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mackoffgrid Guru Joined: 13/03/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 460
Posted: 01:10pm 09 Aug 2019
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Hey Davo99
I'd like to hear about water injection.
I mentioned in another thread that all I really know about diesel engines is don't let them lose prime and don't get water in the diesel. These two lessons were learnt over 10 years ago when we had an old MF40 backhoe and a Case 1270 tractor (we still have the tractor). It was a very wet year and we had no sheds or shelter on a remote-ish property. We had three 200L drums of diesels and through the course of that year the backhoe stopped dead. Got the mechanic out and we had all this red stuff in the fuel. Didn't know a thing about the additive I was meant to put in to prevent the algae growth . Had to filter all the diesel, clean the fuel lines and tank, terrible job. I loved that old MF40 but an opportunity came up to replace it with a 4WD MF860 and never looked back.
We've learnt to be much better with fuel storage now. We've built a weather proof trailer that holds 400 litres, fitted out with water traps / filter, 12v fuel pump with hose and nozzle etc. No problems since.
Cheers Andrew
Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1578
Posted: 05:37am 10 Aug 2019
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I could rave about water injection and associated things for pages... and given the opportunity probably will.
The first thing with water injection (WI) is there is aq world of Difference between having the water in the FUEL and putting water in the Cylinder through the air intake. I have run veg oil in my diesels for 17 Years in October including my vehicle and make every attempt to get all the water out of the oil even though I am injecting at some times more water than the engine burns fuel. The reason is water in the Injection pump and fuel tank is a BAD thing and can cause a multitude of problems. Water in the intake which bypasses the fuel system completely is entirely different and a good thing.
There are ENDLESS misconceptions about WI. The first one I find is that some people, especially Americans, have this ingrained mentality that unless something is complicated, expensive and has a lot of built in failure points, it can't possibly work. They then go about making a simple and reliable thing as expensive, complicated and failure prone as they can to address a lot of perceived potential problems that just never occur in reality.
What water Injection does/ can do:
Clean engines and keep deposits at bay. Particularly useful for nutters like me running alternative fuels. Keeps ring lands especially from clagging up but helps with deposits right through to the exhaust.
Will keep EGT's and intake temps down. Important if you are trying to fuel the things up to make power or running high boost on the turbo.
With the addition of Methanol at up to 50% will make SIGNIFICANT extra power while avoiding a lot of stresses other power boosters like LPG/ nitrous etc cause.
Water injection will NOT:
Cause your engine to Hydrolock unless you go to effort to blast liters of water a minute into an engine. It will die long before it hydrolocks. I'll come back to that.
Give better fuel economy. Will not, can not, impossible despite endless folk lore.
Replace Missing metal in worn out engines and make them like new again.
As a trade off of the above, water will not break down into oxygen and Hydrogen to give more power, better economy or anything else. Strictly technically speaking it can, the problem is the energy required to invoke the phase change from a liquid to separate gasses is more energy than burning the individual components will deliver. This is exactly why all the HHO gas crap is exactly that. IT's flawed on scientific principle from the start. Science stuff! :0)
The main thing I use WI for is engine cleaning and prevention of carbon and other deposits. Unlike and flying in the face of what every grossly over price WI kit manufacturer will tell you, spraying the water into an engine as a fine vapour like mist is NOT needed for cleaning purposes and is in fact counter productive. even not so fine droplets going into the cylinder are what you want. When they are subjected to the heat and compression of the engine they phase change from a Liquid to a gas in miniature explosions that is called cavitation. Different to what happens to a boat propeller but that's the technical term.
These little explosions are like sand blasting with foam rubber. They are too weak to erode metal but strong enough to erode or displace softer materials like carbon deposits. I use micro garden spray Nozzles or bits of flattend copper tube for my injection nozzles and those caravan type pulse water pumps. Anything that has a pressure rating above what the turbo boost pressure is will be fine and in the case of an NA stationary engine like my lister or others, I merely drip the water into the intake . The drip will be broken up a surprising about in the air stream and when it hits the intake tract. I suspect it also flashes somewhat when part of it hits the back of the hot intake valve.
