Water/Methanol Injection on N/A?

[Rider90]

My brother is pulling the water/methanol injection system out of his 7.3L Excursion as he has just upgraded the turbo and will no longer need it. Is there an advantage to this setup on a N/A engine? Not worth the trouble?

[snowbird]

My brother is pulling the water/methanol injection system out of his 7.3L Excursion as he has just upgraded the turbo and will no longer need it. Is there an advantage to this setup on a N/A engine? Not worth the trouble?IMO i don't see any advantage N/A. Just an unreasonnable rise in risk that if the pump fail or the reservoir empty out, then, you"re in for short block shopping.

[txmarauder]

Wont do anything for a n/a vehicle, alky or water injection is used to cool down a air charge created by forced induction (turbo, supercharger). Your brother may want to keep it on since it will still help. Since he is going with a bigger turbo he is looking for power so he will probably be boosting the crap out of it and will still benifit from the injection kit.

[Warpath]

Injectors not only cool intake temp. But, they also reduce combustion temp which will reduce the chance of detonation. I don't think you would benefit from adding it to an N/A engine unless you are running high compression and/or really advanced timing. You don't really need it for boost either until you get to crazy boost levels. You can put a switch chip on to run with and without injection.

[txmarauder]

Injectors not only cool intake temp. But, they also reduce combustion temp which will reduce the chance of detonation. I don't think you would benefit from adding it to an N/A engine unless you are running high compression and/or really advanced timing. You don't really need it for boost either until you get to crazy boost levels. You can put a switch chip on to run with and without injection.What do you consider crazy, 1 psi of boost = 10 degrees higher temp. My gn runs between 12-15 psi so that comes to 120-150 minimum degree increase in temp.

[Mike M]

What do you consider crazy, 1 psi of boost = 10 degrees higher temp. My gn runs between 12-15 psi so that comes to 120-150 minimum degree increase in temp.

I have a 87 T-Type (bought it brand new in 87). What year is your GN?

[txmarauder]

I have a 87 T-Type (bought it brand new in 87). What year is your GN?85, here are my mods:85 ttype wh1, V2 intake, front mount i/c, 2.5" hooker cat back w/test pipe, 14" k&n, grainger boost valve, adj wastegate, adj fpr,hot wire,340, diy alky inj. Poston headers x over and up pipe, 3 inch dp. 87 ecm and ign upgrade, 50lb inj. Need bigger turbo.

Do you belong to any buick forums:

[Mike M]

So yours is basically stock huh? :-)
Mine is 100% stock except for chip and I put drag radials on it. 12.87 et
I think I have a picture in the gallery section.

[mpearce]

My wife Heather (SixAppeal) has an 87 T-Type. Metallic grey with chrome trim.

Went 11.88 last year at Dragway 42.

-Mat

[txmarauder]

My wife Heather (SixAppeal) has an 87 T-Type. Metallic grey with chrome trim.

Went 11.88 last year at Dragway 42.

-Mat
The turbo regals are unbeatable when it comes to power from a little v6. I have less than $10k in mine and it kicks the ass of my $36k MM in speed and gas mileage.

[dwasson]

I had water injection on an old Fiesta. The Fiesta had 11:1 pistons and the gas in the early 80's was terrible. I used it so that I could run on pump gas with high compression.

[Warpath]

What do you consider crazy, 1 psi of boost = 10 degrees higher temp. My gn runs between 12-15 psi so that comes to 120-150 minimum degree increase in temp.

Around 15 psi in my opinion for typical OE compression ratios. I'm no expert though. I'm basing my opinion on what I've read only. But, I typically don't see anyone using injection with anything less than 15 psi. It seems to me that intercoolers/aftercoolers are more popular.

[Lidio]

I haven’t had time to write about this in detail yet here or on my shops web site…. But I recently upgraded my 2005 GT witch has had Vortech making about 12psi of boost all summer, to a Methanol injection in the last few days. Most of this summer in the heat with a stallion converter, headers, two cats, resonators and 3-chamber flo-master mufflers it ran 12.00 ish at about 114mph. with a couple of 11.95s @ 115. This thing with me in it and no gutting plus 20’s all around weighs in at 3750lbs.

