Pics inside my intake after 250,000 miles spraying water/methanol

Thought I'd share these pics.

Brief summary:
At about 129,000 miles I added water methanol injection to my truck. The claimed benefits were increased power, mpgs, and cleaner engine. I saw the power and mpgs for sure. But now, after spraying for about 250,000 miles I got a little peak inside the engine.

Here is the pic from 2008 when the truck had about 129,000 miles and I installed the water/meth:


Not too bad just a little crud.


Here are this weeks pics when I pulled the intake off: (the wet on the outside is the lube I sprayed for a couple days fearing stuck bolts)







Side note: I've seen pics of stock trucks with under 100 k and the intake 40%+ clogged with soot.

I played with different percentages of meth, but for the most part I sprayed straight water and only added methanol in freezing temps.

 

That's pretty impressive. I haven't heard of water injection in 25 years! Kudos for getting that many miles out of a vehicle. I wish I kept my first car, a 65 Plymouth Valiant. I would have saved a bundle.

 

Why would spraying water increase power or mpgs?

 

They say cleaner burn and more complete combustion.

Within a couple thousand miles of the install I took truck to a dyno to test it. Spraying 50/50 water/meth saw an increase of 102 HP an 200+ tq at the wheels vs no spray. They say straight water would have only been 20-40 HP.

 

I think that water delays the onset of detonation, allowing a more advanced timing setting. They used to use it on the high horsepower piston aircraft.

 

This is impossible, everyone knows methanol has a lower energy content than diesel or gasoline.. and water is even worse!

Its just basic chemistry and physics.. same thing that underlies current theories on AGW. Water injection worked in WWII due to a NAZI plot confusing the engineers.

 

I can post the dyno slip.

Edit. Or here is a link. Snow did not in any way sponsor the dyno run. I went to an independent shop, on my own without Snow knowledge. Dyno was done at Huckstrof diesel in Franklin WI with a Superflow dyno. Snow has a typo on their site. Baseline power was 360 not 340

http://www.snowperformance.net/dyno_chart_view.php?type=diesel&dck=20

 

Anyway, there were several fighter planes that had water injection and were very helpful in getting the burst of speed needed to escape enemy aircraft. ALSO, it was used in some early farm tractors. One of the benefits I've heard is the fact that when water turns to steam, it occupies a space about 1800 times as large as when it was liquid, and it does so very rapidly which adds a bit of a kick to the downward motion of the piston.

 

So it is a temporary thing? At the press of the button or do you run it full-time?

 

A few more pics of the impossible , aka my setup

Putting together a 27 gallon water tank for more range:




Both tanks, 27 gallon and 7 gallon, tee'd, filtered, and pump:



And at the engine, red lines are water/meth. Lines going to drivers side are for boost gauge and psi gauge.




Stuff works great on a 6.6 turbo diesel. I want to look into it for gas engines. If my next van is gas I may install an injection kit seeing how the van already has a 125 gallon water tank. I just don't know how the gas engine respond. If I get a diesel is getting a kit for sure.

 

Can't spray at idle, but on my truck it sprays about all the time the truck is moving.

 

I think those german-and other fighters-
sprayed water and Methanol because they were running spectacular BOOST
Turbo and maybe even belt or crank driven superchargers.
and these were gasoline engines
It they didn't cool the charge the DETONATION would have been pretty spectacular.
Maybe some of those fighters-one side or the other-ran Nitrous also
By the end of the war they were really pushing those engines.
Engines that made 1200 hp- at beginning-maybe even the Merlin??-were rated at 2000 hp at the end!!

Factory motors-DON'T use water or methanol injection-so better mpg-I don't know?
Sure will keep exhausts temps down-diesels guys are freaks about exhaust temps-go on and on about them-put you to sleep talking about them!!

 

250,000+ miles of using it. I must be confused :Banane04:

 

Does that system spray the water at a fixed rate, or at a rate somehow proportionate to fuel flow or whatever?

 

the original controller sprayed based on turboboost psi or exhaust temps. That controller fried and I switched to a 12 volt DC PWM variable controller. Basically, I set the knob for how much I want it to spray now.

 

yeah, must totally be. NOT!

Water/meth is NO joke. if and when i get my Cummins, i'm doing the same.

do you have a set ratio between water and meth? or just mix what ya got?

 

I was just using water most of the time. Added meth to keep it from freezing in winter. Have a chart somewhere with % to mix to keep it from freezing at ____x temperature.

 

It should also work on gasoline high compression engines to control detonation..

 

It does Herm. I remember seeing a kit to build one. It used a windshield washer spray pump as the pump, and used a pressure switch that turned it on when the manifold pressure went above 25".

 

Herm
Pretty sure-detonation control-was the original reason some of those WW2 fighters had water injection(Huge boost for Huge HP-plenty of compression too I bet).
It should improve longevity-since diesel folks say lowering exhaust temps increases longevity

The turbo 4's-those boy racer ones from 10 years back-Lancer etc- got kinda poor mpg-probably because they were using over rich mixtures to cool charge prevent detonation on high boost-I wonder why they didn't try water injection-?? Complexity/EPA concerns?? Would think it would improve NOxs ??

Not sure why OEM don't use it when boosting- maybe some EPA reason- but aren't some of the diesel pollutants caused by the high temps(maybe the NOxs ??)

In any case if it works- it works. Hasn't harmed anything-so looks like a winner
Charlie