As far as Hydrolocking an engine goes which is a big and unfounded fear, I have a real world example of the difficulty of that. A mate wanted to test WI on his old ute. It was a 3L engine and I suggested a doseage rate of 300Ml a minute. He came back to me saying whenever he hit the water the car would near die, loose all power and there was water and steam coming out the exhaust.
I said he had far too much water going through and to re mesure his injection rate because it had to be loads more than 300ml min for that to happen. He insisted that was all he was getting and a lot of back and forth conversation ensued.
Eventually he mentioned that he had installed a 2L water tank for testing and after just a couple of short hits, nearly all the water was gone. I pointed out that at 300Ml min, 2L of water would give almost 10 Min of non stop injection so clearly he was injecting a LOT more than 300Ml min.
The penny dropped and he realised he'd got in mixed up in his head and was in fact injecting 3 LITRES a minute! That's a reasonable flow out a garden hose let alone a bit of 6 or 8mm hose like I normally use that might be hard pressed to flow that much water in the first place.
The thing was, although that engine steamed and blew water out the exhaust and barely at times managed to run, no damage was caused. You would have to go to EFFORT to hydrolock an engine because if you work out what the volume of the engine is by the RPM it's doing, even the compressed volume of the engine is going to take a good water flow on garden hose level to create.
When mate backed the water down to the 300Ml, engine ran like never before. He questioned my telling him that it might be several hours of running to notice any change and maybe months before the thing stopped improving and leveld out. I said it took years to get the crap in there, not going to come out in 5 Min.... although I wasn't counting on flooding the engine with water. He reckoned the thing was markedly different straight off and Only thing I can put that down to was maybe the engine was heavily clagged ( from running veg in an old engine) and the flooding took a lot of the clag away pretty quick. He did report that the engine did keep improving in starting and performance for some time before it leveled out as I suggested it would.
Some people just spray their stationary engines with a squirter down the intake before shutting off and report that is enough. I much prefer the constant feed method myself. It's not a matter of pumping a lot of water into an engine, litre a day in a stationary engine will do it, but rather getting the water in there when the engine is hot and the Cylinders are working at their loaded pressures.
In the case of my 4wd and other vehicles I have had, that has been triggered either by boost or full throttle on the NA vehicles. An NA diesel is really easy to drive flat out all the time so I put a plate under the throttle so when it hit the floor the throttle pedal itself acted like a switch and turned on the pump.
On the Boosted engines I use a pressure switch so when the thing is doing a couple of pounds boost the water kicks in. This is especially useful with the water / meth mix as it brings the boost up faster thanks to the extra fuel. I have run water / meth rates that give 20 HP extra power which is very noticeable on my lumbering beast and will give the thing acceleration that will make you laugh your head off till everything in the 25L water tank is used up far too quickly. The drive ability around town as well as the highway is so much better on the meth.
The thing I have not yet worked out is even when the meth mix is finished, the car still seems much better even over when it is running plain water again. I haven't come up for an answer that explains why the meth even when it's finished clearly makes the engine run better for a short time till the performance goes back to the normal water only level. My only thought is that it may clear the muffler passages out a bit better and there is better exhaust flow. I kow it happens, I have put a stop watch on it to prove it but I am at a loss to explain the physical properties taking place to cause it other than the muffler theory. I certainly pump enough water in the thing the rest of the time to make build up out of the question.
WI lets me do things I just couldn't otherwise. I can run fuel and boost levels in the old girl that wouldn't be possible otherwise because the thing would have a melt down if it didn't clag the rings in short order.
I had a Mercedes Diesel I used to tow a large covered trailer with. Wasn't that heavy but it was a parachute. At highway speeds which it would just make, the thing ran hot, real hot. Used to have to put the heater on full blast so it didn't boil. With the WI on plan water, I could get 10KMh more out of it AND it ran cool enough not to have to have the heater on at all. Even 300Ml/ min of water can pull a LOT of heat out of an engine. When I fitted the WI to that it was making steady improvements in performance for about 3 Months. The starting greatly improved even though that time period ended in the middle of winter which really showed the difference. I turned the fuel ( oil) up on that a lot and was told endlessly I'd clag it but never did. Still have that engine up the back as the car rusted off pretty much from around it.
