Water/Meth will probably save your engine.
This was with what was supposed to be an 11 PSI spring. It would coil-bind before the wastegate could open more than 20%. 93 octane, straight blue windshield washer fluid (70% water, 30% meth). If it wasn't for the water and methanol, I would have been picking up my engine off of the side of the road.
I've driven the car 1500 HARD miles since this happened. Still runs great. $200 for a water/meth kit is about the best insurance you could ever ask for...

For those of you who aren't sure what you're looking at..
That's 29.5 PSI with a 15.1:1 AFR on pump gas. Topped out a 3 bar map sensor with AFR lean enough to cause detonation on an unmodified engine.
Last edited by JoeNova; Jan 15, 2016 at 10:07 PM.
Decided to put more spring into it and then drive on 11-12 PSI and turn the controller back up when I wanted the 20 (doesn't hook on 20 PSI on the street). Tossed in the 11 PSI spring. It would bottom out and fully collapse while the wastegate would only open a quarter inch. Boost spiked pretty hard, car felt like a rocket. Once I got 20 mins on the datalogger I closed the laptop and drove for another 90 minutes. Got home, opened the laptop and checked the logs. Thats when I seen this.
And if I can infact get a decent setup for that price, where do I look for more info on nozzles, mixtures, etc? Trying to make my SBE ls1 stay alive. Thanks in advance!
Last edited by SteenH; Jan 15, 2016 at 11:47 PM.
I can set a boost level on my Holley HP, I use that as a safety step while I play with the controller
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AFRs don't change much. I can post up a couple of pics of a log to show you where it activates. With a 30/70 mix my AFR barely moves at all.
With straight methanol, I wouldn't have gotten an octane boost high enough to keep this from detonating. I may have gained 5 points in octane at best. As a chemist by trade, I think that spraying so much water was keeping cylinder temps down enough to prevent detonation, or at least keeping the pistons cool enough so that if detonation occurred, they wouldn't crack like these pistons are prone to when super-heated.
I have since made the swap from the 'blue' washer fluid to the 'purple' washer fluid, which is almost a 50/50 mix at the same price. I think I'm giving up a little too much power running so much water, and I don't think the safety margins are going to change between a 30/70 and 50/50 mix.
Single 10 GPH nozzle. I keep timing around 14* on street tune (14 PSI this time of year). Anything over 210 kPa and I drop boost to 12 degrees. I didn't pick up enough at 14* and 20 PSI on the dyno to warrant the risk. I picked up 30 ft-lbs peak, but only 10 HP, and this thing is already enough of a torque monster.
I have my timing table set to 5* above 27lbs just in case.
I have my timing table set to 5* above 27lbs just in case.
GTfoxy, it's in the charge pipe fairly close to the throttle body. I don't like running that much water % pre-intercooler.
Good info, I know around here they use a winter blend, I think it prob changes things around
Good info, I know around here they use a winter blend, I think it prob changes things around
Great example of the safety factor of water. So many threads argue the merit of performance of water vs straight meth however, the fact that it can save a very expensive build is often overlooked.
Water injection:
It was good enough for 1940's fighter planes, it's good enough for me !
Alky control & 50/50.






