Water injection in the EGR stream??

R

racprops

Well-Known Member
Discussion:

I have read of letting in more EGR gasses to fill the chamber thus displace some of the fresh incoming air and fuel and force a wider opened throttle to lower vacuum and pumping loses.

The trick is to balance the throttle VS the EGR gases to maintain speed. And a system to cut off the EGR when greater power and throttle is needed. I think a cutout switch to cut power at a higher throttle range.

This is considered a good way to improve MPG. I read that car makers are also putting in more EGR nowadays.

The only down side is the carbon crud build up though out the system.

I feel it needs either another way to do what the EGR does or a cleaning system to remove the crud.

I have been planning on water injection so adding water to the EGR stream might make steam to clean it and at the same time add some water as well.

Next question is what is the pressure inside the EGR system and where can I get a water pump to overcome that pressure?? And a one way valve(s) to prevent EGR Gasses getting into the water injection lines that can withstand the temps involved as well as I would like the one way valve(s) to be at the EGR pipes.

Feed back??

Rich
 
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why make it that complicated, water/methanol or water/ethanol injection on the intake side ,
will produce steam to clean and cool the burn, and reduce any tendency toward detonation.
that steam also tends to reduce emissions and clean the exhaust,
but the exhaust gases extreme heat and the very low volume/ mass of alcohol and water being introduced into the combustion,
and the fact its only introduced under higher rpms and load conditions,
also means is not likely to cool and produce rust, as it remains as steam in the exhaust and is very rapidly dried/vaporized

Water injection (engine) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
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Because I am looking for ways to make the most MPG on the highway and:

I have read of letting in more EGR gasses to fill the chamber thus displace some of the fresh incoming air and fuel and force a wider opened throttle to lower vacuum and pumping loses. PS As I am running a stroked 383 and at low RPMS pumping loses are likely to greater...

The trick is to balance the throttle VS the EGR gases to maintain speed. And a system to cut off the EGR when greater power and throttle is needed.

I think a cutout switch to cut power at a higher throttle range.

This is considered a good way to improve MPG. I read that car makers are also putting in more EGR nowadays.

The only down side is the carbon crud build up though out the system.

Rich
 
"but the exhaust gases extreme heat and the very low volume/ mass of alcohol and water being introduced into the combustion,"

The idea is just a small amout of water to help clean out the crud and not water and alcohol for power.

"and the fact its only introduced under higher rpms and load conditions,"

And I plan on injecting EGR and some water at low RPMs


"also means is not likely to cool and produce rust, as it remains as steam in the exhaust and is very rapidly dried/vaporized"

Understood.

Rich
 
personally after thinking it over and doing some research, I see near zero advantage to adding water only to the EGR gas flow,
adding the alcohol and water to the intake air/fuel flow has huge potential to cool combustion or swapping to e85 seems preferable

Knock sensors:

Building a 383, will be running a 1987 Camaro TPI intake with a newer PCM, what Knock sensor should I run?? Rich
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tumble and swirl, quench & squish

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octane boosters

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reading plugs

YOU REALLY NEED TO READ THRU ALL THESE THREADS AND SUB LINKS TO GET A GOOD BASIC UNDERSTANDING http://www.4secondsflat.com/Spark_plug_reading.html http://www.strappe.com/plugs.html http://garage.grumpysperformance.com/index.php?threads/383-with-ignition-knock-issues.14293/#post-72961...
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Grumpy said:
personally after thinking it over and doing some research, I see near zero advantage to adding water only to the EGR gas flow,
adding the alcohol and water to cool combustion or swapping to e85 seems preferable
Click to expand...

I can understand that from a performance view.

I am working on how all car makers now add ERG to help with MPG, and plan of going farther with it.

BUT the problem is how much gunk is built up by these systems.

I am thinking adding a little water to the EGR gases near of at the point them are injected into the intake might help keep them clean.

I already have read that EGR will (odd as it sounds) cool the chamber temps, and that this is a way to lower NOX when running lean.