I can run my little china diesel at power levels 50% what it is rated for and it suffered no problems either. I once pulled the head on the thing after fuelling it up and if I had not done it myself on my own engine, I would have called complete and utter BS. The top of the piston and the head looked like someone had cleaned them with a wire wheel and a rag. there wasn't even any black carbon on them which I still don't see how that was possible even though I did water dose it pretty heavily.
That is another fast fix for clagged engines. Just pour water straight down the intake. Brings on a lot of anxiety from those that haven't done it but perfectly fine. Did it to my newly acquired Kubota engine a few weeks back. Fired it and warmed it up, took of the air cleaner and got a drink bottle I put a small hole in the lid and filled with water. Give the thing about 60% revs and trickled the water in at a rate till the revs just started to drop. Held it at that rate about best I could and gave it 6L of water in total.
If one does it just where the revs start to drop or a little before you will not see any water or steam out the exhaust. If the thing bogs down and stumbles, you are giving it too much water and should back off till it clears and recovers and give it a few moments to make sure it's got a bit of cyl temp again.
After the water treatment the engine would start without any petrol or WD down the intake. I also noticed water in the oil which tells me the rings are probably clagged. I don't think they are won out because the thing has good compression at cranking speed but rather the rings are probably not moving as free as they should when running.
I have some little dosing/ peristaltic pumps off fleabay I have attached to a PWM controller to slow them down and will fit that to the engine to supply the water when it's running. In the extremely unlikely case the engine stops, so the water does not fill the cylinder, not that it would be any sort of job to clear, I'll turn the intake manifold up side down so the water is drawn up by the air or drops into the filter where it can be suck up anyway.
WI can be VERY simple and straight forward and cost next to nothing to implement. I think that is probably what causes the greatest suspicion of it with most people. It won't grow hair on billiard balls or give better economy but for keeping an engine clean or cool under hard work, it has no equal.
mackoffgrid Guru Joined: 13/03/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 460
Posted: 08:14am 10 Aug 2019
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Thanks for the explanation Dave, sounds very interesting. All our engines are old and may benefit from this sort of treatment.
I take it that diesel engines with WI would do better in bushfire conditions. This is a strong consideration for both vehicles and diesel water pumps I want to put in place eventually.
Thoroughly enjoyed your post, I won't hold you back if you want to say more ...
Cheers Andrew
Warpspeed Guru Joined: 09/08/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 4406
Posted: 08:25am 10 Aug 2019
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The atmosphere contains around 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen, and 1% of everything else (including carbon dioxide).
Its the nitrogen that is the working fluid in your engine. Its completely inert, but when the fuel burns, the nitrogen expands and is what pushes the piston down. Its a pretty good working fluid for the engine in every respect.
The hotter we can get this nitrogen during combustion, the more it will expand and push the piston down the hole. But there are limits to how hot we can go without the air fuel mixture exploding spontaneously, instead of a controlled burning as its supposed to.
There are all kinds of problems with combustion, including type of fuel, compression ratio, and temperatures within the engine (and maybe ignition advance). And we must prevent detonation so there are limits to all these factors.
If we introduce water into the combustion process, the steam created acts as a second working fluid, that has some advantages over nitrogen. The very high latent heat greatly limits the peak combustion temperature without reducing the peak cylinder pressure. In fact it can and does increase cylinder pressure at the same time as it reduces combustion temperatures and heat loss.
The heat produced creates a higher cylinder pressure which creates more torque, and lower combustion temperatures mean less energy is lost to the engine cooling system and the exhaust. It also "steam cleans" the valves, combustion chamber, and piston crown, and spark plug (if there is one) So the engine very likely runs better, and even for a short while after the water injection is turned off.
Just like the nitrogen, the steam produced is just an inert working fluid, but it can and does have some very useful benefits that greatly assists the nitrogen. The extra torque comes from increased cylinder pressure and lower thermal losses due to lowered combustion temperatures.Cheers, Tony.
Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1578
Posted: 01:37pm 10 Aug 2019
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What improvement are you thinking of specifically?
mackoffgrid Guru Joined: 13/03/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 460
Posted: 10:14pm 10 Aug 2019
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This comment was mostly regarding diesel water pumps to pump heaps of water reticulated around the house and sheds.
