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I quoted you stating these meth kits do little to change charge temps. I disagree with that. My own test example provided shows why i disagree. I urge you to try it. Its not even a big nozzle and its cooling the charge. Iat sensor way upstream of injection point is the measurement instrument

Can it cool better than intercooler? 100% meth in large amounts may very well do so. How many alcohol cars have you been around? After a dyno pull on a carbed methanol fueled car, the intake manifold is sweating. Its ice cold and causing surrounding air to reach its dew point. Thats very impressive cooling.

Granted thats using meth as majority of fueling, but shows it can go below ambient by large margin. Air water coolers with ice can get close to that but lot extra weight





Not all will flash but some amount def will, even at those velocities. Key is the nozzle spray pattern and droplet size when it atomizes

 

This is a no stifle zone! My feeling won’t get hurt I promise. I appreciate all the comments. I have zero physics back ground (I’m sure it shows) so please chime in. I’m not claiming anything I say isn’t total BS. (I’m sure some of it is!) Just discussing and trying to understand with actual data/physics instead of believing the band wagon/vendor hype on these “Alky kits”.

 

I have installed/tuned/tested many alky kits over the past 8-9 years. I’ve “tried it” a lot. That doesn’t mean the benefits were due to charge cooling. I believe they do little for actual charge temps, I didn’t say there were no performance benefits. Though I’ll agree the charge cooling benefits are greater on a hot air car than they would be injecting post IC and even more so injecting pre-turbo without an IC.

Your example using 50/50 and an IAT sensor doesn’t provide any useful data about the actual charge cooling. There is no way to shield the sensor from the fluid, making IAT sensor readings useless.

Common sense suggests (to me anyway) that 6gph (.1 GPM) of fluid isn’t cooling charge temps as a whole very well. Think about it…

Say you run an 11 sec quarter mile and your alky is on for 10 seconds. 6GPH is a .1 GPM flow rate. That’s .0016 of a gallon per second or .016 of a gallon per 10 sec pass (60cc). I don’t see 6cc of fluid per second putting a huge dent in the air charge temps as a whole. The same 60cc is then divided into 8 cylinders. So 7.5cc per cylinder assuming equal distribution. (unlikely)

I believe once the 7.5cc of fluid enters the CC, the “magic” happens. In the CC water can instantly vaporize and pull out large amounts of heat, and methanol can slow the flame front down. I think this is where the majority performance benefits come from. (which I have no proof of)

At the tiny volumes these alky kits spray, they absolutely can’t cool as well as a “good” intercooler. At massively higher volumes, Kevins setup on the YB link I posted proves it can have a drastic impact on temps and mass flow. He has data indicating the mass air flow increased spraying large volumes. He was injecting roughly 3 gallons per min of straight methanol compared to your .1 GPM of 50/50. That’s 30x the volume. It’s safe to say none of the “Alky kits” on the market are using that kind of volume. The large 300psi recirculating alky pumps max out .5 GPM (@200psi) and pump much less at the advertised 300psi. (they don’t even list the amount it’s so small)

I’ve been around a few alky cars. People need to understand the difference between frosty pipes and frosty charge temps. A frosty intake/charge pipe does not indicate the air charge is anywhere near the same temperature. The charge temps will always be MUCH higher. The frosty pipes are a result of many fluid cycles pulling heat from a relatively small surface area over time. This is also a waste of energy that would have been better spent cooling the CC. There is only so much heat that can be pulled from the air charge in the fraction of a second it takes the air to be ingested and expelled by the engine. The charge pipe/intake surface area is there the entire time the engine is running so is repeatedly having heat removed from it, that is why it frosts. This does not mean the charge temps are below ambient. You can have 300* charge temps and a frosty intake.

 

I think you confused yourself. You said:

To which I said, that is a measurement of volume, not mass. You used cubic feet for your units. That is not mass or even weight, but volume, which was incorrect.

And for your fog vs liquid water statement, that was a pretty poor example. They would have both the exact same mass and weight. 10 gallons of water turned into fog will still have the same weight and mass as 10 gallons of liquid water, you just changed the state of it. 50 kg of fog is still 50 kg of water, not matter how much physical space it takes up or how much volume it occupies, it is still 50 kg of mass. The mass doesn't change.

Both the 50 kg of fog and 50 kg of water would have the exact same cooling capacity, even if they cool at different rates, its because of dispersion and nothing to do with the volume, mass, or weight. You don't change waters specific heat capacity just by misting it. It will still take the exact same amount of energy to raise the temperature of that 50 kg of water by one degree whether its mist or a puddle.


