Meth injection for cooling

[jonx96]

I have had a fair amount of back and forth about this. But has anyone used meth injection to cool their factory supercharger? I'm not worried about the octane gain. Only worried about cooling.
I know I could use Nitrous but I really don't know if that is the route I want to go. If I did go nitrous I would go with the blower spacers and minimum shot is a 120.

 

[Speedy!]

I run water/meth injection on a roots supercharged 2002 4Runner. In that application it works wonderfully. The supercharger is NON intercooled and I'm pushing it to 11psi so it was getting rather warm. The water/meth is injected via the intake tube ahead of the throttle body using the washer tank as the reservoir. In the old Toyota I have no real way to tune it other than a piggy back controller that can only retard timing. Without the water/meth injection I was having to pull about 7-8 deg of timing at WOT seeing a max of 13-14 deg. After adding water/meth injection I was able to zero out the timing retard and just let the factory PCM do it's thing and will now see 19-21 deg of timing depending on weather conditions. It made a huge difference. It took me a bit to find the sweet spot of injector nozzle size to avoid bogging at lower RPM and keeping AFR in the right spot at upper RPM. The kit I used is progressive but with a positive displacement supercharger it is only kind of progressive since max boost is achieved so early in the RPM range.

The big question is can you inject enough water/meth to influence ACT before the Hellcat becomes unhappy.

As you know the Hellcat is wide band all the time and methanol is a fuel. The widebands will see that extra fuel and start to trim fueling to compensate. You'd have to play with that to see where the sweet spot is. Anything over like 25% trim either way usually sets a CEL eventually. On the setups I've worked with you want about a point reduction in AFR as a general rule of thumb to inject enough water/meth to make a difference. With the Hellcat trimming fuel it'll be a little more tricky to dial in. I'd personally be worried about a failure of some kind and the car having become reliant on the meth/injection. I'm on my 3rd meth injection pump in the 4Runner in 5 years. They seem to fail so often I've learned to rebuild them myself. Mine could have been getting wet or something but they're supposed to be weather resistant. I've added a rubber boot to my current one and so far so good. For the Hellcat you should consider a trunk mounted solution I think to keep it protected. Maybe one that includes a tank. The pump on my 4Runner is mounted behind the front bumper and probably sees some water when it rains.

 

[vortecd]

@Speedy! pretty sure you said "you can't compress water" Maybe you can

When I was using the Anderson kit a friend wanted to try it on a 2000 Lightning and called them and they basically said wouldn't work

If you really want to try it Jon the Anderson kit is cheap. It also come with different size jets so you could put the smallest in and see what happens.

 

[Speedy!]

I'm not sure what you mean? AFAIK liquids don't compress. Vapors do however.

 

[Jack_Toepfer]

Meth/Water injection is a mist which is where some of the cooling comes from. It doesn’t need to compress, the air around it will do the compressing. The water mist also turns into steam as it enters the combustion chamber. Mike at New Era out of Rochester did some meth on a Hellcat, might be worth reaching out to him.

 

[jonx96]

I wouldn't plan on adding the timing as I am in the process of getting another e85 drum. So the failing point would just set me off the smidge of fuel trims and temps.
I guess by the sounds of it it is just do I want to spend the money on it at this point. There will be benefits but will it be worth it. hmm
Thanks for sharing!

 

[Speedy!]

Right. Assuming your trims were only a few % off probably not a huge deal if something stopped working. Ideally the trims would come in quick to resolve a change in expected fueling.

On a Hellcat I'm just not sure how much needs to be injected to have a material impact on aircharge temp. That's really the key here. EGT (exhaust gas temp) will for sure be lower but I'm not sure how much that helps us. The EGT change is primarily from the water changing from a liquid mist to a gas as steam. It absorbs a lot of heat out of the cylinder during the phase change.

 

[vortecd]

I'm not sure what you mean? AFAIK liquids don't compress. Vapors do however.