Keeping the engine cooler, less stressed? I had planned on using water misters / sprinklers on the outside to cool them off, but it seems WI may also help?
Tony, Thanks that was also fascinating.
Cheers Andrew Edited 2019-08-11 08:16 by mackoffgrid
Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1578
Posted: 01:16am 11 Aug 2019
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Wi Will indeed keep the engines cooler and would work very well if they were Breathing hot air to start with.
Mate of Mine Fitted WI to his little Turbo ute. He put temp probes before and after the intercooler and another after the WI that was after the intercooler. He regularly saw intake temp drops of 90o AFTER the intercooler which was no where near as effective but it meant his intake temps under full boost could be only a few degrees above ambient. Adding meth drops the temps below ambient fairly easily. Also give him more power pulling his trailer out the valley where he goes Camping and dirt biking.
He lives in a bushfire area and we set up a sprinkler system for him after the RFS paid a visit to all the houses in the area and told him his place ticked all the WRONG boxes. Up a hill in the direction for the prevailing wind with about 7 KM of unobstructed bush behind him of all the wrong type of trees, i 2' Water main for the road that would be sucked dry by about the first 5 Houses each side and he was a KM from the corner....
We put those metal clacker sprinklers on the roof and others to spray the walls and shoot toward the bush. I found him a 5000L water tank which he put behind the " Fire House" shed and hooked that up to a high pressure electric motor. We were concerned about a lack of oxygen and smoke from a fire causing an engine to not run or die. Mate got a big inverter and hooked it up to a couple of N200 Marine batteries on a charger attached to a solar panel.
The batteries had enough grunt to drive the motor well beyond what the tank held. That was set up to give about 20 Min of water which from what we read and were told was adequate because a fire would pass quicker than that.
Mate has since upgraded the system with another 5 IBC tanks and I found him an APC 3Kw 24V UPS. He has put in some more sprinklers which the pump can still drive fine and because the IBC's are stacked, there is a separate gravity flow system on another 3 tanks on the other side of the place that runs some sprinklers out from the house and a bit down the hill. They work pretty well even when the top tanks are empty.
The idea with the UPS was it takes care of the charging and Inverter functions and we believe there is a good chance the power could stay on a while at least if a fire comes. The front of the house is like suburbia and the power lines well protected from a fire. If the power stays on and the sprinklers are activated, there is a good chance that the pump will be able to unload a fair bit from mains power. When the power goes out, the UPS will switch over and the pump will be driven by the batteries.
We calculate there should be just enough battery power but even 5 Min off the mains will make sure there is.
After fights with the council he's been able to push a lot of the bush back a good ways from the house now and it would seem the place stands a good chance of surviving if a fire comes but it's probably all down to the wind. At least he's taken every reasonable step he can to stack the Odds in his favour.
He has a fire Pump to draw from the pool and that will put water on the house and spray further down the yard as well. If it runs, great, if it does not it was just an extra secondary effort anyway. I recommended a diesel to my mate as I said they should be more tolerant of a lack of oxygen than a petrol. They certainly would loose power but wont die from being overly rich like a petrol engine could. Should continue to have SOME power. Turbo diesel might be better but then if the power dropped the boost would and there would be less oxygen in the thing so I believe would cascade. Supercharger would be the right way to go. Gas turbine would be better still as they can happily work in thin oxygen.
Other thing I thought of was an oxygen sensor that opened a valve on a scube tank that fed air into the engine. Probably a bit carried away for the risk now. Mate says Tank would be better put to use on his back Fighting the fire and if it got too much, he could sit on the bottom of the pool and let it pass over him. :0)
The way the house soaks down now and how he has allowed for the wind to carry the water back onto the house from the forward sprinklers it's hard to Imagine it could burn.
mackoffgrid Guru Joined: 13/03/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 460
Posted: 02:50am 11 Aug 2019
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The property is isolated in terms of network power, water, phone and probably help.
I do have permanent water, via a 2" pipe (50 to 100 Lpm), and I'll store about 200k litres local just in the event of direct bush fire. My idea is to use the permanent water to spray the area prior to the bush fire coming, for days if I have notice of risk. Then use the local storage for when the excrement hits the fan. A couple of 2" ring mains pumping huge amounts of water into various sprinklers.
