I was wondering do you need a intercooler for the sts kit for the 93-97 camaro lt1 is the methanol kit?? I'm just wondering because I want to run 10 psi boost. - Mike

 

Mike are you planning on running this in a stock LT1? If you are then you should consider either Snows Performance or Carrol Superchargings water/alcohol injection for intercooling. It works great! It works way better than an air to air intercooler because of the high latent heat characturistics of water. Just think of this, on a 85 deg ambient temperature day, and with say 8 PSI of boost, the air charge temp is raised 50 degrees by compressing it. In order for the air to air intercooler to drop the air temp down by even half, the core would have to be huge. Water to air IC are not a lot better unless you are able to pack the resorvoir with ICE and that is only OK if you are at a drag strip. On a daily driver set up, the water tank after some time will pick up all the heat from the compressor and the surrounding engine heat. The smallish radiator that is to dissapate the heat can't dissapate the heat fast enough to get decent results for any intercooling effects. Especially when in stop and go traffic on hot days.

With a water injection, water is sprayed under high pressure into the intake which when introduced into the combustion chamber it absorbs the heat, the alcohol acts as a octane booster as well. I installed one on a whipplecharged 6.0L suburban and was able to pick up another 30 to 40 HP! And there was no sign of detonation where there was before. I later added a smaller pulley and gained another 10HP! Water injection is constant, its ability to cool is always the same as the latent heat value of water is a given.

 

How many miles do you usually get out of the water/alcohol before you need to refill it? Are you using the windshield washer fluid reservoir to hold it?

 

I had a SMC kit on my old DSM, and the hopper was large enough (I forget the actual size) that it needed refilled maybe once every other fuel fill. If you use your window washer tank, wow that would be huge. It all just depends how much you go into boost since generally they're activated by a hobb's pressure sensor.

The SMC kit I had (normally found on Grand Nationals.. Turbo TA's etc) had a low water/alcohol warning light.

 

As long as the refill isn't too constant, I'd consider that streetable. How much is the washer fluid tank as compared to the one you used on your kit?

If the washer fluid is a big enough resevoir that it could last a day of road racing, that'd be great. That would save me from adding the weight of an intercooler to the nose of the car.

 

Well, I mostly used straight water in my sprayer (I don't wanna go into why I preferred water over a water/alky mix.. hehe) I'd say the SMC tank held... less than 1/2 gal. Last time I filled up the washer tank on my Camaro it took 3/4 of a gallon jug of the blue stuff.

Once again it depends how much you're in boost. I drive my car in vacuum most of the time when just going to work or driving around. Also I'd only have the water injection on when running more than 16 pounds of boost (which was mostly at the track or saturday night street terrorism).

 

Running a tap off the huge washer tank in the front of a Fbody should provide enough to keep you happy even with lots of time under boost - enough that when tuned properly you'd have to fill up the reserve every time you fill the tank. But even if you use washer fluid (which some guys do) that only adds $1 to your fill up cost, maybe $50 a year. Is that worth it? Sure it is. Some guys use alcy injection and ditch intercoolers. Would I install one? I am. I am actually going to use both an air/water and alcy. Never can be too safe, right? The added cost really isnt too much considering what gains you will get.

Also as a side note, air/water setups traditionally werent good for the street, but there is no reason when done properly (even on a street car) that they cannot be as efficient as an air/air. If done properly, the core and fluid will be nearly ambient temperatures, but the slight temperature increase is more then compensated for the fact that a much smaller intercooler (and thusly less in the way of pressure/flow losses) is required. That is of course, if it is done properly.

 

People are injecting washer fluid into their engine? Is there a reason why that would be better than water???

This is sounding good. I'm mostly interested in handling characteristics, and adding weight to the front of the car is counter productive. It would seem that an STS (although not the optimum setup for all-out power) with water injection would do best to keep the weight of the vehicle balanced.

 

Sounds good. I'm definatly leaning towards an STS kit since we have emissions testing here and I would really like to have boost without a belt.

-Tony

 

People are using washer fluid becaused certain brands contain a high percentage of methanol witch ends up being like a 50/50 mix of water/Alky. 100% Alky is really flamable so some people don't like to use it on the street so they do a 50/50 mix. I use 100% methanol in my truck but now that I have an intercooler I barely use any. Just enough for a bit of cooling and the extra octane. I mainly have it for when I get the new motor in and decide to spray 16psi+.

I'm having really good luck with the AlkyControl unit as do a ton of the GN guys.

At 8psi you shouldn't have to use too much so a 1ga cell should last a while as long as you're not flooring it at every corner and also depends on at what psi you have it kick in at.

 

Pure water works. Pure alcy works. Adding Methanol will change the stoich and temp, where water mostly just lowers the temp. If you run pure methanol and a line bursts and there is a spark, it's just plain dangerous IMHO. I went to the auto store and looked at washer fluid that had warnings for "flammable". If it's extremely flammable, it probably has a good methanol concentration. Dont worry, you cant set a puddle of it on fire very easily. However it still works. I'd prefer a blend without blue dye, but for the mean time, $1 a gallon is a pretty good deal.

I know some GN guys that ran washer fluid for years with the stock intercooler and never had problems.

 

I'm using a progressive AlkyControl kit with my Vortech, w/ the stock wiper tank and ww fluid - I've been very happy with it. It taps into one of the map wires and is actived by boost (or voltage provided by boost), so it never comes on during normal driving. You can control the system activation voltage and the pump ramp voltage seperatly, but I believe the stock setting is a 3psi system activation. The kit has an option of a low warning light which I did buy, but IMO it's not needed if you're using something as large as the stock 4th gen f-body tank. I can do my weekend cruising around, occasionally getting into boost, and even doing a little 1-2 gear racing, and I hardly ever need to fill the tank. When I do, of course, it's only a buck or so .

The extra weight is minimal - no more than an intercooler and piping anyway. Since I had to pull the front bumper cover off to get to the wiper tank, I just pulled the front bumper out and mounted the pump on the drivers side bracket. And ending up saving weight on the overall project

 

I wonder if it would do any good to throw some ice or dry ice in the tank when at the track? Would lowering the water/alky temp help much in lowering the AIT??? Anyone tried???

 

I would think that yu would save a lot of weight without an intercooler and extra piping up front. How much does that stuff weigh?

Also, I noticed there is a boost sensitive, or a MAF referenced unit. It seems that the MAF unit would be the most accurate, but would like some opinions.

 

Well, the Alkycontrol unit I bought uses the MAP, BUT you should be able to trigger it with any 0-5 volt source. Doesnt the MAF have an output in that range? Speed density here - wouldnt know fer sure , but I imagine you could use MAP, MAF, or TPS for activation.