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Interesting history, I hope there will be plenty of pictures in the book I will have to browse the cooling mist site.

Greg:

A few random questions that come to mind. These are questions a reader might ask themselves. You can answer here or just take them under consideration.

1) Is there an effect of the phase change of the water, i.e. from liquid droplets in an aerosol to a true gas? Is there a bit of steam-engine effect going on?

2) Would one expect additional water in their oil with water injection? Is this potentially harmful to the engine? Are there oil driers akin to oil filters?

3) What if you run out of water? Does the car no longer run or can you drive at low boost to the nearest stream? Back in the day this was a problem for steam locomotives.

4) Are systems like this street legal? Will they harm emissions? Or are they for track use only?

Hi Maldi,

All of that's covered pretty well in the book. Here is the reader's digest version:
1. Yes, there is a phase change effect. The steam engine effect (i.e. steam pushing down on the pistons) probably exists but it's so minimal that no tests I know of were able to quantify it.

2. There is one NACA test that resulted in water in the oil. This test is quoted all over the internet by people who didn't really understand the report. The test was not even close to applicable for automobiles.

In this test they were trying to reduce TOTAL liquid consumption (that means fuel and water) to try and save mission weight to increase range and or payload (meaning bombs). In this test they ran insanely lean mixtures well lean of a 20:1 AFR under high boost with a 1.5:1 water to fuel ratio. In other words they were injecting 50% more water than fuel! In this case for short bursts of power some water ended up in the oil. They said the build up of water in the oil was due in part due to the extreemly low temperatures of the cylinder and head, which were at or below the boiling point of water. That plus the massive amount of water they needed to inject due to the super lean AFR resulted in water in the fuel. The conclusion was that at normal engine temps and oil temps this would not be a problem and practical application has shown that to be the case. On a real engine with normal engine and oil temps and a .6:1 water fuel ratio which is about all you would run, it's just not a factor.

Now with all that said, as with any performance engine I do change oil more frequently than a normal use car.

3. When I drive I try not to run out of gasoline, water, or food. That said, I have a low level warning light for the tank and when it comes on, which is rare, I avoid the use of high power until I fill the tank. With a 1.5 gallon tank, you don't run out of water too often if you drive like a normal human being.

4. a)I have no idea. b)I seriously doubt it. They won't effect an emissions test anyway since they system only activates under a preset amount of boost. c)I consider it to be a road and or track system.

Greg,
www.hiperformancestore.com

How much water/meth. do you go through per tank of gas?

Usually about a 1/2 gallon. A lot more at the track!

can't really give an opinion on the charts, although I find them interesting and understand them a little bit, one thing for sure is that i'm buying your book!

Ok, after some more staring at it I can maybe give some feedback.
I think my problem is that ithere is too much text explaining the "easy to understand" histograms. I think it would be much more explanatory in a matrix style layout. Have you tried that? Maybe not squeeze all the data into one histogram at least. For instance, the diagram showing the effects on the power at two different IATs. I think you should split them out to make two different diagrams or maybe "ghost" them on top/behind of one another.
It's really confusing when you expect one (1) defintion of the axis and that it's constantly (or log or exp and so on) changing when you travelalong it.

The effectiveness of showing results in pictures are lost if one have to read and re-read the X and Y axis definitions every time.

Hope you see I'm trying to give you some constructive critisicm and not just put your work down.

Greg Gordon wrote:Usually about a 1/2 gallon. A lot more at the track!

Haha, I would suppose so.

Lets look at these one graph at a time. I figure the first one and the last one are pretty easy to understand. The two in the middle are tougher because they each deal with more variables. I could break each of those in to two seperate graphs. I don't see how I could reduce the text.

Those two middle charts are more confusing because of all the varialbes, IAT, CFR, AFR, etc. However those variables are pretty important.

The first one can be replaced by this simple 3*4 matrix. To me this is much more clear then the un-linear histogram.

I am not sure if I like that style better or not. To me the graphical presentation in a bar graph makes more sense. They both show the information, the style you used is easier to print, so that's a definate advatage.

Yeah, but graphs look more official. Go with the graphs to begin with, then use the other style to break down the results?

I do use the matrix style for some other charts in the book. For example the supercharger pulley sizes vs boost chart.

I finished the fuel injection section of the book this weekend. Everything I know about supercharging with L-Jet is covered, including how to make the "black box" I use to control mixture. At this point, with the power levels I am going for I am switching to modern injection, but the L-Jet info may be useful to others.

I have one more chapter to write. It sort of ties up loose ends and deals with things that didn't fit into other chapters. For example in car boost control, deceptive advertizing tactics to watch out for and a few other odds and ends. Then I start putting in all the pictures.

If all goes well I will be done Sept. 5th. I am really anxious to be done with this book. It's been consuming my life for well over a year.

Greg,
P.S. I am killing this thread soon, so if anyone needs those charts grab them. I won't be putting all four up again.

In car boost control? The right-most pedal?