Water Assisted Van : Hacking a Computer Fan into a Mass-Air-flow Sensor
David Lyon
the latest problem I have is that too much water goes in at
idle at lights and the engine was starting to stall.
Great. Now I am closer to adding an Arduino to PWM my
water pump down.
Only problem, MAF sensors are either in China or at the
wreckers for $60 and might not fit my 80's vehicle.
Then I realised I had a box of airflow sensors already ! They
were just disguised as computer fans.
If you connect one up in your intake manifold the little fan
blades will spin and you can measure a voltage on the
white wire compared to the black wire. Handy.
Next step will be to connect the arduino and when the
little blades spin slowly, turn down the pump a little.
Tim
Isn't that going to be a pretty big intake restriction?
You could hack together a hotwire air flow meter, just put some Nichrome wire through the air flow, pass a small current through and monitor temp or resistance on the wire as the air flow changes.
Tim.
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David Lyon
If it slows down the airflow too much I could add a blower blade with
some sort of motor to add forced air injection to compensate - lol.
We'll see how it goes in the meantime. Test drive left hasn't revealed
any performance issues so far. Apart from squeely rubber sounds and
smells. I asked mechanic and he said its either a throttle problem or
a code Id10t canbus error. I told him no computer - he said exactly.
Tim
Why did you add water injection in the first place?
David Lyon
claims. Debatable believability.
Water Injection by contrast has had extensive military validation.
It was popular in carby cars before EFI killed it off.
WI has pro's and cons. Its Not for everybody.
David Lyon
release version came with Water Injection but mine wasn't one of those
250 cars.
So I've been trying to fit one without paying the $750 for a premade kit.
Can't be that hard, can it?
So my old van was the designated experimental vehicle.
When petrol prices rose to $1.60 per litre and it was using 14l per
100km work got much more serious.
So far, I've been able to bring it down to 9-10l/100km which is more bearable.
When the Water Injection system is settled down I will start
introducing ultrasound vapour assist.
So far so good or bad. On the whole mostly success and it worries my
mechanic how my 2l SOHC 4WD can so easily keep up with his DOHC 3.0l
Nissan (non-turbo) skyline.
Jake Anderson
Also, I'd be inclined to to reduce the pressure of your pump it'll
increase droplet size pretty dramatically.
I'm interested in doing water injection into my 4L I6 AU Falcon.
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Paul McMahon
Why not tap off the existing sensor in the manifold be it MAF or MAP?
Also, I'd be inclined to to reduce the pressure of your pump it'll increase droplet size pretty dramatically.
I'm interested in doing water injection into my 4L I6 AU Falcon.
On 15/04/12 09:50, David Lyon wrote:
also to fit it to my other car the Celica gt4. The limited production
release version came with Water Injection but mine wasn't one of those
250 cars.
So I've been trying to fit one without paying the $750 for a premade kit.
Can't be that hard, can it?
So my old van was the designated experimental vehicle.
When petrol prices rose to $1.60 per litre and it was using 14l per
100km work got much more serious.
So far, I've been able to bring it down to 9-10l/100km which is more bearable.
When the Water Injection system is settled down I will start
introducing ultrasound vapour assist.
So far so good or bad. On the whole mostly success and it worries my
mechanic how my 2l SOHC 4WD can so easily keep up with his DOHC 3.0l
Nissan (non-turbo) skyline.
On 4/14/12, Tim<coo...@gmail.com> wrote:
Why did you add water injection in the first place?
I chose a fan that was easiest to turn.
If it slows down the airflow too much I could add a blower blade with
some sort of motor to add forced air injection to compensate - lol.
We'll see how it goes in the meantime. Test drive left hasn't revealed
any performance issues so far. Apart from squeely rubber sounds and
smells. I asked mechanic and he said its either a throttle problem or
a code Id10t canbus error. I told him no computer - he said exactly.
