Bigger chargecooler or Meth/water injection?

[pan]

Hello all,

Did everyone add the meth/water injection system? Where is the best to locate the methanol injection nozzle?

Is it worth adding the meth/water injection system Rather than a bigger chargecooler?

Regards

[chris]

I tried a water injection system before fitting a chargecooler. Personally I didn’t like it. It couldn’t  cool anywhere near as well as the chargecooler and you have the issue of needing to keep it topped up. I’ve heard good things about water-meth injection on diesels but not so much on petrol engines.

I first fitted an original charge cooler but have since upgraded to the larger Alunox unit. 

Personally I would recommend a chargecooler with the largest rad you can find up front.

[pan]

Thx Chris,

I don’t want to make the A/C rad as part of chargercooler rad as A/C is necessary for me in summer.

when you added the meth/water injection system, had you checked whether the engine would advance the sparking timing? And did you feel a better on-boost/off-boost performance?

 

 

[Glyn Harper]

I had water injection on mine as well, using an aqua mist system. It certainly kept the inlet tract nice and clean. I ran a 50/50 mix with water and screenwash which is usually methanol based.

It never ran massively better, it was just here to prevent knocking really, which I didn’t get anyway so I removed it eventually as it was a faff remembering to keep it topped up and wasn’t a particularly tidy installation.

The BMW M4 GTS has water injection so there is something in it. Although I suspect that’s partly because it would have been harder to fit a bigger chargecooler and radiator without redesigning parts of the car to accommodate them. Adding water injection is relatively easy. They will have something in the map that limits boost if the water level gets low though which you won’t.

if you do fit it, I fitted my injector in the chargecooler, just after the central core, in the wider part before the air narrows back into the pipe work. It’s the biggest area that gets all the air all the time. I remember thinking the plenum chamber was actually too big.

I think when Ford made the first 2,500 Escort Cosworths they used to have it injecting water in the inlet tract before the turbo. They used two Washer pumps in series to build up pressure, but then effectively had the inlet vanes of the turbo smash the water up into atomised particles to have more effect. My memory is not 100% on that though as I did year that story about 20 years ago.

My car didn’t have a chargecooler when I got it, so I’m using the original Air con rad. Works really well.

[jonwat]

14 hours ago, Glyn Harper said:

I think when Ford made the first 2,500 Escort Cosworths they used to have it injecting water in the inlet tract before the turbo. They used two Washer pumps in series to build up pressure, but then effectively had the inlet vanes of the turbo smash the water up into atomised particles to have more effect.

I'd have thought the water droplets passing through the turbo impellar spinning at 100,000+ RPM would have the exact opposite effect, the centrifugal force causing the droplets to condense on the turbo housing walls.

The best place to inject will be post turbo where the hot compressed air will cause the water droplets to evaporate so cooling the air & increasing it's density. 

[Glyn Harper]

Indeed.. I did say it was ages ago I heard that story.  I certainly didn't have my water injecting before the turbo.

[pan]

I prefer the aquamist system but I still don’t get any information about the performance on Esprit.

I think the best place to mount the nozzle is the port for IAT sensor on the chargecooler for a better mix up before enter the cambustion chamber and then screw the IAT sensor into the plenum backplate for a accurate reading.

[chris]

I fitted the aquamist system in an attempt to stop pre-ignition, therefore any performance gain I got was down to upping the boost level rather than the water inj. At that time my car was running carbs and a dizzy and so no changes to the timing.

Although Lotus used the air con rad on the S300 you dont need to loose the air con to do this!

I simply replaced the original C/C rad with a more modern and bigger aluminium unit.  You can see some pics of the install on my project page  (if your interested), its entitled "the never ending project".

When i swapped from the standard C/C to the Alunox version, the intake temp went from 80 degrees and climbing (on rolling Rd) to being able to maintain a constant 60 degrees.  I have since fitted a heat barrier and turbo jacket from Funk motorsport and the larger C/C rad which has brought the intake temps down further.

Water/meth is definitely the cheaper option however IMO performance bang for buck has to be C/C route + its power on tap all the time without needing to ensure the water/meth reservoir is topped up.   

 

[Chillidoggy]

Pan, ProAlloy made me a more efficient charge-cooler heat exchanger, it seems to work well. Maybe have a look at their website, although I see the one they’re selling now has put got the same pipes as my prototype version. You can probably see it on my refurb thread somewhere.

 Jonwat - A word about water injection into turbos, we used to mix a chemical called Rochem RACC with water, and spray it into the turbo inlets on our marine diesels to clean the tracts and blades. The mechanical impinging of the droplets and chemical mixture was the key. Made the engines cough a bit, but it certainly did the job, and as far as I know, condensation wasn’t an issue. That said, the Esprit turbos are much smaller, so things may be different with them.

[pan]

On 16/12/2018 at 19:57, chris said:

I fitted the aquamist system in an attempt to stop pre-ignition, therefore any performance gain I got was down to upping the boost level rather than the water inj. At that time my car was running carbs and a dizzy and so no changes to the timing.

Although Lotus used the air con rad on the S300 you dont need to loose the air con to do this!

I simply replaced the original C/C rad with a more modern and bigger aluminium unit.  You can see some pics of the install on my project page  (if your interested), its entitled "the never ending project".