Adding water is just to clean the system.

I have a set of addon nossles that sit under the injectors for the injection of NOS and Fuel and was thinking of running water for lean burning and water with Methold as power additive as needed.

If I can reach 20MPG running a 32gal tank my range will be 640 miles and 800 at 25MPG.

Of course that only applies on flat roads and no head winds...

None the less if I am running water steadily I will been tanks large enough to supply that water and water mix for that range.

And include what is fed to the EGR system as well.

The idea of running EGR is a hard one to grasp, I read there is not much left over fuel, which would make sense to rerun it back to burn the unburned fuel, but reports say no, and even though it is hot exhaust gases, it cools the burn partly, by displacing incoming air and fuel, and partly by lack of O2...

Which kind of does not make sense....

Rich
 
Rich,

EGR is only working when your engine is at high vacuum / low throttle position.
Like you said, the EGR displacement of the air and fuel, will cause you to have to open the throttle a couple percent more, which reduces pumping losses.

Water doesn't provide ANY advantage at highway cruise and, IMHO, likely provides NEGATIVE value to your MPG goals. There's a reason that no water-meth system works like that. -Water sprayed into the exhaust stream and into the cylinder wouldn't only cool the chamber / pull heat OUT of COMBUSTION, ultimately making the engine LESS thermally efficient. -Instead of using your HEAT-PRESSURE energy to push the piston down the bore, you're using it to heat and evaporate your water and send the steam out the exhaust. -It's the thermal opposite of you running iron heads and applying thermal barrier coatings to your engine.

SOMETIMES you can use that decreased thermal efficiency that comes from water injection to your advantage- like if your cylinder pressure-temperature would be exceeding the octane rating of your fuel, but that is NOT remotely close to happening when EGR is working. -This is why you see water-meth systems injecting at wide open throttle / at high load and high throttle positions -that's when you're likely to exceed the temperature-pressure of your fuel's octane rating and that's when the water sucking heat out of the chamber is useful.

-I'm also not sure whether water would evaporate as well in the EGR stream either (maybe it would) -good water meth systems are injecting at high pressure I'm not sure how / where you'd do that properly into the EGR stream -I think as soon as your water injected into your EGR stream encountered the huge volume increase going into your TPI plenum that all that water would fall back out of solution and start puddling on the bottom of your plenum and the distribution would be TERRIBLE.


Even if we move from talking about injecting water into the exhaust stream to the typical injecting into the air stream: I don't think water injection at low throttle position is useful. I think it would actually reduce your fuel economy by making the engine less efficient at converting fuel energy into cylinder pressure and usable engine torque. -You're stealing some of your fuel's energy and using it to make steam and send it out the exhaust... -Maybe a cool idea to try to reduce turbo lag with a temporary mini steam engine effect in the exhaust.., but I think counter-productive to best highway fuel economy.



Adam

EGR is just the low NOX form of lean-burn and the original "(effective) displacement-on-demand", IMO.
 
If you want more MPG from a higher percentage of exhaust gas and a lower amount of fuel in the cylinder, then that makes sense for increased MPG and is one of the goals of leading OEMs for some of their MPG strategies right now.

They're using things like stratified mixtures that are possible with direct injection to ensure that there's still enough fuel in the area immediately around the spark plug prior to the ignition system firing to kick off an initial flame that can travel across the rest of the combustion chamber that is far more dilute and has a LOT of EGR in it.

-There are ways to time port fuel injection to get you some of these same goals but to a lesser extent and a big one is "Open Valve Injection" with very large injectors with the fuel timed backwards from the intake close event; with the right intake port and combustion chamber this can produce a stratified mixture around the plug, too that allows for supporting leaner mixtures or more EGR and still getting the cylinder to light off. Bosch+Toyota claim that this strategy on their current advanced OEM port injection strategy can also support running with a 0.5 - 1.0 increased compression ratio and higher DCRs because more of the evaporative cooling power of the fuel goes to cooling combustion rather than the intake port / intake air steam -that can be leveraged to drive increased MPG, too. -This is supported by most modern aftermarket EFI systems in the middle of the range up today and is often called "end of injection timing /tuning", too so that makes a good search term for it. (It's also good for TINY increases in power.)

