Water Injection

Hi Roy,

I ran water injection on my 1980 ford truck back in 1981-82.
Ya know when gas was $1.25 per gallon and those 351-400m ford motors
liked to drink alot of fuel.
I was going to buy a unit from edelbrock but it was expensive so I installed a
homemade system using a gallon plastic water jug some clear tube and a
petcock for adjustment.
I mounted the jug to the fender wall and ran the tube from the jug to a vacuum
port on the carb with the petcock clamped in line on the tube.
It worked out ok. I got about 3 more miles per gal and it got rid of that pinging
due to that bad unleaded gas back then.
The system used about 1.25 gal of water to 16 gallons of gas.
In the winter I had to add window washer solvent to keep the water from freezing.
I didn't get the mpg I was getting in the summer of course cold weather burn more
fuel.
I had to park the truck outside so when starting her up on those cold mornings
sometimes the choke linkage would stick and also the throttle after giving the
pedal a pump or two.
I would constantly have to spray WD-40 on the carb and linkage at least once
or twice a week to keep the linkage from sticking.
Well that became a pain. Also always checking under the hood for the water level
in the jug. I stopped using the water system that winter.
But for warm weather the water injection worked. More mpg and stopped that
ping also the motor seemed to run smoother.
I hope this helps.
_________
Laddy

I'm looking at water/alcohol inj too. I had a site that a motorcycle guy that has lots of Boneville records but I lost it in a computer crash. There are a couple of kits available inthe $300-400 range. The high pressure pumps are expensive. It's hard to pump water and it takes a high quality pump if it is to last.

There is some science to nozzles. However there are lots of mech inj nozzles around that would work.
A NA motor is probably more critical on vol than a blown motor.
You need some kind of variable flow to be really practical...at least IMHO
49% methanol and 51 % water is the max that is claimed you can run. Why I don't know. Still searching for this one as I can get alcohol easily.

There are at least 2 systems on Summit. You will have to Google to see the otheres. I don't have any bookmarked.
You will need about a 5 gal tank for street use. As noted it can get to be tedious to keep checking the tank.
They work quite well.

That's about the sum of what I know.

If everything goes right I'll install something this summer. Definitely easier and cheaper than losing a piston.