Solenoid Wanted

[Michael F. Sargent]

> Could someone please enlighten me as to why you would run water into 
> your engine.  How does this stop knocking ?  Is it some type of carbon 
> clean while you drive ?  Does it increase power ?  etc, etc.  I have 
> only heard about it, but know nothing about it.

All of the above.

By adding water to the A/F mixture, you stop knock because the water is
evaporated during combustion which takes a significant amount of heat. This
lowers cylinder temperatures, and helps prevent knock. As a side benefit, the
steam tends to "steam clean" the combustion chamber and keeps everything nice
and clean (which also tends to help prevent knock). As for power, with knock
gone you can lean on it as hard as you want, and you don't need to trade
of spark advance (power) for longevity.

As for adding ethanol, that may have been used as an anti-freeze, which also
happens to burn (adds energy where water injection slightly decreases the
A/F charge volume [by the amount of water added] so it slightly decreases the
output power).

The ideal solution is to not run gasoline at all, but run on pure methanol.
It has a higher anti-knock rating, burns cleaner, and burns much cooler.
The downsides are lower specific heat (you need to burn almost twice as much
alky to get the same power as gasoline), so you need larger injectors and
a fuel tank that's twice as large. There is also a problem of availability.

In this imperfect world, gasoline is the best trade-off for most of us.
However, when we exceed gasolines range, injecting alky helps, as does
water, which is significantly cheaper and much more available.
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| Michael F. Sargent   | Net: msargent at gallium.com | Phone: 1(613)721-0902 |
| Gallium Software Inc.|                           | FAX:   1(613)721-1278 |
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