Read up on mass vs weight. Yes, they are not the same thing. But as long as we all stay on earth, they are measured identical. This is why there is a direct conversion factor for kilograms to pounds. 1 kilogram of mass on earth results in 2.2 pounds of force between the mass and the earth, so we say it weighs 2.2 pounds. If you were to take 1 kg of mass to the moon and re-weigh it, it would not weigh 2.2 pounds. But since all units of mass were based directly on the earth's gravitational pull, then as long as we aren't talking space travel, mass and weight in this situation are the same thing. The formula for Weight is Weight = Mass x Gravity. Since Earth's gravity is a constant and is what our perception of weight is based around, the formula becomes Weight = Mass x 1.

 

You need to read the whole paragraph not pull sentences out of it.

I said:
I was using volume to simplify, which would then need to be converted to mass as I said. I was simply trying to explain for each single unit of fuel you need 14.7 units of air. Which is true.

If you know the volume and the density you can calculate the mass.

http://www.smartconversion.com/unit_...alculator.aspx

The max potential cooling energy isn’t being debated. 50kg of water in “fog” form will have a much greater effect on charge temps than a solid stream of water at the same weight. The less dense fog “mass” is able to physically contact more air which allows it to pull more heat out of the air molecules.

 

Depends on the setup, it is like saying you put 93 in the tank but really get 91, will it still run.

Well, sometimes. depends on the setup, myriad factors.

In my opinion, I would not run a high power (expensive) setup without an E85 content sensor and intimate programming.

more info:
water helps control temperature, it is recommended you keep the temperature of [air and fuel and exhaust] low when squeezing for max performance i.e. water/ice intercooling and methanol/water all seek to accomplish this. The opposite is true for economy situations. If your setup does not need "help" holding down temperature, the additional water is probably unnecessary. To confirm diagnosis, you would run an EGT sensor and shoot for a very reasonable EGT.

 

I wouldn't put alot of trust in those sensors to control fueling.



E50 is essentially the same octane as E85. Its nothing like 93/91. Its more like 95.6 VS 95.8. According to the Delphi Research paper anyway.

 

well, it isn't just the fluctuation to the octane, there is also a change to the final a/f ratio and thus final EGT may climb in conjunction with the slight reduction in octane. As to the sensor, I would certainly use a high quality OEM unit from a manufacturer which supplies sensors that offer 100,000 or 200,000 miles of average use in production vehicles.

Anyways, I mean only for high dollar setups. If you have a JY turbo then monitoring concentrations for your OEM longblock is just silly- you arn't going to push big kind of boost on a cast piston if you expect to keep the engine healthy for long, and that is one of the benefits of using Eanything is the increased boost headroom, it is similar to a racing fuel.

 

Some of the guys I know don't always have access to e85 so they keep the method handy for their 93 tune. But while running e85 no.
Take my thoughts and all others with a grain of salt, because ultimately, its your tuner you should listen to

 

This post isn't directed at anyone, I just wanted to highlight something I think is interesting.

The benefit is to injecting water OR alcohol (as you are able to inject 100% water or alcohol) is not directly due to the IAT (you are not seeking an air density benefit) but rather its ability to hold down EGT (combustion chamber temps) which directly influence detonation/octane threshold.

IN other words, the power of injecting water is in it's heat capacity of vaporization, that is, its ability to absorb and carry away temperature as it evaporates. Any IAT drop is just a coincidence/icing on the cake.

 

I think this is a profound understatement. I too was under the impression that the whole point of water/meth inj was to lower IAT's. My IAT's are only 120-130* in summer heat. Right now with ~40* ambient temps my IAT's are only 50-60* Based on this I didn't see a reason to run it. However, I'm learning now that the "magic" happens in the combus. chamber. So, I SHOULD run the system despite what the IAT says correct???

 

you sort of answered your own question, that is, the "magic" occurs in the combustion chamber. So following this logic, we want to measure the temperature of combustion to determine if we need to spray water. How close can we get to the chamber? A well placed EGT sensor right off the exhaust valve I suppose, without spending gobs of extra money throwing it into the chamber directly. So to answer your question with your own answer: What is your EGT coming off the head? DO you need to spray water to keep it reasonable?

You are correct in that, using IAT to determine whether EGT is safe, is not going to work, it might seem more clear now than it did before. Also it should also be clear that, if the IAT is 120*F, and the water is 120*F, thus no change to IAT, there will still be an EGT lowering effect in the combustion chamber as the water moves from 120->212*F+ in this example it will absorb energy.

And if you do not HAVE an EGT sensor, as I infer, then I would say yes continue spraying water if for no other reason than the cleaning benefit, I might regularly spray water into any combustion engine I own to keep the chambers clean. There are other indicators that you might need water (if the octane is low, if the engine is excessively heating up/heat soaking, I would need to know your exact situation/engine before being able to "magically" tell you if you need water or not) so pay close attention to how the plugs look, and what your knock logs look like (are you taking logs? Have you ever seen them show "knock"? Have you ever put lower octane fuel in the engine and seen the knock counts increase? In other words, have you verified the knock sensors are actually working properly, and do you see any signs of problem on the plugs)