When I went to an NMRA event at Columbus OH about 8 weeks ago, I didn’t have all the stuff for the methanol kit rounded up yet and I wanted to go there and run mid to high 11’s with the car and put on a good show because they (NMRA) assembled an ‘05 Mustang only shoot-out that had a couple of different classes I could choose from. One of the classes required true street tires, no slicks or drag radials.

Since my 05 had already run very high 11’s on 20” street tires, I thought I’d have a chance to win the whole thing. Since I didn’t have the Meth kit on, and I really wanted to squeeze a mid 11 sec ET out of the car, I put in 5 gallons of 100 unleaded octane race fuel like I run in my MM and many others when I use the NOS with the boost. When I added the 100 unleaded, I thought that I could get away with instantly adding about 4-6 degrees more spark and all would be well. Well the car flew, it went an 11.69 and 11.73 at over 115mph in about 85 degree heat... buuuuttt...
Because the Vortech on this car is non intercooled and because I still had about two gallons of 93 octane mixed with only 5 gallons of 100 unleaded in the tank, and later on after testing I discovered that I didn’t have exactly 100 unleaded fuel added to the tank either…. While going down the ¼ mile I ended up hearing through my helmet severe detonation on one of the first runs I made with the car. I attempted to pull 2 of the 5 degrees of timing I added back out and the knock sensor tried to pull some as well. Unfortunately I still heard a pretty good amount of DET at the end of the track again on another run, and foolishly didn’t lift. And like other motors before this one in other cars, the DET shattered a piston and the rest is history.

The new motor now in the 05 has -- Marauder/Mach-1/Aviator -- pistons in it. A stock ‘05 3-valve GT is 9.8 to 1 compression. The MM piston makes 10.1 to 1 compression with the stock MM cylinder heads. After some thought and comparison and being in a hurry, I decided to use the MM piston in the 3-valve application. I estimated that this combo would make about 10.2 to 10.3 compression in the 3-valve head. Wanting to get this thing back together to have some fun this fall, I new full well that it was gona be higher compression and ultimately when the meth made it onto the car, I would also raise the boost to about 13.5ish psi.

Trying to shorting this and sum it up.
Basically this past week I flogged the new motor on the dyno and went to the track with it this past Saturday. The new motor got no new head work or any thing exotic at all just a good valve job, no cams, no porting, nothing other then forged pistons, eagle rods and even left the stock cast crank in it. The only upgrade in terms of performance was the bumped-up compression and then went from a 3.6” pulley on the S-Trim (stock is 3.8”) down to a 3.48” and it does make 13.5 psi of boost.


Get this…. With the meth system pretty well sorted out now and only 2 degrees more timing then I used to run 93 octane when the car ran 12.00 et’s at 114mph…..
On the dyno it went from an average with the old motor and boost of 405 to 415-RWHP up to 480-RWHP!!!
And yesterday, October 15th, it ran 11.23 @ 124mph with a 1.77 60ft still on 315 non-DragRadial tires, 20” rims.

I watched a lot of stuff with the car’s tune on the dyno and at the track and actually heard just a little spotty DET at the track. So I backed the timing out a little and added more meth and all the DET went away and it still ran several 11.30’s at 122-123mph. I feel the car is safer now with more compression, slightly more boost, and its going faster then ever. Had I got the meth nailed down earlier with the stock motor, I’m pretty sure its performance would be some what close to what it just did and still be safe with the stock short bock as I’ve proved with other cars when you make sure your never detonating them.

Needless to say I’m very hooked now on Methanol injection and its potential. My 05 GT drives quite normal and the transition into the Meth flowing is seamless and unnoticeable. It starts to flow at about 3500rpm near WOT.
At the end of the ¼ mile, my inlet temps have dropped from 225-240 down to 135!!!

