Water injection installed, not much cooling occurring...

[antnicuk]

that pump will have no problem running a second injector

[gmogle]

Yeah mines a coolingmist setup and the pump is fine running 2 injectors.

To adjust it to come on sooner you just have to turn it counterclockwise. Keep doing it a quarter of a turn at a time and see what happens. Suprised you cant hear the pump though....you can hear the water slurping through it lol.

[lockwood77]

Well, tried it with the boost switch screw loosened plenty (two or three full turns counter-clockwise) and still nowt - no LED lighting up, no drop in temps.

Gonna have to take the hose/injector off and do the "fire at windscreen" test again to check the boost switch is working (and at what boost level). If that works, I\'ll then do the "wiring" test with the injector in the intake pipe but the pipe off the car, so I can see what\'s happening inside when (presumably) it is firing water in.

If that all looks like it\'s working, I have no idea what\'s going on!

[antnicuk]

if you have no light it must be either the boost switch or the wiring,  you\'ll get it sorted.  Best mod you can do for the money so worth getting it working.  you should see the intake temps drop 1 degree every few seconds when its hot and you inject water

[lockwood77]

Cheers mate. The guide on temp drop/time injecting water is very useful - I will do my testing as above tonight to try and prove which bit is letting me down.

What I\'ll do if it all looks like it\'s working I don\'t know... I\'m on track Friday, so lots more boost and heat, we\'ll really see if it makes any difference then! If not, I\'ll be doing alternate hot lap/cooling lap!

[lockwood77]

OK, popped the pipe off the injector and tested to see if I got any water out - I didn\'t. Odd, as it was working yesterday, so... tried all the coupling points in the pipework, got a little "spit" as I took it out of the pump side of the checkvalve, after which water flowed happily all through the system. I can only assume there was an airlock of some description, either caused by low water (it wasn\'t that low though) or the slight leak (and I do mean slight) in the coupling to the tank.

Whatever, I took it out for a drive and the LED came on and I could hear the pump operating! (I left the boot trim off). So I have to assume it was spraying, but before I got chance to boost too much, it stopped again! I was worried, as the pump made a sound similar to an electrical short/spark, so did the pipe off test again and water still flowed out. Then checked the boost pipe - the coupling I used (aquarium piping T-piece) was obviously not up to the job, as when the silicon pipe got hot it went floppy and expanded.

Drove away again, got a flicker then nowt - looked at the boost gauge and realised that wasn\'t reading properly either, so that\'s why the WI wasn\'t firing. Hopefully when that\'s sorted and I\'ve silicon-sealed the tank coupling, all will be well!

[antnicuk]

have you got a true boost source for your boost switch?

[lockwood77]

Not sure what you mean by "true boost source"? I\'ve got it running off the plenum, as per the boost gauge, which seemed to give an accurate reading.

[antnicuk]

there are a couple of take off points on the plenum that dont give an accurate boost reading,  but if its from the same point as your boost gauge and your happy with that reading it should be ok.

[lockwood77]

Ah right, didn\'t know that - the one it came attached to is kind of in the middle of the plenum on the driver\'s side (not sure how many nipples there are actually, so can\'t say how many along it is!)

Any reference/pics around to show the best options? Ta!

Oh, and I take it that it\'s fine to use the same nipple for two applications (i.e. I\'ve got a T-piece off the plenum to connect both the WI boost switch and boost gauge)?

[lockwood77]

OK, on track yesterday the water injection worked... for about a minute or so per session! When it was working, it was definitely doing its job, but it seems to be getting an airlock on the pump (input) side of the checkvale. When I pulled the tube out of the connector, it spat at me due, I presume, to air pressure. This only happened on that connector, none of the others.

There is a very small leak on the connection to the water tank, but I\'m not sure if that would be enough to cause an airlock in such a short space of time? Moreover, I did the "wire" test (i.e. pull the tube out of the injector, ground the live pin of the boost switch and watch water come out) and pulled a litre of water through the system with no apparent loss of flow/pressure.

So, what could be causing the checkvale to keep locking up on the pump side when in use, but not when tested (unconnected to the injector)? I\'m not sure how the checkvale works, so that isn\'t helping!


I also noticed something else - after I had managed to get a decent bit of water through before it locked up, I had an oily water coming out of the elbow/plenum face, which had clearly sprayed a bit under the bonnet. There was a bit of oil in the intake pipe when I took it off, so I can see that the water has flushed it out, but surely the seal on the elbow join should be water-tight!? Should there be a gasket in there?


By the way, when it was working, Tony\'s suggestion of a degree every few seconds of water was about right (in the mid- to high 40s).

[Jürg Hensdiek]

Aside from your troubles, be aware that operating WI won\'t necessarily low you inlet charge temp, perse\'. My meaning is that the only true way to see how effective your WI is, is through a wideband lambda. Knowing that your engine is running x under certain perameters without WI, compared to y with WI. There should be a marked increase in richness of the AF ratios.
 
J

[lockwood77]

OK, I kind of understand you, but surely if the PFC reads a lower air intake temp, the engine is getting cooler air, which is good?

[Jürg Hensdiek]

Effectively, with cooler air the sensor is telling the ecu to put in more fuel....assuming your air temp map is balanced to do this. The water injection is creating a condition that slows the burnrate of the fuel mixture. This is the same effect Race fuel has, allowing the engine to run more aggressive timing and/or leaner AF ratios.
 
J

[antnicuk]

just out of interest,  what w/i tank are you using?,  and does it have a small hole in the lid or the top somewhere to let air back into the tank to replace the water that is injected.