When i swapped from the standard C/C to the Alunox version, the intake temp went from 80 degrees and climbing (on rolling Rd) to being able to maintain a constant 60 degrees.  I have since fitted a heat barrier and turbo jacket from Funk motorsport and the larger C/C rad which has brought the intake temps down further.

Water/meth is definitely the cheaper option however IMO performance bang for buck has to be C/C route + its power on tap all the time without needing to ensure the water/meth reservoir is topped up.   

 

I was told that bigger chargecooler should be paired with larger or more efficient cc rad, bigger c/c will add more turbo lag but meth/water injection won’t. Alunox c/c should be a good product but it is too big for me, I prefer the r&b one.

On 16/12/2018 at 21:35, Chillidoggy said:

Pan, ProAlloy made me a more efficient charge-cooler heat exchanger, it seems to work well. Maybe have a look at their website, although I see the one they’re selling now has put got the same pipes as my prototype version. You can probably see it on my refurb thread somewhere.

 Jonwat - A word about water injection into turbos, we used to mix a chemical called Rochem RACC with water, and spray it into the turbo inlets on our marine diesels to clean the tracts and blades. The mechanical impinging of the droplets and chemical mixture was the key. Made the engines cough a bit, but it certainly did the job, and as far as I know, condensation wasn’t an issue. That said, the Esprit turbos are much smaller, so things may be different with them.

Thx Ian, 

Proalloy was my first choice before but I couldn’t  find any comment about it. The cc rad listed at their website is as same as yours and can be fitted perfectly without any modification?

[Chillidoggy]

1 hour ago, pan said:

I was told that bigger chargecooler should be paired with larger or more efficient cc rad, bigger c/c will add more turbo lag but meth/water injection won’t. Alunox c/c should be a good product but it is too big for me, I prefer the r&b one.

Thx Ian, 

Proalloy was my first choice before but I couldn’t  find any comment about it. The cc rad listed at their website is as same as yours and can be fitted perfectly without any modification?

A couple of photos of it for you.

The ProAlloy website item doesn’t seem to show the pipes, but it’s a shitty photo. I had very good dealings with them, so I suggest an email to Chris at ProAlloy. Mention my name, tell him he used my CC for his prototype if you like.

I should add that the main reason for me going to ProAlloy was I needed a new CC and they were obsolete at the time, not sure if that’s still the case, though. 

[chris]

I didn’t notice any difference in lag characteristics between the 2 chargecoolers.  Obviously it’s possible just didn’t change the way the car felt to me when driving. I did however notice a difference when I swapped the turbo out to a hybrid unit similar to the S4 spec but that was to be expected as my original T3 was smaller and couldn’t give me the power I’m looking for without getting itself all hot and bothered. 

Are you going for increased performance or just looking to keep everything cool?

If performance then I don’t think you will see as much of an increase as you would with a larger cc and rad. If it’s purely a way to aid cooling then you could look at spraying water in front of the rad (I think some of the Jpn cars use this technique on the air to air inter coolers) no idea how effective it is though! 

[Chillidoggy]

To add to what Chris has said, the charge-cooling circuit is a system; for efficiency, any changes should be reflected throughout that system, otherwise gains will be minimal. By that, I mean in order to maximise any gains provided by (as in this example), a more efficient charge-cooler heat exchanger, it’s important to ensure that the remaining components in that circuit are matched ie. pipework, pump and charge-cooler itself.

[jonwat]

17 hours ago, chris said:

 then you could look at spraying water in front of the rad (I think some of the Jpn cars use this technique on the air to air inter coolers)

Or carbon dioxide. 

[pan]

On 18/12/2018 at 02:34, chris said:

I didn’t notice any difference in lag characteristics between the 2 chargecoolers.  Obviously it’s possible just didn’t change the way the car felt to me when driving. I did however notice a difference when I swapped the turbo out to a hybrid unit similar to the S4 spec but that was to be expected as my original T3 was smaller and couldn’t give me the power I’m looking for without getting itself all hot and bothered. 

Are you going for increased performance or just looking to keep everything cool?

If performance then I don’t think you will see as much of an increase as you would with a larger cc and rad. If it’s purely a way to aid cooling then you could look at spraying water in front of the rad (I think some of the Jpn cars use this technique on the air to air inter coolers) no idea how effective it is though! 

 

On 18/12/2018 at 00:36, Chillidoggy said:

A couple of photos of it for you.

The ProAlloy website item doesn’t seem to show the pipes, but it’s a shitty photo. I had very good dealings with them, so I suggest an email to Chris at ProAlloy. Mention my name, tell him he used my CC for his prototype if you like.

I should add that the main reason for me going to ProAlloy was I needed a new CC and they were obsolete at the time, not sure if that’s still the case, though. 

Thanks for the inputs.

I think I will go for an more efficient C/C system as I have no idea how to tune a meth/water injection system, It could be worse at A/F ratio without a good tuning.

 

[Glyn Harper]

Better Chargecooling is the proper way to do it. Water injection is an engineering equivalent of a workaround/bodge.

[MrDangerUS]

Would you please post a link to the ProAlloy site? Their craftsmanship is impressive!

[Bibs]

http://bfy.tw/Ldea