With this higher new found power, it’ll be interesting to see how well the untouched stock 5-speed auto trans holds up from here.


Thanks

[Bradley G]

Feel Free to start your own thread!:bows: :D

Great read Lidio!
How 'Bout Rider 90, He, or any N/A Guy out there, would they have any benefit from this system?
Are you going to offer a kit ?
Excellent results on the track and Dyno.

I haven’t had time to write about this in detail yet here or on my shops web site…. But I recently upgraded my 2005 GT witch has had Vortech making about 12psi of boost all summer, to a Methanol injection in the last few days. Most of this summer in the heat with a stallion converter, headers, two cats, resonators and 3-chamber flo-master mufflers it ran 12.00 ish at about 114mph. with a couple of 11.95s @ 115. This thing with me in it and no gutting plus 20’s all around weighs in at 3750lbs.

When I went to an NMRA event at Columbus OH about 8 weeks ago, I didn’t have all the stuff for the methanol kit rounded up yet and I wanted to go there and run mid to high 11’s with the car and put on a good show because they (NMRA) assembled an ‘05 Mustang only shoot-out that had a couple of different classes I could choose from. One of the classes required true street tires, no slicks or drag radials.

Since my 05 had already run very high 11’s on 20” street tires, I thought I’d have a chance to win the whole thing. Since I didn’t have the Meth kit on, and I really wanted to squeeze a mid 11 sec ET out of the car, I put in 5 gallons of 100 unleaded octane race fuel like I run in my MM and many others when I use the NOS with the boost. When I added the 100 unleaded, I thought that I could get away with instantly adding about 4-6 degrees more spark and all would be well. Well the car flew, it went an 11.69 and 11.73 at over 115mph in about 85 degree heat... buuuuttt...
Because the Vortech on this car is non intercooled and because I still had about two gallons of 93 octane mixed with only 5 gallons of 100 unleaded in the tank, and later on after testing I discovered that I didn’t have exactly 100 unleaded fuel added to the tank either…. While going down the ¼ mile I ended up hearing through my helmet severe detonation on one of the first runs I made with the car. I attempted to pull 2 of the 5 degrees of timing I added back out and the knock sensor tried to pull some as well. Unfortunately I still heard a pretty good amount of DET at the end of the track again on another run, and foolishly didn’t lift. And like other motors before this one in other cars, the DET shattered a piston and the rest is history.

The new motor now in the 05 has -- Marauder/Mach-1/Aviator -- pistons in it. A stock ‘05 3-valve GT is 9.8 to 1 compression. The MM piston makes 10.1 to 1 compression with the stock MM cylinder heads. After some thought and comparison and being in a hurry, I decided to use the MM piston in the 3-valve application. I estimated that this combo would make about 10.2 to 10.3 compression in the 3-valve head. Wanting to get this thing back together to have some fun this fall, I new full well that it was gona be higher compression and ultimately when the meth made it onto the car, I would also raise the boost to about 13.5ish psi.

Trying to shorting this and sum it up.
Basically this past week I flogged the new motor on the dyno and went to the track with it this past Saturday. The new motor got no new head work or any thing exotic at all just a good valve job, no cams, no porting, nothing other then forged pistons, eagle rods and even left the stock cast crank in it. The only upgrade in terms of performance was the bumped-up compression and then went from a 3.6” pulley on the S-Trim (stock is 3.8”) down to a 3.48” and it does make 13.5 psi of boost.


Get this…. With the meth system pretty well sorted out now and only 2 degrees more timing then I used to run 93 octane when the car ran 12.00 et’s at 114mph…..
On the dyno it went from an average with the old motor and boost of 405 to 415-RWHP up to 480-RWHP!!!
And yesterday, October 15th, it ran 11.23 @ 124mph with a 1.77 60ft still on 315 non-DragRadial tires, 20” rims.

