Water Injection
 

Has anyone installed water injection in a 603970 engine?

Why?

Perhaps he wants to see how badly he can bend those rods?

Not sure what water injection is, but I fell for the "Tornado" and bought one for my Land Rover. Was supposed to spin up the air and increase mileage. And was touted by two radio guys - brothers but forget their names; Crick and Crack or something like that. Wait - maybe Click and Clack?

Was a complete bust. Did nothing. So I am wondering if water injection falls in the same category.

Water injection is a cheap way to cool the charge air from the turbo in lieu of an intercooler. With the stock setup, it's pointless - it achieves nothing but can risk hydrolock from water being incompressible. Usually water injection goes along with making big power - the 603.97 is a poor choice for big power due to many design issues, the 603.96 is a much better candidate, or better yet, the OM606.

I have run water injection on various engines since about 1978. In small doses, it is very effective at cleaning the piston heads. I currently use in on my 87 300D I run on vegetable oil, and on my 93 cummins 5.9 6BT that also runs on 100% waste vegetable oil. I use it to keep the pistons clean and to reduce the tendency for the vegetable oil to gum up the pistons. I set the system to use approximately 1 gallon every 300 miles.

Pre or post turbo? Single nozzle or multi port? What nozzles/nozzles and pump pressure?

I use the intake manifold pressure to pressurize a one gallon windshield washer jug. The pressure forces the water / methanol (W/S washer fluid, -20 deg F type, not soap type) up a 1/8 copper tube into the inlet side of the turbocharger. I dilute the W/S fluid with filtered water to about 20 percent W/S fluid for economy. Both ends of the copper tube are soldered closed and drilled out with a .016 to .019 drill bit with a hand held pin vise. It is an on demand system, when under load and the turbocharger is making pressure, the bottle is pressurized and forces the water up the tube. I use a compression tee, drill out the long side so the copper tubing slides all the way through and to the bottom of the bottle. No ferrule on the bottom side, but I use the compression nut and a thin flat washer to seal that side to a hole through the cap of the bottle. The top side uses the ferrule to seal the turbo pressure. The pressure / boost comes in the short side with a rubber vacuum hose hooked to a port on the intake manifold. I have run this particular system for 9 years. I do have (and it is very important) a 12V normally closed solenoid valve to prevent siphoning of the water into the inlet of the turbo, which can cause hydro-static lock up and bend rods on crankup. That switch is turned on anytime the ignition is on by tapping into a switched 12V wire. The valve is in-line of the copper tubing to the inlet of the turbocharger. The copper tube is inserted into the rubber elbow just in front of the compressor of the turbocharger.

I like it! Simple design, no pumps to worry about. I guess if the resovior is lower than the nozzle you don't have an issue with siphoning either. Are you getting egt reduction with this much flow or is it strictly cleansing? I'm running a dino oil mixture and it probably would be a good idea to be keeping carbon/sooty crap at bay.

I guess nothing atomizes water like a turbine at 20,000 (or whatever) rpm. Have you seen any compressor erosion? I've read about people saying this happens when inducing up stream of the turbo but no proof. Any issues with cold weather and water at startup?

It is for cleaning. 300 miles to the gallon of water is approximately what the .016/.019 orifices give me.

I have never given thought to EGT reduction. I have the same setup on my Cummins and it has an EGT gauge. I will try to pay attention to the readings when the jug runs out to see if the temps rise.

I have never seen any compressor wheel erosion. I ran an Edelbrock water injection back in the 80's. I had two AiResearch T04's on a 350 chevy. The injection system introduced the water into the inlet of each turbo. Ran that for 10 years. No erosion.

On my 87 300D, I have had this system in use now for 9 years. No erosion.


I run enough of the methanol windshield washer fluid to prevent freeze up. It rarely gets in the single digits here anyway, but no problems.

If I run 100 percent of the -20 deg F premium washer fluid, I get a tiny bit of torque increase from the methanol. But then I am paying nearly $3 a gallon for it, so I really don't like doing that. The whole setup on these vehicles is to save fuel costs, not add to it.