When I built my first 11 to 1 compressed 327 sbc, I ended up putting water injection on it. It worked great, all I had to do was check the water and pump now and then. I used it for over 10 year and when I tore the engine down, it was still in good shape. Back in the late 60's, I knew of several cars that used it. Today, I never even hear about it, nor in any of the mags. I'm curious, why was it discarded? I can understand it not being used on the newer programmable systems, but the cars before 1985 that have been built?

Thanks,
Fred.
:confused:

Fred,
I'm glad you asked,as I've been wondering the same thing.They used to be all over the magazines.As far as I know the only down side is keeping the bottle full.What about long term corrosive effects?Think I read about making a homemade one out of a windshield washer pump and a switch on the throttle, years ago.

WHat is it? A cooling system?

I'm wondering the same thing. I've never heard of water injection before. Can you guys inform us who don't know?

Years ago there were several water injection systems on the market. I used to use on also.Injectronic was one of the earlier ones.Edelbrock and Holley both offered system , Edelbrock also offered a Vapor Injection. Clifford Research even offered one.The Water Injection systems were really designed for lower vacuum use when standing on the throttle... the Vapor Injection was more designed for part throttle use.... The Vapor Injectors were origionally used by the Canadian government trucks in the northern area where due to the extreme cold their trucks were run 24 hours a day non stop....Too cold to restart... The Vapor Injectors used an alchol / water mix that sort of acted like an antifreeze ... the vapor when in the combustion chambers turned into steam and cleaned excess carbon off the chambers and pistons... without the vapor injection these engines would " load up " badly..... With the Vapor Injection they ran much smoother..... didnt foul plugs as bad either.

During the 70's when they took out the Tetraeythel lead out of the gas and lowered the octane from 95-96 area to 91/92 the still commonly seen 11-1 compression engines were really suffering.... Even the 10-1's were rattleing ...
People were doing all kinds of crazy things...More jetting , Less ign timing , Lower temp thermostats
... mixing raceing gas with pump gas , cooler heat range plugs..... anything to stop the pinging....
Water / Vapor Injections were one of the semi popular methods of pulling heat out of the combustion process and for many people it worked.

Many people during those days used them on new cars... Detroit had no clue what they were doing then..The Government mandated to take the lead out
to use the Cat Cons.... So they lowered the compression ratios ... lets leave the pistons oh say .025down the hole witch worked good with an .022 steel head gasket... but no they started to use .038 / .042 head gaskets in those years also..
Too much deck... results lower compression but they pinged... so to help that they retarted the cam timing... producing less sylinder pressure...
but they leaned the carbs down.... lets then put 190 deg T stats in them... less emmissions... but they pinged.... so EGR was used to lower combustion temps and reduce Nox...They discovered that the once common 2700 - 3400 RPM when cruzing the freeways was hard on gas and emmissions they reasoned that less RPM meant less emmissions so they put 2.29 , 2.43 , 2.56 and 2.73 gear sets in them... that loads an engine harder while trying to leave from a start.. the results .. you guessed it .. it pinged...

Those years sucked for performance minded people.
And Water Injection was one desprate methods that was used to cope with it.

Try this for a good read on the subject of water and fuel mixtures, (i.e., emulsions)..

http://www.rbbi.com/folders/fuel/a-21.htm

PuriNOx

http://www.epa.gov/otaq/models/p02007.pdf

and A-55

http://www.dieselnet.com/news/0001a55.html

are both in on this too.

pdq67

There's a few guys in the Syclone and Typhoon world that use this setup.From what I heard,it's good to use on a turbo application.

Check with the turbo guys. Here's a link for DIY Alcohol injection.

http://members.cox.net/stevemonroe/AlcoholInjMod.html

Steve

Wow. This is totally new to me, and very interesting. Thanks for the explanation and links guys!

-Ben

Hey John,

I remember that article, and a few more. I set mine up with two vacuum switches on the intake. One at 7 in. and one at 2 in. The 7 in switch would turn the pump on at half speed (because of an inline resistor), while the 2 in. switch would turn it on a full speed. The adjustable feeder controlled the spray. I can also remember guys mixing all kinds of stuff with the water. My pump was nothing more than a windshield washer pump. I will say one thing, I could have never keep the 11 to 1 on the road without it.

Fred.

yes, its popular in the turbo world, very effective at reducing detonation. Heres some links:

http://www.turbobuick.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=6b3e5ab7a4c98d2205b883e4b96c7c5 4&forumid=14
http://www.turbomirage.com/water.html
http://www.h20injection.com/forum/phpBB2/
http://www.alkycontrol.com/?ref=turbobuick
http://www.rbracing-rsr.com/waterinjection.html

Didn't the original Turbo Buick come with water injection from the factory??

Al,
Thatwas a great explenation and overview on water injection.
Fred,
Nice system you fabbed up.I never got around to putting one in my Chevelle.If I couldn,t get some Sunoco,I'd just dump a can of 104+ in there and go.
This may end up being a timely subject if the other gas co's follow Sunoco's cutting of 94 octane gas.

I use water injection on my car, mostly as insurance. I tuned the car to run detonation-free without the water injection (so I wouldn't ping the thing to death should the pump ever give out at an inopportune time), but the water injection just adds a little bit of a "cushion" plus steam cleans the motor every time I get into it. I could easily run more boost and more timing and make more power tuning the car to run with the water injection, but then I'd be in for detonation should anything ever go wrong with the system.