I watched a lot of stuff with the car’s tune on the dyno and at the track and actually heard just a little spotty DET at the track. So I backed the timing out a little and added more meth and all the DET went away and it still ran several 11.30’s at 122-123mph. I feel the car is safer now with more compression, slightly more boost, and its going faster then ever. Had I got the meth nailed down earlier with the stock motor, I’m pretty sure its performance would be some what close to what it just did and still be safe with the stock short bock as I’ve proved with other cars when you make sure your never detonating them.

Needless to say I’m very hooked now on Methanol injection and its potential. My 05 GT drives quite normal and the transition into the Meth flowing is seamless and unnoticeable. It starts to flow at about 3500rpm near WOT.
At the end of the ¼ mile, my inlet temps have dropped from 225-240 down to 135!!!

With this higher new found power, it’ll be interesting to see how well the untouched stock 5-speed auto trans holds up from here.


Thanks

[FordNut]

My brother is pulling the water/methanol injection system out of his 7.3L Excursion as he has just upgraded the turbo and will no longer need it. Is there an advantage to this setup on a N/A engine? Not worth the trouble?
There are conflicting opinions on this, but consider that a year ago just about everybody around here poo-poo'ed the water injection idea altogether.

The main benefits on a n/a engine would be:
1) get another tune, add timing & make more power
2) use lower octane and the water/methanol will prevent detonation
3) it'll reduce carbon deposits on the inside of the engine

[Bradley G]

Any downsides besides running dry, or a malfunction in the system?




There are conflicting opinions on this, but consider that a year ago just about everybody around here poo-poo'ed the water injection idea altogether.

The main benefits on a n/a engine would be:
1) get another tune, add timing & make more power
2) use lower octane and the water/methanol will prevent detonation
3) it'll reduce carbon deposits on the inside of the engine

[dwasson]

Any downsides besides running dry, or a malfunction in the system?

One more thing to keep up with.

[FordNut]

Any downsides besides running dry, or a malfunction in the system?
If an aggressive tune is added, you could get detonation if it runs out or quits. Probably not enough to hurt the engine if it's n/a. If only a couple of degrees were added as mentioned by Lidio, it should be easy enough for the knock sensors to back it out.

[FordNut]

One more thing to keep up with.
True, but if a CV/GM windshield washer reservoir is used it has a low fluid warning switch. That can be used to illuminate a warning led so you know to add fluid. Lots of users simply use washer fluid, but the best option is 50/50 water/methanol mix. It can be dual purpose, for the windshield cleaning as well as the water injection.

[Joe Walsh]

True, but if a CV/GM windshield washer reservoir is used it has a low fluid warning switch. That can be used to illuminate a warning led so you know to add fluid. Lots of users simply use washer fluid, but the best option is 50/50 water/methanol mix. It can be dual purpose, for the windshield cleaning as well as the water injection.

I had a similar set up on my old '79 Turbo Mustang. It had the draw through carburated, non-intercooled turbo 2.3 four.
It had a simple two step spark retard* when under boost. This would cause it to ping a LOT in warm weather.
I added a windshield washer reservoir, filled it with 50:50 water/rubbing alcohol and would hit a button on my shifter when inder boost.
It would spray into the carb through a hole I drilled in the air cleaner lid.
It worked like a charm! (plus my spark plugs were always clean....like they were brand new.)

*remember, this was 5 years before the EEC-IV ignition control system that was used on the SVOs.

[txmarauder]

Lidio, is your system progressive and adjustable or just a on/off setup.

[Lidio]

I cant say for sure on a N/A car but I think its possible to gain some thing.
I've never tried water injection. We are using straight methanol on all the cars we add it to. We're not gonna mix or cut-it with any thing right now.

[Bradley G]

How much Alcohol is used while racing?

If you started with the windshield washer resevior full.
would it last for several passes?
Thanks for your input, Lidio.

I cant say for sure on a N/A car but I think its possible to gain some thing.
I've never tried water injection. We are using straight methanol on all the cars we add it to. We're not gonna mix or cut-it with any thing right now.