An ignition system that supports higher voltages and more energy and larger spark plug gaps helps push the lean burn or high-EGR-burn limits further too, as the spark can successfully jump under those worse conditions and there's more likelihood that the initial spark event hits enough fuel molecules in the plug gap to get the kernel started.

These guys are at the forefront of using plasma ignition systems to drive increasing lean burn and EGR burn limits. The problem with traditional plasma ignition is that it EATS plugs really fast if it has high energy. These guy's patented solution is to use magic electrical wizardry to fire the spark plug with ultra high energy but only for nano-seconds so that it has tons of energy to create a very large and active initial plasma-induced flame kernel, but because it's an ultra short burst it doesn't cause dramatic erosion of the spark plug tip, like other plasma ignition systems. -It also makes a flame front that move FAST and reduces ignition advance requirements which turns more fuel and air into more torque and also helps MPG there. -These guys don't sell to mere mortals, though and they and their Venture Capital investors are only interested in selling BIG dollar contracts to OEMs and attracting US Government grant money... ;-( https://www.tpsignition.com/ -I've volunteered my car to be fitted with it and used in a marketing campaign and they won't take my money; lol! -I also wanted to invest in the company, but they also don't want my money for that; only the Venture Capital money right now...

(It's clear the system needs a super advanced ECU to control it and an advanced control strategy that they don't know how to build so they're working with OEMs and unnamed "Tier 1 integrators" to figure out the control logic and strategies...)


Adam
 
I was thinking that what makes power at WOT and High RPMS would also work at low RPMs, when playing with HHO, we oftet seems to get MPG out steam more than the Hydrogen....It seemed adding water even as steam was a help, plus you got clean cylinders.

There is a lot of wild stuff out there, one I was interested in was Torque valves, a system where a floating second valve was mounted on the main intake valve, which would be closed by the very beginning of compression, making large amounts of torque and very low RPMs like 500.

At higher RPMs they (like Roads lifters) would be unable to react so it ran stock. It was a automatic closing intake valve.

As for ING, I was considering the reason MSD became a going company, Muliy Spark Discharge.

Rich
 
racprops said:
I was thinking that what makes power at WOT and High RPMS would also work at low RPMs, when playing with HHO, we oftet seems to get MPG out steam more than the Hydrogen....It seemed adding water even as steam was a help, plus you got clean cylinders.

Rich
Click to expand...
If you injected water in the normal way via the intake tract at low RPMs and IF the evaporative cooling through the intake tract significantly decreased the temperature and air density and it made more power (and it sure might) -the ECU should compensate for the extra air by injecting more fuel and decreasing MPG, through right? (It might make more power at that RPM, but it should make less MPG there then, IMO.)

I also am not convinced that adding water injection to an engine that's perfectly happy running on it's current fuel octane and without pulling timing will make any more power. Everything dyno test I've seen with water meth injection in this scenario causes power to go DOWN and as the mix of meth goes up, it becomes apparent that the water itself is reducing power and the meth is increasing it.

My money is on water injection making NEGATIVE power on an engine that's running fine on it's current fuel.

I know there's all sorts of alterative forums looking for free energy, and convinced the government is holding back magic carburetors that get 100 MPG, and that love things like HHO and weird looking spark plugs and magnets that get installed on your fuel lines, Smokey's abdiadic high temp engine, Sing grooves and all the "hidden engine Occult" practices, but there's a reason none of that is used by OEMs and there's a reason there's a list of like 100+ of them that have been tested as worthless or making negative fuel economy by the EPA. (Yes many of them love Plasma ignition, too, but I see big opportunities there, personally.)


Adam
 
Well I am looking for a couple of things: first for a cure of a problem with EGR, it gums up the works, crud everywhere it is allowed into.