Well, that's the plan.
So I'm looking at using diesel engines for the pumps. The old Ruston engine may be one of them. It's a little way off yet
Cheers Andrew
Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1578
Posted: 09:09am 11 Aug 2019
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I have a bunch of those brass, rubber Implellered Jabsco pumps. They are commonly used in marine applications but I have one that is 1.5". That thing lays down some good water flow and pressure.
They self prime, spares are easy to get and they move water with good flow and pressure. I prefer them to the cast pumps put on the fire fighting pumps and are much better suited to being driven off something like you have.
You could set the WI up to cool the incoming air. I did a setup where the water sprayed onto the paper air filter element so it was fully evaporated and cooled the incoming air . It worked really well. One would think spraying the filter would destroy it but just as I had read, after months it had made not one bit of difference. Injecting downstream will give more cooling , injecting closer to the manifold will be better for cleaning and I have used dual injection at different times. A good squirt post turbo on the vehicle achieves both goals well enough for me.
Certainly cooling the engine with WI would be a whole lot more effective than trying to cool the whole shed. You wouldn't need much water to make a big difference either. That said, if this is an air-cooled motor they are pretty tough and would be tolerant of high temps. Cooling the intake air to condense it would probably help with getting more oxygen into the thing as well.
BenandAmber Guru Joined: 16/02/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 961
Posted: 04:21am 13 Aug 2019
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My uncle retired from GM and worked in they're experimental department for years he is still alive and I've been meaning to talk to him about this
When I was a kid probably not over 6 or 7 years old 4 1 now he put a water injection on my father's old station wagon cool old station wagon
the one with the seats in the back that folded up where you can look out the back window never get buy with that today
Anyway it was put on there to increase fuel mileage they put a couple gallon tank under the hood with a little windshield wiper pump motor and drilled a hole in the plate underneath the carburetor
They all said it worked to increase the fuel efficiency and my dad used it until until he got rid of the car
Maybe it was the placebo effect who knows
I do remember my uncle saying that during the compression stroke the pressure does not go up in the cylinder like everyone thinks
which didn't make any sense to me at all he also said that the engine won't run without the nitrogen remove the nitrogen and it won't run he said kind of like warp speed was talking about
I have that Detroit Diesel and I know absolutely nothing about diesel so if you like talkin davo I would like to read
I was told by another person if I put a temperature probe in the exhaust that's all I would have to worry about i or something maybe you no more about that
I have the dino and all the other paperwork for the motor it has almost a hundred thousand miles on it since it was put in new
Thanks for your time everybody and if anyone has any questions for me to ask my uncle just let me know here I will go see him pretty soon Edited 2019-08-13 14:35 by BenandAmberbe warned i am good parrot but Dumber than a box of rocks
Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1578
Posted: 07:01am 13 Aug 2019
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No Disrespect to your Uncle but I do not believe WI will increase Fuel economy. I saw a very convincing paper once that made a lot of sense and it's conclusions were that if ideally set up, WI should fractionally INCREASE consumption. I forget the explanation now but it made sense and gelled with my own experiences.
I can't say I have ever noticed either a reduction or increase in consumption due to WI. As the figure quoted in the paper said it was a low amount and also said it would never be noticeable in real world conditions I probably wouldn't be able to tell if I did look for it.
For me, Traffic, load, speed and weather are things I can notice to some degree. I also don't care about consumption other than to get a figure for range. When I go travelling I'm only interested in how much fuel I need to take with me. generally that's 300L. 100 in the tank, 200 in drums. I once went north during a Highway upgrade and did about 80% of the trip at 80 KMH or less. I got great economy but was so strung out I could have killed a bull elephant with my bare hands.
WI May have a long term side effect of better economy. I'm sure my engine would deliver better economy when the thing is clean and has proper compression than if the rings were gummed up and it was way down on the Squeeze.
As for running round a track even at the same speed with and without water, I'd bet the difference would be within measuring error margin.
The probe on your exhaust is to measure EGT, Exhaust Gas Temprature. This is mainly for if the engine/ injection pump is turned up and the engine is delivering above average power. The EGT's tell how hard the engine is working or specifically how hot the Cylinder temps are. Unlike a petrol engine, the more fuel you pour into a Diesel, the Hotter the Burn. IF you turn it up too much you can burn the valves and the piston especially.