I'm running a diaphragm pump I picked up from Northern Tool which sucks from the washer tank through a filter. The pump is controlled via a progressive pump controller (http://www.alkycontrol.com) (the pump speed increases with boost) from a friend of mine, Julio Don. I rigged up plumbing using nylon tubing and push-to-connect fittings and the atomizing nozzles came from McMaster-Carr.

I only run distilled water, as I'm mainly going for the cooling effect to suppress detonation. Alky works great too, but I don't like the corrosive side effects-- so pure water for me.

Carroll Supercharging makes a ready to go kit, as does Aqua Mist and SMC Enterprises, but most are tailored for boosted applications and use a certain amount of boost to turn on the system. You could easily use it on a naturally aspirated motor by swapping the pressure switches for vacuum switches.

Will they help with detonation? Undoubtedly. I'm just the kind of person who would rather correct the real cause of the problem rather than add a "crutch" to cover it up. Also, if you tune the car to require the water injection to run detonation-free you're setting yourself up for trouble should the water injection system ever fail on you. A lot of people tune their cars this way and have zero problems, but I like to play it safe and sacrafice a few HP with a more conservative tune-- too much money on the line to tune the car to *need* the water injection to run safely.

Troy

Digging up an old post......

I am seriously considering using a water injection setup with my Jimmy as the stock low compression 350 pings now under heavy load, especially when its 100+ degrees outside and/or I am towing.

I now have a rebuilt 355 with alittle more compression (and more cam) and thought water injection might be a good piece of mind.

I have a question though. Does water injection decrease HP/TQ on a N/A powered engine?

Thanks guys!!

the reason your stock low compression 350 pings is because of the low compression- well, more specifically, the lack of good quench- and the low performance cam profile that builds cylinder pressure down low. that, and the egr valve probably doesn't work properly anymore.
that higher compression 355 might not ping at all at higher compression mostly because of the tighter quench and bigger cam- which bleeds off cylinder pressure down low.
as for the effects of water injection- if it suppresses detonation, then it will increase the power and torque unless you put too much water into the combustion chamber. why do you think the turbocharged guys love it so much?

Many people during those days used them on new cars... Detroit had no clue what they were doing then..The Government mandated to take the lead out to use the Cat Cons.... So they lowered the compression ratios ... lets leave the pistons oh say .025down the hole witch worked good with an .022 steel head gasket... but no they started use .038 / .042 head gaskets in those years also..

Too much deck... results lower compression but they pinged... so to help that they retarted the cam timing... producing less sylinder pressure...
but they leaned the carbs down.... lets then put 190 deg T stats in them... less emmissions... but they pinged.... so EGR was used to lower combustion temps and reduce Nox...They discovered that the once common 2700 - 3400 RPM when cruzing the freeways was hard on gas and emmissions they reasoned that less RPM meant less emmissions so they put 2.29 , 2.43 , 2.56 and 2.73 gear sets in them... that loads an engine harder while trying to leave from a start.. the results .. you guessed it .. it pinged...

Must be why my old Buick's 3.8 liter V6 makes them funny noises while accelerating? Is she being "loaded too hard"? She's got a 2.41 out back with a TH200 (2.74 1st gear) in between.;)

WI is being used more then ever ......on computer controlled EFI engines that are boosted .....I have a very sophistcated system on my superchared Pontiac ....works great run high boost on pump gas :) expect to spend 4-500.00 plus for a good one with a computerized controller .....actually use water / alcohol mix .....winter grade windshield washer fluid

Hey John,

I remember that article, and a few more. I set mine up with two vacuum switches on the intake. One at 7 in. and one at 2 in. The 7 in switch would turn the pump on at half speed (because of an inline resistor), while the 2 in. switch would turn it on a full speed. The adjustable feeder controlled the spray.

Fred.

Where did you get the vacuum switches and the adjustable feeder?

Thanks!!



as for the effects of water injection- if it suppresses detonation, then it will increase the power and torque unless you put too much water into the combustion chamber. why do you think the turbocharged guys love it so much?

The reason the forced induction guys like it is because it acts like a chemical intercooler. A good example is my GTP had a pulley swap and it was pushing 12 psi @ WOT. Even with 91 octane it never spark knocked according to my Snap-On scanner. Still, I had a water/meth injection setup installed and still made more power even though it never had problems with spark knock prior.

Now lets say you are right and my new motor doesn't ping, even on the hottest days, on the steepest grades, and towing my trailer. I am not so sure the same applies to my N/A engine making more power w/water injection if there was never spark knocking to begin.

I am sure you are now asking yourself, why water injection then? I guess for those 'just incase' reasons. Plus I really like the idea of keeping the inside of my chambers and pistons clean and carbon free.

A few years ago I had and Edelbrock Varajection unit on an L78 engine. Timing could be advanced a little more but I did need a good supply of water. I have a used setup in a box that I may try again once I have some spare time to play with it. There were two adjustments on the module, one for when the flow started and one for the volume.....if memory serves me correctly.

I have a new Edelbrock Vera Injection system still in the box. What is it worth?

Thanks

Would you be interested in selling your Vara-Jection water injection kit? Please let me know at jmsfire@yahoo.com


Thanks.





I have a new Edelbrock Vera Injection system still in the box. What is it worth?

Thanks

Water injection is great and is still used today. I actually use a kit that is programmed to spray when i get on it. The kit I use is to help with the heat developed by the air getting compressed from my twin screw super charger.

Water injection is not a "power adder" as some folks think. To really understand it think of it as a "combustion coolant" By injection a measure amount of alcohol/water mixture it actually reduces the combustion tempature. This does not produce power, however it provides more playing field to increase boost, increase nos shot, or even pump up more timing.