Water/Meth Injection In The Real World

[mattdickmeyer]

It's clear that there are fans of water injection on this forum & that's great & I will the 1st to admit, dyno results don't lie. It definitely works! But my only point is at what cost & is it worth the fee? Owning & operating a professional engine shop allows me to see the other side of the coin. When engines come in for freshening up or tear down from a potential problem, I get to see things that most wouldn't get the opportunity to see. After building over 1,500 engines the opportunity to notice a pattern. 2 such examples...1st is a 4.6L Modular with a 72 mm turbo. This engine cost the customer $14,300 & produced 686 HP at the wheel. At some time later, the customer installed a Snow Performance Meth Injection System, which increased the HP to 744 at the wheel. A welcomed increase indeed. After only a few months after the install of the meth injection kit, he noticed a distinct reduction in power. A leak down test showed an extensive amount of cylinder leakage in every cylinder. The following pictures are of the damage. The bad thing about this particular engine is the cylinder heads are ultra rare limited production Ford SVO Racing Heads, only produced between '96 & '98. These pictures may not show it clearly, but the steam pitting on the valves, which are high dollar Del West valves, is pretty bad. The reason for the leak down was pitting in the cylinder walls due to the steam. It also ruined the Moly facing on the rings. The 2nd example is a '00 Mustang. We installed a Paxton Novi 2,000 Super Charger on, the engine was completely stock & produced 432 HP at the wheel. In the same fashion, this customer installed an Anderson Motorsports water meth kit. Later in the year, he brought the car in with ticking noises. Tear down revealed excessive moisture in the crank case. It caused the oil to foam in the hydraulic timing chain tensioners, with the loss of pressure, the tensioners collapsed, allowing slop in the chains. This allowed the pistons to smack the valves. I found extensive rust abound with in the crank case. The water had also caused the one rist pin to seize. Not the intent to enrage anyone, as this often causes the point to be lost, but this is the facts. Sometimes my job is to inform people that what they have thought all along or "read" has more to the story. These 2 customers above, I assure you, realized that I wasn't calling them stupid when I discouraged these installs, but looking out for their investments.

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[mattdickmeyer]

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These are older pictures so I am having a hard time transferring them.

[mattdickmeyer]

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[mattdickmeyer]

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[mattdickmeyer]

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[sasquatch]

whats your opinion on using water/meth injection on diesel motors?

also, is there any diffrence between using straight water and a water/meth mix? or alcohol or ethanol?

or is injecting anything other than gas in to your engine a bad idea?

[eurotiva]

Intercooler FTW. Thanks for the info Matt, as I've been thinking water/meth. I'm still 18 lbs of boost with no IC, rear turbo

[gergorian]

Hey Matt! Great to see you posting! Sasquatch, if I am correct water/meth acts as both a detonation suppressor/ power adder ( from the higher octane in the meth) and a cooling agent ( the water cools the air and cooler air is denser.) Both of these allow you to run more boost( if your boosted)/ timing, thus netting you a gain in power. Matt if I missed anything or I got something wrong, please don't hesitate to correct me.

[mattdickmeyer]

whats your opinion on using water/meth injection on diesel motors?

also, is there any diffrence between using straight water and a water/meth mix? or alcohol or ethanol?

or is injecting anything other than gas in to your engine a bad idea?

Water/meth injections on diesel engines should be considered counter productive as water/meth reduces combustion temperature to combat detonation. Which is the very process that makes a diesel run. It would be like running a marathon with a parachute on

[mattdickmeyer]

Hey Matt! Great to see you posting! Sasquatch, if I am correct water/meth acts as both a detonation suppressor/ power adder ( from the higher octane in the meth) and a cooling agent ( the water cools the air and cooler air is denser.) Both of these allow you to run more boost( if your boosted)/ timing, thus netting you a gain in power. Matt if I missed anything or I got something wrong, please don't hesitate to correct me.

Well said!

[gergorian]

Well said!

Thank you! I'm glad to see the business is going well.

*Edit* WOOO 100 post's! Yay. :-)

[sasquatch]

oooo and what about windshild washer fluid for water/meth injection fluid? does it work good?

[gergorian]

oooo and what about windshild washer fluid for water/meth injection fluid? does it work good?

Thats what people used for a long time before dedicated pure mixtures were developed by aftermarket companies.

As to the effectiveness I am pretty sure that the stuff you buy aftermarket is much more effective than the "2 buck chuck" you get at the gas station. But, I am no expert. Just alot of reading and book smarts lol.

[iceracerdude]

Yes, of course there's stories of failure, failure's always an option. Failure from being uninformed is the most prevelant in all indeavors regarding performance enhancement.
Just as an example, take that question of windshield washer fluid? Internet lore say's you can use it right? Can you use it...yes and no. Yes when it has methanol in it, no when it has something else. If you're informed you know that the blue "good to minus 20" has approximately 33 to 35 percent methanol in it. But make the mistake of using the pink stuff and you'll find out what glycol does for your internals.
What's recommended is about a 50/50 mix of methanol to water, But because people hear "you can use windshield washer fluid" the uninformed believe that means ALL windshield washer fluid which is your classic hybrid of misinformation...some good info some bad info.
I've seen way, WAY more problems with boost creep, guy's intentionally turning the boost up too high for their car's tune, and leaning them out (just because they can). Guys running too much fuel because everybody knows "more fuel is better than less fuel right?" Yeah, right up until the cylinders get rinsed down and the oil's completely deluted, Talk about hard on parts.
I've seen way more of this and I suspect a lot of other people reading this have too really if you guys think about it. How many guys can you think of, that have blown their engines up, destroying the majority of the parts. And then who in their right mind, want's to use what's seeming left.
People, who don't/won't do their research, or of course, refuse to accept the numbers when presented them, are destined for failure in one form or another.
It's been my experience that this is true whether it's big money big egos, or small money desperados.
I've beat plenty of guy's with non meth injection equiped cars where they've blown up and subsequently dnf'd. So yeah for me, methanol is a destructive force and can be very hard on engine parts...ha, ha, ha.

[Advancedynamix]

Usually just buying methanol and distilled water (I use de ionized water to reduce the corrosive effects) for less than washer fluid anyway.
Water injection does work well in diesel engines. This is due to it's intake cooling ability and it's expansion rate during combustion. It also aids to increase exhaust gas velocity and weight so turbochargers tend to spool faster with a properly setup system. Diesel engines are also much less prone to the corrosion problems that Matt has explained .
much of the corrosion and reliability issues associated with water/alcohol injection are conditional. I have seen more consistent failures from inconsistencies in fuel ( which I bet Matt has seen his fair share of) but I wouldn't tell everyone here to stop using pump gas or to buy a separator. Lol. The truth is that it does work, and it possibly could cause premature engine wear. You can build a water proof engine that won't suffer the corrosion problems, but for most that is unnecessary. I have installed water/ alcohol systems on several hundred engines, and I've had the chance to tear down more than a few. What I saw didn't scare me that bad because I currently have it on my car.
I do have a b6t block with 30k heavily abused methanol injected miles on it in my garage. When I get the chance to tear into it I'll post the honest results If this is detrimental to the Mazda components then this should show it. I'm still running the head, with the same amount of methanol injected miles, and at tear down the head showed zero Leak down and no signs of abnormal corrosion. I have a lot of experience tuning these systems, and that probably makes a difference in how well they work.