Using WI for lowering EGT's is something I have never measured and is different to the engine cooling effect which can be the evaporative cooling the water even causes in the head. From what I read, a LOT of water is required to reduce EGT's but I have read conflicting claims of that in that all WI reduces EGT. One rarely knows how people come to their conclusions though and if they were even looking at the right thing.
My friend who put the WI on his ust and saw the big reduction in inlet temps also had a Pyro on his exhaust and he said he saw no measurable Difference in EGTS on his setup. The engine ran cooler but the exhaust were no different he could tell. To me that stands to reason. If one lowers the intake air it is denser therefor has more oxygen which gives it the desirable property to butn more fuel or the fuel it has more completely. That done. it would follow that there could be enough extra heat to compensate any cooling effect.
That would also explain why performance engine used by tractor pullers, diesel dragsters and others reportedly flow massive amounts of water just to keep the engines from melting.
Normally Diesel engines for street use are tuned for max power with safe EGT's without water. If the engine needed the water and it ran out, engine could be toast. Race engines certainly tune with WI because they only have to have enough for one race and then everything is serviced so no problem topping up the water.
You could ask your uncle why WI isn't fitted to every car or truck on the road. The explanation I have hear many times is that vehicles normally can't carry enough water to do them between services. If the WI was fitted and tuned for which will also change emissions and it runs out, vehicle is no longer legal.
BMW DID put it on one of their bigger models a few years ago but I don't know much about it other than it was a ball tearer of a performer. I believe there was a prominent warning light for low water and the engine would cut back if it ran out.
Even if WI does not reduce engine EGT's it still has plenty of benifits that I think make it more than worthwhile fitting to any diesel especially.
mackoffgrid Guru Joined: 13/03/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 460
Posted: 09:43pm 13 Aug 2019
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WI is equally applicable to petrol engines as well?
Cheers Andrew
BenandAmber Guru Joined: 16/02/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 961
Posted: 01:43am 14 Aug 2019
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Oh yeah the best hot rodder around my area always use water when tuning up a engine
My uncle always said that they had a car that would do 60 some miles to a gallon also
Always wondered if it helps so much with fuel economy why every car doesn't have it like you mentioned
And if they had a car as it did 60 miles to the gallon seems like they would sell a lot of them
And I would always trust actual doing it over any other information sounds like you've been doing it's long enough to know what's really happening in real life
Everybody keeps telling me that I should run my bus like I stole it also is this something that's true I know the thing sure we'll run it'll do over a hundred miles an hour very easily
When you're driving it and not paying attention you always end up speeding it'll be up to 80 or 90 miles an hour it has an air throttle
The only reason I can figure for it is that the bus is mostly made of aluminum I think it only has around 375 horsepower I have the dino papers for the motor Edited 2019-08-14 11:58 by BenandAmberbe warned i am good parrot but Dumber than a box of rocks
Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1578
Posted: 04:08am 14 Aug 2019
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You can certainly use WI on petrol engines. I have done it but not a lot so I'm not all that sure of the benifits. I do know it's very good for keeping knocking suppressed and will allow Higher Compression rations on the same fuel without the things pinging their heads off.
I know it has a cleaning effect as well. One of the things that convinced me with WI waqs I happened to be at my mechanics for a rego Check. He had the head off a falcon which apparently were a model that had bad head bolts and spat gaskets a lot. His words to me were, " No own will ever convince me water injection doesen't work, which Cylinder do you think was leaking?" Umm, the bright shiny one without a spec of carbon anywhere?
He told me he ran it on his supercharged race boat with Methanol as that kept the intake charge cool and stopped knocking. That was when I started getting into it myself. Clagging up rings was always the biggest fear running veg oil and I could dial my engine up and never had a problem where I would have killed them fast otherwise.
Again the story with SI engines is to have a vapour like mist but I don't think that is necessary either. I used one of those garden Micro sprayer Nozzles and worked fine for me.
