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Water Injection |
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Hi JOE, I
have more planned for the future including a sealed cooling system for engines
so I can spend winters on the boat in Florida when I retire. I never was too
good at writing, but I can fix or do almost any thing. (That’s ok, editing is
the editor’s job). Note
for those that scoff at water injection, there are many people in racing that
spend thousands of dollars for complex programmable systems for some race
engines. Water injection is not new; it was used on Bombers in World War II
at high and low altitudes. The typical engine already puts out more water
than it uses in gasoline, (ever see the water that comes out of an air
compressor). Beside, your engine is a compressor so you have water in it no
matter what you do, but a little more makes a big difference. Sometimes,
you can tell how much better your engines run on a rainy day. For
myself, what I do not know on boats, I learn, I have a mechanic that will
work with me, and show me. I have a lot of “Friends in the Trades” who will
also tell one how things are done. I removed my own engines several years ago
and sent them out for rebuild, which was a mistake, should have done them
myself. I am still not happy with them. I eventually will remove them and check
them. I do not think they have the right compression (pistons). I can get 145 PSI on a check, but was told it should be closer to 160 for the Marine Hp. Consequently I can only get 3100 RPM under load and I got 3800 on the old tired engines. I modified a car cherry picker (spread legs) to pick up the engines between legs over the engine compartment. (Cherry picker sat on steel rails) -
Set engine in dolly stand on second set of rails after engine was above floor (You’ll
have to remove header, tranny, alternator and water pump before hand. Did you
know it is possible to remove a Transmission while boat is in the water, I that
did for repair.) -
Loosen all motor mounts -
then put Hydraulic jack under exhaust manifold . -
Uncoupled shaft -
Removed
rear engine mounts and jacked up rear of engine till you have enough clearance
to pull off transmission. (It’s a good time to send it out for repair or
rebuild if necessary and reinstall. Transmission and engine are at a down angle,
which is why you have to do this jigging.) By the way, on the engine hatches (with the cedar stringers) I had supports sticking into hatch area to hold up hatches under the cedar stringers. So the full weight of engine hatches was not on hatch edges as was normally done. Recommend if any one tries this to be sure and make the panels pop out on far inside of engine hatches, as this is a big plus for maintenance of spark plugs. - This is also where I am putting 3 - 5 gallon water containers on each side, next to the hull on the ledge beam. This will be 15 gallons water for each engine for my water injection system. I
did the math on my fuel totals for last year and my fuel was down 25 to 30
% from the water injection. I had a single 5-gallon bucket last year and it was
not enough, had to fill it too often. - I had installed an electrical connection on water injection pumps and a volt meter on dash for each engine. The pumps started around 6 volts and peaked at 10.5 volts. I have the water injection systems out on the workbench and I am going to run each to find out exactly how much water is used at what voltages. - There are orifices on each system before going in to the carburetor (this is how you change the amount of water for the engine size). - There is also a Vacuum control (engine vacuum) to turn on water injection I have mine set around 1400 RPM, which is around my plane out point of the hull. From there the higher the RPM, the higher the voltage reads (higher pressure on water), and more water is injected. Results
Exhaust
is now very clean along with spark plugs, which will last longer. But the timing
has to be changed also. On a gasoline engine, the further you can advance the
timing with out a ping the better off you are. I was running the timing at 5 Deg
BTDC (Ed note BTDC is Before Top Dead Center) (factory spec is 12 DEG BTDC)
on mid grade fuel. Now I am running 18 DEG BTDC on REGULAR FUEL (another
plus). Only one draw back; if the water injection fails out on lake you have to stop
and reset Distributor Timing hence the Two marks on timing I can
stop, and loosen the distributor and quickly set to the Aux Mark (that is the
non-water injected mark) painted on engine. Robert M. Editor Note : For more information check out the following commercial links. |
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