Water Injection

[csprog]

While we all wait patiently for Cold Air Intakes and turbochargers/superchargers to pull every but of power out of of camrys does anyone have any knowledge on water injection systems or Cryogenic cooling systems and whether A) they will work with our cars and B) whether they would be worth it (ie 10-15+ hp gain).

[gdanaher]

All I know is that water injection was tried 40 years ago and generally did nothing then. I'm guessing it isn't going to do anything good now, and if there's a way to mess up the oxygen sensor or cat converter, this might be it.

[Curry]

All its gonna do is steam cleam your motor a little. Gains if any will be tiny.

[marc780]

I'm with the others, from what little i know about it it has been tried on all kind of engines including WW2 fighter planes and of course, cars. I think if it really helped anything in the engine, the car makers might offer it as an option on new cars - but in practice water injection doesn't really help the engine a whole lot (despite what the ads in the JC Whitney catalog would have you believe!).

Water injection does cool the fuel air vapor and helps to keep the exhaust valves clean and carbon off the piston tops. But with improved modern fuels and lubricants, and as hot as modern engines run, they are usually fairly clean of carbon, anyway. (All the engines i have taken apart showed very little carbon on the piston tops, even my 1988 Nissan Z24 pickup with 250,000 miles on it.)

If you set up the water injection right, it may yield some long term benefits for keeping the engine a little cleaner inside. But if you forget to add the water when it runs out, then all you've got is a vacuum leak. As for performance, there may be some tiny gain in power - but all in all probably not worth the bother.

http://www.rallycars.com/Cars/WaterInjection.html

[Toysrme]

it does really help, but it lowers power output unless you can put the engine past the brink of the previous pre-ignition points.