At 04:06 PM 1/12/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>I know W.I. is supposed to increase power.
Here is how it works. Fine droplets of water are injected (kind'o like a
carburetor sprays the fuel) and as these evaporate, the charge cooling
effect improves volumetric efficiency (VE). However, the real advantage is
on heavily supercharged engines where the intake manifold is real hot! We
are talking about 150-200F here. That ensures that the water will
evaporate before the intake valve closes. Otherwise, there is no VE
improvement and thus no direct torque benefit. WI on a naturally aspirated
engine with cooler charge may not have that much improvement in VE and
torque. The second advantage of WI is it drops peak cylinder temperatures
and decreases/delays knock. This could allow more boost pressure or spark
advance or lower grade gas.
>Can it also improve gas mileage?
Nope!
>Are there any disadvantages I should know about like extra engine wear?
If used ONLY at WOT it should make little difference in engine wear. If
you use it continuesly, it would increase corrosive wear.
>Could it would work with a propane powered car?
I don't think it would do much with a propane car. The best you can do to
a propane car is add a supercharger!
Side note: The British Spitfire did not use WI. The Rolls Royce two stage
centrifugal blower with intercoolers between the two stages and after the
blower made an excellent system that did not need WI as much(it was
estimated that the supercharger drive on the RR Merlin required ~400 hp to
drive from the crank of the 27 liter aero-engine). The Germans and
Americans used WI quite extensively... The Germans also used NOs
D^2
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