On 4/14/12, Tim<coo...@gmail.com> wrote:
Isn't that going to be a pretty big intake restriction?or
You could hack together a hotwire air flow meter, just put some Nichrome
wire through the air flow, pass a small current through and monitor temp
resistance on the wire as the air flow changes.
Tim.
On Apr 14, 2012 4:45 PM, "David Lyon"<david.lyon.preisshare@gmail.com>
wrote:
After upgrading my water-spray nozzles to the next up size
the latest problem I have is that too much water goes in at
idle at lights and the engine was starting to stall.
Great. Now I am closer to adding an Arduino to PWM my
water pump down.
Only problem, MAF sensors are either in China or at the
wreckers for $60 and might not fit my 80's vehicle.
Then I realised I had a box of airflow sensors already ! They
were just disguised as computer fans.
If you connect one up in your intake manifold the little fan
blades will spin and you can measure a voltage on the
white wire compared to the black wire. Handy.
Next step will be to connect the arduino and when the
little blades spin slowly, turn down the pump a little.
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David Lyon
I will come over to the hackerspace next saturday at 3pm for any body
who wants to scrutinise it .
At least it will be able to be seen in operation.
> "Robots & Dinosaurs" group.
David Lyon
What is best is lots of water from a conventional spray device.
The water needs to absorb heat then have sufficient volume to assist
in driving the piston.
atomised fuel and sprayed water is a future goal. Little fuel
molecules with big water ones if that makes any sense.
>>>> Lyon"<david.lyon.preisshare@**gmail.com<david.lyon...@gmail.com>
>>>> >
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I chose a fan that was easiest to turn.
>>>>>
>>>>> If it slows down the airflow too much I could add a blower blade with
>>>>> some sort of motor to add forced air injection to compensate - lol.
>>>>>
>>>>> We'll see how it goes in the meantime. Test drive left hasn't revealed
>>>>> any performance issues so far. Apart from squeely rubber sounds and
>>>>> smells. I asked mechanic and he said its either a throttle problem or
>>>>> a code Id10t canbus error. I told him no computer - he said exactly.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 4/14/12, Tim<coo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Isn't that going to be a pretty big intake restriction?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You could hack together a hotwire air flow meter, just put some
>>>>>> Nichrome
>>>>>> wire through the air flow, pass a small current through and monitor
>>>>>> temp
>>>>>>
>>>>> or
>>>>>
>>>>>> resistance on the wire as the air flow changes.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Tim.
>>>>>> On Apr 14, 2012 4:45 PM, "David Lyon"<david.lyon.preisshare@**
>>>>>> gmail.com <david.lyon...@gmail.com>>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> After upgrading my water-spray nozzles to the next up size
>>>>>>> the latest problem I have is that too much water goes in at
>>>>>>> idle at lights and the engine was starting to stall.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Great. Now I am closer to adding an Arduino to PWM my
>>>>>>> water pump down.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Only problem, MAF sensors are either in China or at the
>>>>>>> wreckers for $60 and might not fit my 80's vehicle.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Then I realised I had a box of airflow sensors already ! They
>>>>>>> were just disguised as computer fans.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If you connect one up in your intake manifold the little fan
>>>>>>> blades will spin and you can measure a voltage on the
>>>>>>> white wire compared to the black wire. Handy.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Next step will be to connect the arduino and when the
>>>>>>> little blades spin slowly, turn down the pump a little.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
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>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Groups
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>>>>>> "Robots& Dinosaurs" group.
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Gav
who wants to scrutinise it ."
Jake Anderson
generally accepted reasons for working are thus.
1) IC engines have a great deal of waste heat, water > steam uses heat and has a massive expansion ratio.
Thus putting relatively large water drops into the chamber then turning them to steam gives you more power
due to the added expansion force/pressure and more fuel efficiency by using more of that waste heat.
2) A limitation on power in IC engines is due to detonation from the compression stroke. Adding water keeps the charge cool which helps stop detonation.