The only thing I'd say with a modern -ish vehicle is to be careful where you spray it. It may not be good to be hitting some of the various mass airflow type sensors so it may be better to inject behind or well upstream. If you inject behind that may condense the air and give the computer a marginal false reading and the thing will beef up the fuel a bit. I think that would translate to more power which would be a good thing. If it was sprayed on the air filter than it may cool the charge and evaporate along the inlet which the sensor would read correctly.
I have given a lot of smokey Stationary petrol engines the drip/ spray treatment and I believe it cleard them out a bit and did some good maybe freeing up carboned up rings from burning oil but again, No antidote for missing metal through wear other than a rebuild, if it's worth it.
Just another tip, all those Miracle in a bottle oil and fuel treatments are all the same thing.... NAPTHA. It's available at bunnings in litre bottles for about $8 rather than about $14 for a 100Ml bottle with a fancy branding on it. EVERY fuel treatment and Oil system flush I have seen, and I have looked up all I can find or hear about, contains the same stuff. Petrol or diesel, it's all Naptha based usually with a bit of Kero, Diesel or perfume.
I throw some of that in the fuel system for good measure and a litre in the oil just before I change it about every 12 Months. Put it in, let the car Idle for aq few min then drain the oil and replace filter. Can't say I have ever seen it perform Miracles but I know it is a VERY good solvent and if there is anything reasonable in there regular oil changes won't prevent or shift, then that ought to get it.
Lot cheaper at Bunnings than Buying it 100Ml at a time at the parts place
Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1578
Posted: 04:30am 14 Aug 2019
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The working Diesels hard myth is a very old and out of date one. These urban ledgends take a looooog time to subside.
Like most things, this is a parroted mantra that people that don't know much about diesels say. Yes, 40-50 years ago when oils and fuels were very different, Might have been appropriate. Nowdays, no way.
If you look at what Big engine and equipment manufacturers do, it's the complete opposite, wherever possible they UNDER DRIVE and basicaly baby the engines. A mate was head Mechanic for CAT here. he worked on big diesels for earthmoving equipment, generators and boats every day. What they do now is oversize the engine for the job so it's gat an easy life rather than rev the ring out of them. The thing about working engines hard is a misnomer of understanding what is going on.
If an engine is say 600 HP @ 2800 RPM, It might do 300 HP at say 1900 RPM. If you only rev it to 1900 and are pulling 250-300 HP out of it, the thing is working and running at the right temps but it's still taking it easy because it's only doing half the HP it was designed for. This gives them much longer life and often better fuel economy because you can put the things right in the sweet spot of the torque band.
The engine you have comes in a wide variety of flavours and from memory, 375 is towards the lower eng of their output anyway. I was/ am thinking of putting a 6V71 in an old truck my uncle has. I was concerned about the lowish power output the engines make. When mate suggested that engine and I said I thought of it but they are pretty low powered, he laughed. He said how much power you want? 500Hp? not a problem. I can set one up to do that all day every day. He said good luck with the rest of the driveline but the engines are capable of a lot more than they are rated for.
It's really only a matter of turning up the Pump and the boost if you can and staying in the safe limits of EGT's If the thing is stock, there is a lot more to be gained if you want. Not a matter of going fast either, it's more about effortless cruising up hells and pulling away easily from the lights.
I certainly don't see any benefit in flogging any engine I have. I prefer to keep the revs down and use the torque as that is what those engines were really made for otherwise they would have fitted big petrols. You can turn the pump and the boost up and get the extra grunt without the extra wear and tear.
The main thing behind the Flog them all the time thinking is to stop them clagging up and thats certainly not going to happen if you have a wi system.
BenandAmber Guru Joined: 16/02/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 961
Posted: 10:44am 15 Aug 2019
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Fancy Gap is about the steepest Interstate Hill I know of and I was passing cars going up it with no problem at all
I think it's where the bus is made out of aluminum but I haven't pulled a trailer behind it yet imagine it's going to go faster than what I want to go
I would like to properly take care of it though when I get a chance I'll take a picture of it and if you don't care I'd like some advice and what I should do to take really good care of itbe warned i am good parrot but Dumber than a box of rocks
Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1578
Posted: 10:07pm 15 Aug 2019
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Change the oil and filters REGULARLY. Most people here do their Diesels every 5000KM. Not sure what the recommended oil change interval on those are but changing it and the filters before the recommended time is good practice.
