures out there from the major tuners.
Spend the money on injectors, pumps and whatever else you need and start running E85. You will gain more power and its safer.
The biggest problem is that typically one cylinder will mostly get more or less than the others and eventually pop goes the weasel.
I think most on here would HIGHLY recommend E85 or other modifications.
I have to think you can gain the same power safely as you can by installing meth. Its just not a smart move.
Trust me, this is coming from someone who ran 100% pure meth. Depending how much and how long you are in boost will determine how long the tank will last.
If your going on a longer drive, you constanly have to make sure you have a container of meth in your backseat to make sure that you dont run out. Its a pain in the butt to be honest with you.
If you must run it, run washer solvent, its the easiest to get, you never have to worry about running out, its all over the place.
TO AGMIST:
Dude, if you talk to the most highly rated tuners across the country, there is not one that recommends installing meth.
Its been proven to be the cause of most engine failures out there from the major tuners.
Spend the money on injectors, pumps and whatever else you need and start running E85. You will gain more power and its safer.
The biggest problem is that typically one cylinder will mostly get more or less than the others and eventually pop goes the weasel.
I think most on here would HIGHLY recommend E85 or other modifications.
I have to think you can gain the same power safely as you can by installing meth. Its just not a smart move.
Trust me, this is coming from someone who ran 100% pure meth. Depending how much and how long you are in boost will determine how long the tank will last.
If your going on a longer drive, you constanly have to make sure you have a container of meth in your backseat to make sure that you dont run out. Its a pain in the butt to be honest with you.
If you must run it, run washer solvent, its the easiest to get, you never have to worry about running out, its all over the place.
TO AGMIST:
Dude, if you talk to the most highly rated tuners across the country, there is not one that recommends installing meth.