Hi, I recently installed water injection into a turbocharged duratec 3.0 v6. I have heard some good and bad things about running WI on these engines. I was wondering if anyone here has water injection on their turbocharged 3.0s and what experience you have had with them.

PM Stazi, unless he sees this post before you get to him. He has water injection on his turbocharged 2.5L(soon to be 3.0L) SVT. He's had a lot of success with his.

Mark

I just bought a kit for my SRT-4. Its sitting behind me right now in the box it came in. I gotta find the time to install it and my wideband. I've never read anything overly negative about W/I on any motor though. Nothing that would convince me not to do it anyhow. My kit will also work with alcohol...as most will with proper lines and what not.

I have had a lot of experience with water injection.

Let's cover a few basics. First the pro side. Water injection tends to cool the cylinder intake air charge. In that respect it is a little like an intercooler. The cooler charge is denser and thus will provide more power. There is also more power from the water turning to steam. The cooler charge also allows for more ignition timing advance and can contribute to additional power. It also tends to keep carbon from forming in the combustion chambers.

Now the con side. Water injection can be hard to control. Too heavy and it can contribute to engine wear or even severe engine damage. It can contribute to corrosion to intake components. Anyone that has done much heavy engine work knows that an engine that has been run very long with a mildly blown head gasket knows that the cylinder wear on any wet cylinders can be tremendous. Cylinder wear is almost a thing of the past on today's engines. It is not uncommon to find nearly no wear or taper on and engine with well over 100,000 miles. Thirty or forty years ago such an engine often had 10 to 20 thousands of an inch of wear by that time. A cylinder that is injesting water can get that much wear in a few thousand miles.

If not properly controlled water injection may not do much good. The systems that provide water when engine vacuum is high and little or not water whan vacuum is low doesn't do much more than help keep carbon buildup down.

Systems that provide water injection during load may help to reduce ping and provide all of the benefits mentioned above, but it can be tricky to determine the correct flow. Such systems cannot depend on engne vacuum to draw in the water, but must have a small pump as well as a means to meter the flow according to demand.

Most of my involvement was with motorhomes and trucks that pulled RV trailers. Remember that 25 to 30 years ago, there was not as much control over ignition timing. Water injection was used to cut ping pulling heavy grades. It worked, but I most certainly had mixed feelings about using it.

It is also important to have some failsafe systems built in. I remember more than one vehicle that drained the water tank into the crankcase due to some sort of malfunction as well as the water tank being mounted too high.

I remember reading about a lengthly study a few years ago showing the smog benefits of water injection. They showed that carefully controlled water injection not only generated additional power, but could eliminate the need for an EGR system.

Water injection is sometimes used on jet engines. Such aircraft are sometimes called "water wagons". Agressive water injection provides a lot of additional thrust and can be used for supplimentry power for take off. The water doesn't last long though, and when it runs out, the drop in thrust is so dramatic that a pilot using it for the first time may think his engines stalled.

Water/alcohol injection was factory equipment on the early 60's Olds F-85 with the optional turbo engine. It was used to eliminate ping under boost. The engine had the same compression ratio as the non turbo engine. Although timing was retarded under boost, it wasn't enough. The system didn't allow boost unless there was fluid in the water injection tank.

No mater what, adding water injection adds considerable complexity to engine management.

Some good stuff there.

WOW! I had no friggin' Idea...

(* scratches water injection off the list *)

I don't think that means you shouldn't run it....it isn't rocket science. Just need to take the knowledge and build a good system. Contact Stazi.

BlackwidowSVT is also using water injection on his turbo 2.5 as well. Most of the s/c SHO guys in Denver are using W/I as well with success.

My 1963 Ford Fairlane wagon with a 2bbl 221ci V8 had water injection from the factory.

it was as simple as a mayonaise jar with a small hose that ran up to the carb.

I run a mix of alcohol and water through a modified Spearco system. It allows me to run ~12psi of boost with no pinging (and no intercooler). Lets just say that with the water injection I was able to extract about another 25hp form my system than I was getting without it.

In the Turbo Buick (GN' and Pont. TTA's) world progressive alcohol injection is the #1 mod for big HP and lots of boost on 93 octane pump gas. On a mildly modded TTA with alcohol injection you can run up to 24 psi on the stock turbo putting the car into low 11's. This guy is KING in the TURBO Buick world...Julio Don from http://www.alkycontrol.com/ Currently his 89 TTA (3.8L 6) is running 10.550 at 132.22, 1.539 60ft, 3850 race weight w/driver on stock internals and has recently posted a 548 hp / 636 lb at 27 psi dyno run and a 584 hp at 25 PSI with a 35 shot of NOS during some recent R&D. He also designs systems for other Turbo & S/C cars as well. He is one of the Moderators on TurboBuick.com (screen name "Razor") and has posted tons of info in the Alcohol, Nitrous and Propane Tech forum http://www.turbobuick.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=14 . If you have any questions check him out and read up...he knows his sh!t and is known and respected by all in the Turbo Buick community. Check out his video demonstrating his PAC controller on his 89 TTA... http://www.bmcomputersource.com/pachires.wmv

This system will be on my TTA this comming Spring/Summer along with a few other goodies he has suggested to keep me looking stock but run low 11's at 120+ guaranteed

The reason for my question was that I have always kinda used WI on my turbocharged cars. Recently I was told that they do more harm on the Duratec motors than good because there are oil squiters to lube the cyl walls and the WI will kill the lubrication. Any comments about WI use on the duratec motors?

SnowPerformance now sells an adjustable MAF variable WI controller, that you can set the water injection to start as little as 1-volt or all the way up to 5-volts on the MAF signal. I think that is the safest bet for water injection.

We sell the Snowperformance WI kits now. I have nothing but great things to say about their kits. I just wanted to know who has WI running on their duratec motors and if they have seen any drawbacks or damage to the engine due to lack of lubrication. I installed the snowperformance kit on a customers car and he was told that WI is good but not for the ford duratec V6. Rather than yanking the thing out, I wanted to know who was using them on the high hp contours, etc.

Originally posted by smoothlinez:

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I was told that they do more harm on the Duratec motors than good because there are oil squiters to lube the cyl walls

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Im no expert but im almost positive we dont have that. Im sure someone on here that knows more will post about it.