3) cooling the charge before it goes into the cylinder means you can get more mass into the cylinder, more O2 and fuel = moar powah.
This particular implementation might not be the most professional perhaps, but the fundamental theory is at least sound.
BTW most CPU fans are brushless, any voltage your seeing is going to be leaking backwards through the brushless controller chip, perhaps not the most reliable in the long term
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_injection_(engines)
David Lyon
The vehicle actually now has 406,000km on the odometer - with about
2500kms with water-injection. I have no idea how many more km's I
can get out of the vehicle before it's disposal - but it seriously feels
like it's had 20 years of (carbon-deposits?/) driving wiped away.
It might be interesting to observe is just how much water can be
sprayed into an engine in a mist without causing damage. People
around here might not have seen something like that before.
One big problem we have in Australia is we are generally allowed
to read about stuff but not do it. So this is a bit more hands on
than what's generally the norm.
Tim
David Lyon
The GT4 has it because it has a turbo, which generates heat, due to the cramped engine bay on a small 4WD turbo inter-cooling isn't always the best, so methanol/water injection can be used to cool the intake down.
Unfortunately, I got the 'original' one. With the air-intake pointing forward,
that is sucking forward flowing air down into the intercooler, like a 1960's
style scoop.
That works perfectly provided that vehicle speed stays above 120kmh.
Tricky on suburban streets. Later they reversed the bonnet intake so
that it sucked air in the front vent and released the air backwards
through the bonnet vent. Like on the Evo. Doesn't look as good but
works much better.
You can also use it to hold of detonation, so you can advance ignition timing or increase compression ratio. This is one trick to get 'free' power, in that it allows the engine to extract more energy from the fuel that's being burnt. Problem here is ignition adjustments wouldn't provide a noticeable benefit and changing the compression ratio is serious engine work.
Haven''t yet tried that.
I have never read anything about expansion of steam but I guess it makes sense on the back of a napkin... but if it were that easy, wouldn't the manufacturers be doing it? If there was a limited edition GT4 that had water injection then Toyota at least must be prepared to add it to their vehicles... Maybe They think it's too much for the end user to be trusted with and overall just costs them less to tune the engines to run a little rich...
The Water-Injection on the GT4 was done in Germany at the rally
preparation depot, not in Japan. Germans have had it working for
a long time.
Toyota, as you would know have embraced the electro-recovery system
as used in their Prius range. I saw the demo in Japan. It combines three
engines along one long engine-shaft. They are:
a) a petrol engine
b) an electric engine
c) a generator
eg: http://www.cleangreencar.co.nz/images/PriusGeneric/Technical_2.jpg
In a nutshell, they are simpler to drive, don't need refills and most
importantly, don't require the user to insert computer-fans at the
most inappropriate of positions.
Downside is it doesn't to my knowledge add to available power. So
good for the general consumer.
It's funny you mention carbon deposits, that's one of the coolest things about water injection (or a blown head gasket for that matter...) with water flowing through the head for a few hundred K's when you pull the engine down the combustion chamber sparkles, it's like new it's so clean. But a little carbon on the walls of the combustion chambers would increase the compression ratio a little wouldn't it? Assuming it wasn't detonating from the increased CR, then the water (in cleaning the carbon out) would have made the motor less efficient!
irregular carbon deposits.
The water going into the combustion is taking up space too. Hence perhaps increasing the compression by its mere presence.
Paul McMahon
David Lyon
The BMW Community I am part of uses 50/50 methonol/distilled water to reduce air intake temp, and add more fuel to the engine as the direct injection is too difficult to mess with (the car is <2 years old, so not many people have the pockets to pay for a twin turbo bmw engine going kaboom)
BMW are certainly good but complicated. Not like Mercedes or Porsche which
are more hacker friendly.