Make sure the air filters and are done and any other adjustments are made ON TIME.
Change all fluids on the thing as required, transmission, diff, brake fluids, Coolant.... whatever. Make sure all the belts and hoses are changed at the required intervals.
Put WI on it.
Research the problems the things have in that application. Do you need to puyt extra temp gauges on it or low water alarms so if the thing bursts a hose or gets a leak in the radiator you know before the thing has had a melt down. Same with oil pressure. BIG lights and Buzzers are better than gauges.
Thats it. There is no magic, just do what the service book tells you on time or before. Don't stress about using the best oil out there, any oil you get will be multiple spec grades above what was ever thought of when the engine was built. Change it regularly to keep it clean and that will do more to look after the engine than anything else.
BenandAmber Guru Joined: 16/02/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 961
Posted: 02:36am 16 Aug 2019
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Thank you that's a very good idea
I am going to put buzzers on motor temp transmission temp and oil pressure at least maybe more
But I would like to put water injection on there too you got me convinced! Edited 2019-08-16 14:33 by BenandAmberbe warned i am good parrot but Dumber than a box of rocks
Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1578
Posted: 12:16am 17 Aug 2019
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I think the most convincing thing I have said with WI is tell people it's only going to cost them 20-$50 to find out for themselves. You don't need to spend Big money on it and it literally costs nothing to run.
It's Not magic or a Miracle Cure, rather a health Tonic that works long term and can give your engine a bit more energy and reduce it's stress levels. I have never hard anyone tell me they were disappointed with it even if at first they were a bit Dubious because there wasn't an instant and over night Difference. It does not work that way but over a little time, the benefits do show up.
I have never thought much about putting it on an engine as big as you have but the principals are the same. I would set it up for a higher flow rate to clean the engine out initially and then back it off for " Maintenance". I have spoken to a few people that get the idea and then want to go over the top. Multi staging, constant delivery across all rev ranges and other complications and fuss that aren't necessary. Have it set up to come opn when the engine is reasonably loaded and that's it.
I would look at a flow rate for your engine of around %00Ml Min initially and run that for a while depending on the miles you do. Given the size of your bus, if You could have about 50L of water on board, that would be good. Once you have put a few hundred Litres through it which sounds a lot but would happen pretty quick, then you could probably back that down just to save filling the tanks and running out. If you are stopping with the ability to top up easily and you are climbing hilss or the thing is loaded, then you could leave it at 500Ml/ min.
I can run that on my 4.2L 4WD so its still a very conservative dose for your engine. You could trigger the injection with a pressure Switch ( Called a hobbs switch commonly) or use a spring loaded contact off the throttle cable/ arm that pushes a switch. Work out what your boost is and go from there. You will probably have some boost at highway speed so I would set it above that just for water conservation purposes. If you are doing say 2 Psi boost cruising and have a max of say 8 PSI, set it at around 4. This will mean the engine is well working when the WI fires. Same for a switch. You'll use a certain throttle setting when Cruising so set the switch to come on when you are using more throttle. If you use full throttle for taking off from the lights, that's perfect. A shot of water when under load like that is good all round.
I had my WI cut in as a 2 stage. For round town I used a lower boost so I got the WI regularly. for the highway when I had the meth mixed in, I switched tot he other pressure sender ( t'd on the same port in the manifold) so the WI Only kicked in near max boost. That made for a lot of fun. Not quite as much as using the low setting with WI when all the fun came on at once, but that was a bit " Peaky" to drive in traffic that's for sure.
There really only is one thing to be careful of and that is to make sure your water tanks can't flow or siphon into your engine. You don't want to find you have to pull an injector to clear a cylinder full of water that has trickled in when the thing was parked and locked up the engine. Also make sure your tank(s) have a vent to stop them pressurising when they get hot and forcing water into the engine that way. If you have to have the tanks above the engine, Put a solenoid valve in the line so the water is shut off when the engine is not running.
Other than that, it's all pretty simple and straightforward.
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. Had to filter all the diesel, clean the fuel lines and tank, terrible job. I loved that old MF40 but an opportunity came up to replace it with a 4WD MF860 and never looked back.