Second a cure for NOx production.

The cure for NOx is either EGR or water, as EGR and water both cool the chamber temps lowing NOx.

I know hot exhaust gasses as a cooler...but between displacing incoming air and fuel and that it is cooler than combustion it cools it.

My idea was to add water that because of the HOT exhaust gasses should become steam which could/should clean out the crud on the fly.

And perhaps allow less EGR for the same lowering of the NOx.

And adding water and method might help kick back in the lost HP/torque from the use of EGR and water.

That was/is my idea.

As far as I can see no one has tried it.

Rich
 
I think I understand what you're trying to do now.

I don't think the technology exists to give you both lots of EGR AND avoid "gumming up the works".
Today, AFAIK, you have to choose your trade offs for increased fuel economy with more NOX production (run that lean burn as far as you can take it) -you COULD install good CATs and have the CATs treat the NOX for you, or less NOX and increased fuel economy, but with EGR "gumming up the works".


Here's an SAE paper that details a system that does what it sounds like you want. It takes the EGR gas stream and treats it with a gas particulate filter, like Europe currently requires, and then additionally cools that exhaust gas (it sounds like through a heat exchanger connected to the engine coolant system), and then spits that cleaned and cooled EGR back into the engine. -It actually INCREASES fuel economy further still by cooling the exhaust gas before reinjecting it, AND cleans, it, but...

It's made by Tenneco and they don't even currently seem to sell it. It's a concept still as far as I can tell.
They call it "Clean EGR": https://www.tenneco.com/news/news-d...current-industry-trends-driving-future-growth

So unless you sell the van and get a time-traveling DeLorean, I think you're stuck between maximum mpg with lean burn and no EGR, or with EGR and getting everything gummed up. (Or you could buy a used gas particulate filter, and try to custom route your EGR tubes through it before it goes back into your intake.) -It WOULD be cool and almost certainly a "first" for a DIYer at home.


Adam
 
You are a INTERESTING read every time...so how long can a gas particulate filter last before IT gets plugged up, or can it be cleaned??

Rich
 
Check this out:
Originally Posted by Wikipedia

A limited number of road vehicles with forced induction engines from manufacturers such as Chrysler have included water injection. The 1962 Oldsmobile Jetfire was delivered with the Turbo Jetfire engine.[7]

In 2015 BMW has introduced a version of their high performance M4 coupe, the M4 GTS, that combines water injection with intercooling. The car was featured in the 2015 MotoGP season as the official safety car for the series and was released for the commercial market in 2016.[8] As per BMW example, current engine developments featuring water injection seem to concentrate on the effect of “Performance Improvement”. But by the mid 2020s, engine development will shift focus also on improved fuel consumption, due to the pressure on CO2 emissions reduction and related regulations.[9][10]

Bosch, which co-developed the technology with BMW, offers a water injection system named WaterBoost for other manufacturers. The company claims up to 5% increase in engine performance, up to 4% decrease in CO2 emissions and up to 13% improvement in fuel economy.[11] Similar results were reported in "Water Injection - High Power and High Efficiency combined"[12]

Water injection (engine) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

All of this is from: https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/gasoline-vapor-40295-5.html

It suddenly lit up over there.

Rich
 
More: The original anti-detonation fluid was straight water, but that would freeze in the cold climate states, so methanol was added to suppress the freezing point. The Olds engineers found the mixture with methanol actually gave the engine about a 5 horse power boost, bring the rated horse power up to the magical 215, 1 HP per Cubic Inch!

The water soluble lubricant was added to the mixture to “coat” the rubber components in the Turbo Rocket Fluid delivery system to minimize the leaching of plasticizers from the rubber components, that would make them brittle and non-flexible. Methanol is hard on rubber components!

