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Water / meth injection

5.0Maverick

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A few years back I was looking into building a a 174 boosted small block 302. Longevity and reliability were paramount in the build. This led me to ignition control (not needed in the bronco as much as a sbf) and water meth injection to kee temps down and octane high.

I was wondering what everybody thought about running w/m for a couple added hp, but mostly for a cooler cleaner 2.3? I wouldnā€™t want a radical tune or anything wild, just thinking about it as an insurance policy such as an upgraded trans cooler.

What yā€™all think?
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MaverickMan

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I posed the same question in a thread a month or so ago, got nothing but crickets. Im guessing there isnt alot of tinkerer type hot rodders around here. Im really want a manual and will likely have to suck it up with the 4 banger. My wife says we need a 4 door so Im thinking that my power to weight after modifications wont be much better than the 351 in my 96. I hope to tune the 2.3 first and stay like that for a while. After I get used to it some I will go with a better intercooler and intake/exhaust. I dont want to swap turbos while I am still making payments so the water/meth might be my only next step after that without totally screwing the warranty. Everything I have heard is that you can get another 50hp or so and cooler turbos. I wonder if one of those tuner companies like 5Star Tuning has an opinion on how that works out with the computers.

Also I had built that 306 in my old Maverick for boost, just never had the dough on hand for a quality blower. I thought the 174 would be too small since my motor was already making good power, I wanted a 6-71 but it required a much more expensive distributor.
 
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5.0Maverick

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When I had planned out my 302 I was lookin for 62cc chambers with the slightly thicker h gaskets and a boost cam hoping I could get to about 8.5:1 while having monster heads on it. The 174 with the smaller pulley shoulda kept it around 6-8lbs. (I was only looking for a fun 500). Thatā€™s what led me to meth.

Man your Mav mustā€™ve been fun. Iā€™ve always wanted boost only because at a certain point n/a streetable power has a limit. Sounds like we have like minds.

I was just thinking the meth would be better to get first and build up to rather than build then need after it the fact. Never had boost so I donā€™t reeeeeaaaaallly know.

I am lookin to run pump gas, stay cool and never worry about carbon buildup with the 2.3 mt. Maybe an intercooler and tune would help with the iatā€™s but that doesnā€™t help much with the carbon buildup?
 

MaverickMan

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Well apparently it works. I just read a mustang forum thread where a guy with a tune (designed for the water/meth) and some minor bolt ons with a stock turbo 2.3 got 330 hp and 375 tq at the wheels. Thats about the same as a 2.7 with a tune. So I guess whatever Ford racing parts they offer for the 2.3 Bronco and $600 to Snow Performance will get us something that can show off on the street against the big diesels, and make us grin ear to ear on long straight dirt roads, and throw rooster tails in the mud bogs. Just dont switch on the lockers when you wanna floor it!
 

Omarius

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I had a water/meth setup on my GTI, but eventually moved to full e85. Water/meth is rare nowadays, as people have abandoned it for e85 for its superior performance. I've always been hesitant to run a tune so on the edge that you are reliant on the water/meth setup to prevent detonation. If you run out of fluid, if the controller takes a crap, if the pump goes bad...kiss the engine goodbye. But for the purposes of protecting against bad gas, giving consistent performance, and cleaning the valves....that's a good use of water/meth.
 

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DrewBronc21

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I had a water/meth setup on my GTI, but eventually moved to full e85. Water/meth is rare nowadays, as people have abandoned it for e85 for its superior performance. I've always been hesitant to run a tune so on the edge that you are reliant on the water/meth setup to prevent detonation. If you run out of fluid, if the controller takes a crap, if the pump goes bad...kiss the engine goodbye. But for the purposes of protecting against bad gas, giving consistent performance, and cleaning the valves....that's a good use of water/meth.
water/meth was pretty popular 10-15 years ago with Subaru turbos as well, until E85 became more available

most shops donā€˜t even do Meth kits anymore.
 

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^ Those guys nailed it. Adding a second tank to fill, a pump, a level sensor, and a tune that needs all of that working perfectly so it doesn't grenade your engine isn't a recipe for long term reliability. It works great for the drag race guys since they can check after a run or two to make sure everything is still topped off and functional.

E85 eliminated the need for that. It significantly cools the fuel/air charge on its own, and it has the same insane octane rating of leaded race gas. Run a flex sensor and a good tune will be able to adjust power based on the % ethanol you're feeding your engine. No E85 to fill up with? No prob, just run 91/93 and the computer will compensate, pull timing, and make less power, but your engine will be 100% safe.

E85 is harder for EcoBoosts because they're limited by the high pressure fuel pump. If you switch over to E85 you'll need to flow 30% more fuel just to make the same power, which can take up much of the overhead built into the fuel system. Now if you start increasing power you hit that fuel supply ceiling much sooner.

That's what makes the dual injection setups nice, you can up the port injector size and you have all of the fuel capacity in the world to run E85.
 
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5.0Maverick

5.0Maverick

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Thank you for the replies. Lotta experience talking there.

I wasnā€™t really planning on running higher boost or a wild tune or anything like that. I was just thinking maybe try to utilize it as a supplementary setup to cool the intake temps a bit and compensate for the 2.3ā€™s tendency to muck up the valves.

it was just an idea I was tossing around. Iā€™m not bent on running injection or e85, just doin some homework. Thanks again for the insight.
 

Omarius

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Thank you for the replies. Lotta experience talking there.

I wasnā€™t really planning on running higher boost or a wild tune or anything like that. I was just thinking maybe try to utilize it as a supplementary setup to cool the intake temps a bit and compensate for the 2.3ā€™s tendency to muck up the valves.

it was just an idea I was tossing around. Iā€™m not bent on running injection or e85, just doin some homework. Thanks again for the insight.

Here is a pretty cool port injection setup for the 2.3 ecoboost:

Ford Bronco Water / meth injection ford_ecoboost_mustang_direct_port_7_1024x1024


Anything after the throttle body requires a check valve of some sort, you don't want intake manifold vacuum to siphon water out of the injectors, I wonder how they deal with that.
 

SamR

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Here is a pretty cool port injection setup for the 2.3 ecoboost:

Ford Bronco Water / meth injection ford_ecoboost_mustang_direct_port_7_1024x1024


Anything after the throttle body requires a check valve of some sort, you don't want intake manifold vacuum to siphon water out of the injectors, I wonder how they deal with that.
Now that looks interesting.. I was thinking the same thing as OP, add some meth injection for cleaner valves. I don't know enough about turbos or meth to really go past the initial thought though so this thread is interesting to me. I also don't really care about power but DO care about having a manual transmission!
 

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Running a 2 nozzle setup on a 2.0T currently. One nozzle is just for the intake tract, pulled the intake after 10k plus with it installed and itā€™s almost spotless. 93+50/50 WMI allows me to boost effective octane rating so I can run a race gas tune but also pull a few degrees of timing out of it. More power, safer on internals, itā€™s a win-win. Only drawback is if you tune for meth youā€™d better be sure you donā€™t run out of it or you might end up with a see-through block. And as mentioned above, itā€™s another thing to maintain.

Wouldnā€™t hesitate to run it on another vehicle, but wonā€™t till the warranty is up on the bronco. Imo, the carbon buildup on your intake isnā€™t enough to justify voiding your warranty on a first year vehicle (even if the motor isnā€™t new). By the time the warranty is up the buildup will start to get worse and you can slap a meth kit on it and never worry about walnut blasting again.

TL;DR meth is awesome and Iā€™d run it without a tune just for the cleaning, but not without using up the warranty first.
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