RE: Making power

From: Wayne T. Schultz (rimfax@email.msn.com)
Date: Fri Mar 26 1999 - 17:48:52 EST


Just the opposite - it cools the combustion chamber. With a "perfect" water
injection setup, you could theoretically run a 17:1 compression ratio engine
on 75-octane gas. In the real world, you can typically run 10-12:1
compression ratios on pump gas with water injection. However, you will lose
about 5% power compared to running the same compression with high-octane
gas. Some of that can be re-gained by mixing alcohol with the water at a
1:1 ratio.

The water injection is efficient because it isn't needed under part-throttle
conditions, but is used under full-throttle or when the engine is under
heavy load (such as towing or crossing a mountain pass) to prevent pinging.

'92 Dak CC 2wd 318 3.55
'84 GoldWing Interstate

I have to agree. I am a member of the Corvair Society of America (Corsa).
Water injection has been offered for Corvairs for about 25 Years. Corvairs
are air cooled and with lower octane gas they will pre-ignite under load.
The average Corvair owner just retards the timing a few degrees. (Yes, that
= performance loss.) Die hard corvair guys installed water injection. This
keeps the fuel/air mixture cool enough that it wont ignite until the plug
fires.
        In my experience, most corvairs that have water injection a turbos. And
most are racers and auto-X- ers who mix water and alcohol and are running
lots of boost.

        To Sum up: I don't know of any non turbo corvair guy who claimed that he
got better performance by using water injection.

-Wayne

Can't wait to go back to the race track!



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