Water/Methanol Injection

[WhiteArrow3800]

A friend of mine suggested this to me as he is going to be installing a water/meth injection system on his turbo'd RX-8. So I started looking into it, reading a good bit. I did a search on the forum and didn't come up with much info here other than a topic that revealed Paul (2000Silverbullet) runs it and willwren mentioned having tried it before.

I was looking to see what you guys' opinions were. Is anyone else running alcohol injection on their L67?

I'm really interested in doing this probably late winter or spring time. I'm looking around at the moment, but leaning towards a fender mounted AIS kit.

And I had one question question so far, about one of the only negative effect I came across besides running the water/methane reservoir dry. I had read on another forum where someone asked if the methanol would remove the coating on the S/C rotors. It went unanswered on their forum though. I've also read where other supercharger manufactures don't coat their rotors. So will the methanol remove the coating and how important is the coating on our Eaton blowers?

[willwren]

The only two that have are Paul and I. Reviews are mixed. I still have my system mostly installed, but primarily only to 'clean' my intercooler core occasionally. My results were very slim at best.

Paul's seems to be hit or miss from my observation, but he swears by it. He bought a complete system from Snow Performance. I built my own to utilize the car's own existing systems to deliver it. My tank is pressurized via the ELC pump and delivers water when I want it, Paul's is based off MAF frequency IIRC.

Ultimately, I believe you'll gain more by porting and polishing the SC and LIM, and you won't have to mix and fill when the tank goes empty.

[WhiteArrow3800]

You're suggesting I'd gain more by porting the SC and LIM instead of the water/meth injection, or are you saying to do these together? I do plan on having the SC ported rebuilt and polished inside and out before spring. Then was looking at the water/meth setup sometime after.

[willwren]

I'm saying if you had a choice between the two, go P/P. Very few have used WI on the L67, and most will tell you not to bother, INTENSE included. You'll notice a distinct lack of WI information or kits on the major 3800 provider's websites.

[00Beast]

I was reading Car Craft and one of the questions was from a guy asking about octane in his 04 GTP. The column editor told him that he could either run a W/M system or the proper octane. I literally facepalmed.

[Larz01]

Its junk for a roots set-up, run it the right way through your injectors. (I gained 4 tenth off my 1/4 times and 2mph)

[WhiteArrow3800]

I'm saying if you had a choice between the two, go P/P. Very few have used WI on the L67, and most will tell you not to bother, INTENSE included. You'll notice a distinct lack of WI information or kits on the major 3800 provider's websites.

Gotcha. Well this is why I was asking, because I had found next to nothing specifically related to the L67.

How is our setup different in that it makes this mod not worth it?

[Larz01]

^^^Buy an intercooler instead. W/M was so 2003, so many issues to go wrong if you tune for it.

[willwren]

Water injection was so WWII and is very effective in the right application, and still is today. WWII bombers used it extensively in Europe. Why it's not as effective on the L67 I don't know. I've had 3 different and unique (self-built) systems, and still retain the final one for cleaning purposes, but it never really performed as expected from my research.

The flip side of the equation is cost per horsepower. You already know it's got minimal gains compared to an intercooler. Now go price out some all-inclusive kits. Make sure you're sitting down. Then figure out how far those prices would go towards an intercooler. Even a short-stack IC is FAR more effective than WI at it's best.