The Water Injection Miracle

A DIVISION OF HILLBILLY GREASEOLINE PLUS

Well us Hillbillies are at it again. After working on biodiesel and greasel at Greaseolineplus.com and fixin up some solar cells, passive solar and alternative fuel heaters, and workin on runnin gas cars on diesel and other diesel alternatives, we’ve turned our Hillbilly technology to WATER INJECTION.

WHAT IS WATER INJECTION ?

Water injection is a very simple and very safe older technology that has almost been forgotten. It is so cheap and easy that it is a miracle that it got lost in time. You can probably build it for free and even if you buy the parts, it’s still cheap (and easy). And it increases your fuel mileage on gasoline or diesel engines and cleans the engine and the emissions. If everyone used it the savings in pollution and fuel costs would probably be in the billions. We don’t know exactly how much because, after all, we’re just hillbillies and them thar statistics are hard to cipher. But it’s very green, very easy, very cheap and will help you pass emissions tests and save you fuel. It also adds extra power. We even wanted to put one on our mule when we hitched her up to the plow but she wouldn’t have it (probably because she’s been exposed to them thar feminist ideals).

While water injection is great for fuel savings and for clean emissions it is even better at cleaning BIODIESEL, GREASEL AND GREASEOLINE arrangements. In fact since alternative fuels deposit more soot, carbon and coke in an engine, water injection is almost indispensable if you ain’t using store bought fuels. Or even if you are buying alternative fuels at a store you still should have water injection. We hillbillies consider it as big a necessity as a still and a corn cob pipe, if’in yer running bio fuels that is. Hell, every vehicle will be helped by water injection if’in y’all want better mileage and cleaner emissions. Well, all right, I’ll stop beating around the bush and get right to how you can make it f’r yerself. Here it is with most of it recopied from other stuff us hillbillies wrote. Sorry if it repeats some. That happens when we’ve been working out on our still.

WATER INJECTION THEORY AND COMPONENTS

Water injection probably should be placed on every diesel and gasoline vehicle and it used to be a common feature on many big diesel rigs. Regrettably, at present, most parts men and many mechanics have either not heard of it or are not clear about it.

Water injection is a simple system to remove carbon, (and coke) from your vehicle and to increase fuel mileage. Any gasoline or diesel engine would be made cleaner and less polluting with this system, yet the world seems to have forgotten about it’s existence. In a time when we desperately need to lower our fuel consumption and clean our emissions, it is time to bring back this old system. Regrettably this methodology is not even detailed well on the internet (we aim to fix that soon). Alternative fuel systems can create more carbon than regular diesel and so can be helped more by water injection than other systems.

Before we continue, let’s define a few words for Ya’ll. CARBON is a form of dirt that can mess up any internal combustion engine. It can cause poor performance, dirty emission and poor gas mileage. Carbon is removed with water injection. SOOT is the black smoke you see coming out of a diesel rig. It has all the bad attributes of carbon and it also has carbon in it. It can get in the oil of a diesel and cause damage or it can cause Coking or it can cause carbon deposits on the piston and cylinder walls. COKE is what is made when fuel and carbon mix. It’s in your encyclopedia. Coke can ruin a diesel engine and it will not help a gasoline engine. Alternative fuels in a diesel cause more coke, and all greasel and greaseoline arrangements will eventually be ruined with coke unless you protect them with water injection. Water injection helps fuels burn in internal combustion engines and helps against soot, carbon and coke. Often it will remove all of the carbon deposits, and we think it removes all of the Coke deposits if’in they ain’t too bad. Or more likely there probably will not be any coke deposits if you have water injection.

In the sixties many, if not most, big rigs had water injection. You must not pass water through the fuel injectors so the water (or more accurately water vapor) is fed into the intake manifold of a diesel or gasoline engine. The method to do this is so simple that a good handyman can build it in an hour or less. It works because, with the addition of water vapor, the carbon deposits change temperature and expand quickly enough to be blasted off of the cylinder wall, thus cleaning the engine and the emissions, and improving efficiency. Many mechanics in the old days would squirt water from a water pistol into carburetors to clean an engine, but water injection works better and improves mileage. It can be put on every engine that I’ve ever heard of and it actually works a little better on gasoline engines than on diesel. (If you can’t wait to get water injection the squirt gun will work for you a little and you can do that today).

Straight water placed into any engine would fill the combustion chamber and ruin the engine, so water vapor is used. An overuse of water would be called over hydration and it must be avoided. It is easier to over hydrate a diesel engine though it is more common to use water injection on a diesel than on a gasoline engine because it helps diesel engines more.