I believe we were talking about humidity and compressing water. Maybe some of the kits it is sprayed as a mist, the Anderson kit is a line with hole at the end so t is more of a stream. I still think of methanol as a liquid being I ran it 30% meth 70% water

 

[Speedy!]

Ah gotcha. I think we were talking about humidity and DA. Since getting my Kestrel it seems like baro has a larger impact but I'm not an expert on all that.

The water/meth kit I have on the 4Runner sprays a super fine mist. I have some video of it on the channel if you're curious what it looks like, but think like those mister things you walk by that cool you off. Pretty similar.

 

[Jack_Toepfer]

I believe we were talking about humidity and compressing water. Maybe some of the kits it is sprayed as a mist, the Anderson kit is a line with hole at the end so t is more of a stream. I still think of methanol as a liquid being I ran it 30% meth 70% water

I’m surprised it isn’t jetted with a nozzle, sounds like a serious kit.

 

[vortecd]

I’m surprised it isn’t jetted with a nozzle, sounds like a serious kit.

There is a jet but boost forces it out, no electronics

https://www.andersonfordmotorsport.com/afm-mr-freeze-water-methanol-injection-system-gen-2/

 

[Indigo Joe]

I have been spraying straight methanol for many years in turbo applications and now an N/A, but never through a supercharger so I cannot venture a guess on what cooling effects it will have. I guess that depends on how much you spray. I would think for what you want to do, you may be farther ahead by adding some E85 to the fuel to get an E15 ratio in the tank which is the acceptable limit according to the owners manual, and that could possibly net you the same results but in a different way.

 

[vortecd]

I have been spraying straight methanol for many years in turbo applications and now an N/A, but never through a supercharger so I cannot venture a guess on what cooling effects it will have. I guess that depends on how much you spray. I would think for what you want to do, you may be farther ahead by adding some E85 to the fuel to get an E15 ratio in the tank which is the acceptable limit according to the owners manual, and that could possibly net you the same results but in a different way.

Yep works great on turbos and centrifugal blowers
Already on e85

 

[Jack_Toepfer]

There is a jet but boost forces it out, no electronics

https://www.andersonfordmotorsport.com/afm-mr-freeze-water-methanol-injection-system-gen-2/

Is the tip of the nozzle like a shower head or just 1 hole? That’s where it’ll turn into a mist vs a stream of meth.

 

[vortecd]

Is the tip of the nozzle like a shower head or just 1 hole? That’s where it’ll turn into a mist vs a stream of meth.

Don't remember been awhile

 

[Indigo Joe]

These worked great for me for years and have a filter screen. McMaster Carr.

 

[BULL]

These worked great for me for years and have a filter screen. McMaster Carr.

Oh shit, I've been building factory automation out of McMaster for years. Now you're telling me that I can buy car parts there too???


Damn, I'm in trouble...

 

[Indigo Joe]

There you go...your 1 stop shop

 

[Indigo Joe]

I spray straight methanol in an N/A application and use braided lines. A little info for those who are interested: I disturbed push-loc fittings years ago when it was below 32 degrees and then started the pump from underhood. One of the T fitting sprayed a little at a connection. I trimmed the tubing carefully and re-installed and I could not stop that from happening. The tubing gets stiff in cold weather, obviously. If I would have closed the hood before I tested that it would not have been good. From that point on it has been methanol compatible 4an braided and always put the nozzles into a jug if possible and test it for leaks under pressure before you close the hood. I use the same pump Speedy uses which several companies use, and never had a failure on anything, so I found it interesting reading his experience with it.. So that makes me wonder Speedy if your pumps are set up for use with methanol ? You can get them setup for use with various fluids..

 

[Speedy!]

They're supposed to be super duper reliable pumps for meth injection and came from Devil's Own. In every failure the pump locked up and when I disassembled I found a bearing rusted out. In my application the pump is mounted inverted so my best guess is that water was getting in somewhere and resting on the bearing. I found a pack of bearings on Amazon for like $10 for 3 so I rebuilt the last one, tested to confirm it worked, and it's on the shelf as a spare now. I'll do this going forward vs buying new $100 pumps.