One of my friends has a Mercedes like this, which I drive when I'm there:
- http://www.autoscout24.de/Details.aspx?id=211146085
Others have Cayenne Porsches or VW vans which are notorious for catching fire.
What I wasnt aware of is the benefits that this has on fuel consumption... Then again, the $2.50/ltr methonol isnt exactly cheaper than petrol.
Most things with a turbo and water/meth injection aren't famous for
good fuel economy - lol. But there are downsides to owning a Peugeot
206 or VW-Polo - lol - like blending in with the crowd just that little bit
too well.
Ada Lim
On Apr 16, 12:18 pm, Tim <cool...@gmail.com> wrote:
> You can also use it to hold of detonation, so you can advance ignition
> timing or increase compression ratio. This is one trick to get 'free'
> power, in that it allows the engine to extract more energy from the fuel
> that's being burnt. Problem here is ignition adjustments wouldn't provide
increasing the compression ratio doesn't improve economy. increasing
the expansion ratio, however, does - this is why the miller cycle
works.
> I have never read anything about expansion of steam but I guess it makes
> sense on the back of a napkin... but if it were that easy, wouldn't the
> manufacturers be doing it? If there was a limited edition GT4 that had
> water injection then Toyota at least must be prepared to add it to their
> vehicles... Maybe They think it's too much for the end user to be trusted
> with and overall just costs them less to tune the engines to run a little
> rich...
one cool thing I saw some time ago was a V8 with half the cylinders
converted to run on water injection (no spark plug, just a direct
injection water spray near TDC which was then exhausted). that seems
more plausible than mixing water directly into the intake manifold.
the other option would be a six stroke engine but with more modern
valvework (like maybe combining that with a miller cycle).
]> It's funny you mention carbon deposits, that's one of the coolest
> about water injection (or a blown head gasket for that matter...) with
> water flowing through the head for a few hundred K's when you pull the
> engine down the combustion chamber sparkles, it's like new it's so clean.
> But a little carbon on the walls of the combustion chambers would increase
> the compression ratio a little wouldn't it?
Tim
Jake Anderson
couldn't you then reduce the consumption till you hit the same power?
David Lyon
if you have more power at the same consumption
couldn't you then reduce the consumption till you hit the same power?
reducing fuel also drops off power:
- http://www.mummbrothers.com/SRF_Stuff/Secrets/Driveline/Air_Fuel.htm
Direct Injection seems to be the most clever and successful. Although
the results are roughly similar as was extracted out of 1990's Honda
Carburetted cars.
Michael Molloy
Jake Anderson
On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 5:19 PM, Jake Anderson <groo...@gmail.com> wrote:
if you have more power at the same consumption
couldn't you then reduce the consumption till you hit the same power?
Well, there's a graph that shows how changing the air-fuel ratio and
reducing fuel also drops off power:
- http://www.mummbrothers.com/SRF_Stuff/Secrets/Driveline/Air_Fuel.htm
Their test is at WOT, where they run quite rich, using the fuel liquid > gas expansion to make more power, at the expense of fuel.
Adding water will do the same job as running rich, except your using water instead of fuel to do that job, water costing $1 per 1000 litres (or so) I can see the logic behind it ;->
You will note best fuel economy is fairly lean, running an engine there is a good way to eat it though.
Adding some H20 should keep cylinder temps down which would fix most of that.
The added expansion from the water > steam is gravy.
Direct Injection seems to be the most clever and successful. Although
the results are roughly similar as was extracted out of 1990's Honda
Carburetted cars.
David Lyon
A vacuum switch would be ideal but I do like AVR/Arduino type sensors
- modern (8-bit) junk in other words.
Why is the WI on idle? its not. But I'm flipping a manual switch to
turn it off when I am at idle. Its a big hassle but I hope to get the
Arduino to do that in the next few days..
Yeah, I am trying to go super-lean but its going slowly. Original
Equipment Makers knew what they were really doing.
Can't be said for those that hack ...