Imagine a plastic bottle (like a radiator overflow tank) with a tight seal on the top (if it doesn’t have a tight seal, make it tight, with a rubber gasket). A tube or hose should be placed someplace on the top of the bottle or in the cap. Another tube or hose should be placed at the bottom of the bottle with the inlet just inside the bottom. Tube mountings of this kind are common on radiator overflow tanks. The other end of the bottom hose, should be placed above the bottle or, at least, even with the top of the bottle. Now, mount the bottle in the engine compartment and fill it ¾ of the way with water. It must be mounted below the valve cover/rocker cover to prevent watergetting into the valve cover. On a gasoline engine, run the tube from the top of the bottle to vacuum on the intake manifold. Let the other tube run from the bottom of the bottle to atmosphere above the bottle. Now when the engine is started, the vacuum tube to the intake manifold will suck air out of the top of the water bottle which should be filled 3/4s with water (or a little more than 3/4). The only way the air can be replaced is if it comes through the other tube which runs out the bottom of the bottle to the atmosphere above the bottle. This will make a roar of bubbles in the air chamber coming from the bottom tube. When the bubbles burst on reaching the top of the water, each bubble will propel a near microscopic droplet of water into the air chamber. With hundreds, or thousands, of droplets bursting on the surface, the air chamber will become super humid. It will become so wet that the air chamber will be all water vapor. The water vapor will of course be sucked into the intake manifold. Thus, water injection has been achieved without using the fuel injectors. Dirty emissions, soot, carbon, pollution and coke, will all be removed or at least be greatly decreased. Note: There is another kind of water injection that goes through injectors placed in the intake, but that is a racing application for power. Our water injection will add some power, but that is not its main purpose.

Well, that’s it if you’re working with a gasoline engine. For more detailed information, pictures and a specific parts list, see our book, "The Hillbilly Greaseoline/Greasel Safety Info Book."  Now,  if you have a diesel, it will all still work -you'll just have to rig it differently.

On a diesel engine, what I have described above becomes only slightly more complicated. Since diesel engines have less room in the combustion chamber when the piston is at the top, too much water can fill this small area. No, I’ve never heard of it happening, and as long as one leaves some air in the bottle, it should not happen. But, one should know of the possibility so as not to over hydrate a diesel engine. This same condition is possible on a gasoline engine, but there is a greater protection from the larger space when the piston is at top dead center. Using a clear tube to the intake manifold will give you an idea of how much water you are putting through your system. If you have (just a few) tiny droplets of water on the walls of the tube, it’s enough.

The other slight difficulty, to be addressed with a diesel engine, involves the nature of the vacuum in a diesel manifold. This vacuum is much less than in a car and can seem to be almost non-existent. Therefore, the system described above will work as explained only on diesels with turbo chargers. Here you place your vacuum line on the high vacuum side of the turbo charger. You will know if you have hooked it to the right side by whether or not there is a roar of bubbles in your bottle. If you can’t get a roar of bubbles you will have to do it as it is described immediately below.

In diesels without a turbo charger (like mine) you need to blow your water vapor into the intake manifold. I used the bypass gasses in the valve cover/rocker cover assembly to do this. This is accomplished by hooking the tube from the bottom of the water bottle (the one usually running to atmosphere) to the rocker cover. Of course you must be sure that by harnessing the blowby gasses in the rocker cover you do not create pressure in the rocker cover or too much pressure in your bottle. You may blow seals unless you keep an extra vent. I addressed this by having two vents for the rocker cover. The tube from the rocker cover goes to a T fitting, with one passage to the water bottle and one to atmosphere. What I don’t use goes out the other side of the T fitting to atmosphere (running a tube to below the car). Thus there is a vent so that when pressure is built up in the water bottle the blowby gasses would not build up in the rocker cover. Yes, oil from the blowby does get into my water bottle but it has never caused any trouble and no significant amount of oil seems to get into the intake manifold. Of course, if it did, it wouldn’t hurt anything. I make sure that there is no hiss of air when I turn off the engine so that I am sure that I have not created too much back pressure. I listen for the hiss when I shut it off. Hiss time should be less than one second though it need not be non existent.

In the 70s, when engines had a lot of trouble with carbon deposits, I used to whip up water injection for my customers in short order from old window washer bottles or radiator overflow bottles (Hillbilly ingenuity). If you don’t want to make your own water injection bottle you can buy a radiator overflow bottle to make water injection. But you have to be careful that you don't buy the wrong one or you'll loose what you spent because many of them won't work. (Our book has the details on the right bottles to use.