BMW appears to be using it to increase super charged performance.
The botch one doesn't say if it's for gas or diesel. Those stats, 5% more power, 4% less co2, 13% more fuel economy sounds exactly like running water injection on a diesel.
The only way a gas engine can benefit from water for fuel economy is if it was designed around it. Then the problem is you have to use water all the time and better make sure you run out of gas before you run out of water.
Still have to get it passed the epa.

It’s only used in mining equipment and is sometimes called a water scrubber

By far you get the cleanest exhaust doing this, explains why folks are considering scavenging water from exhaust for pollution controls, because a expansion/freeze resistant bottle combined with someone dumping a glassful of water in every day is too hard.

If you want even more effective pollution controls, ocean water cleans exhaust in much small amounts , does wonders for steel components as well

The blow the engine issue would no longer be a problem with computerized controls, drop to 60hp and folks would get the bottle filled.


the BMW has a limp mode if it runs out of water so you can't hurt the engine. But it will affect power. And yes, the (gasoline) engine has to be designed to take advantage of water injection. Otherwise it's very likely to not work, although I do wonder about replacing some gasoline enrichment with water at WOT. That would be a good way to blow up an engine if something fails of course.

With aftermarket engine management, it would be relatively easy to have a level sensor connected to an ECU input, and have that input's state trigger a change in fueling or ignition timing characteristics.

IIRC that water injection setup fitted to the BMW M4 GTS was intended exactly to be a better option than enriching the AFR.

All of this is from: https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/gasoline-vapor-40295-5.html

It suddenly lit up over there.

Rich
 
racprops said:
Check this out:
Originally Posted by Wikipedia

A limited number of road vehicles with forced induction engines from manufacturers such as Chrysler have included water injection. The 1962 Oldsmobile Jetfire was delivered with the Turbo Jetfire engine.[7]

In 2015 BMW has introduced a version of their high performance M4 coupe, the M4 GTS, that combines water injection with intercooling. The car was featured in the 2015 MotoGP season as the official safety car for the series and was released for the commercial market in 2016.[8] As per BMW example, current engine developments featuring water injection seem to concentrate on the effect of “Performance Improvement”. But by the mid 2020s, engine development will shift focus also on improved fuel consumption, due to the pressure on CO2 emissions reduction and related regulations.[9][10]

Bosch, which co-developed the technology with BMW, offers a water injection system named WaterBoost for other manufacturers. The company claims up to 5% increase in engine performance, up to 4% decrease in CO2 emissions and up to 13% improvement in fuel economy.[11] Similar results were reported in "Water Injection - High Power and High Efficiency combined"[12]

Water injection (engine) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

All of this is from: https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/gasoline-vapor-40295-5.html

It suddenly lit up over there.

Rich
Click to expand...
The BMW M4 GTS implementation was really cool because it was using water that just condensed on the AC condensor or something like that, if I remember correctly, so it didn't even have a tank that you had to top-up. -The key with the BMW implementation for making power though is that it was definitely a spark-knock limited engine running under boost -by injecting a little water they can let the ECU safely run more timing in highway cruise and then under WOT and lots of boost inject a lot of water to again let it run more timing and or more boost.

-That doesn't help an engine that's not having to pull timing already though, in my understanding.


It's essentially a trick to run a lower octane than the engine was built for. (If you built your engine for 93 octane, and wanted to get by on 87 -then maybe a strategy like this could work, but I still think with an engine that runs without knocking already on 87, this only loses power.

Adam
 
racprops said:
You are a INTERESTING read every time...so how long can a gas particulate filter last before IT gets plugged up, or can it be cleaned??

Rich
Click to expand...
No clue. Do gas particulate filters have to be heated to be recharged like diesel particulate filters?

I know nothing about them other than they reduce very small particle sizes, significantly reduce exhaust sound volume, and I'm glad we still don't mandate them here (yet)... My understanding is they've been mandated in Europe for 2-4ish years. I know the European BMWs with the outstanding B58 twin scroll turbocharged inline 6s come with them. (I REALLY want a B58 in my next car, but other than that I don't follow European engines. That particular engine I make an exception for...)


Adam
 
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