R56 Water Injection test!

FULL STORY HERE ON OUR SITE

The Unichip Comes to the rescue again. We have had our Water injection system installed for a very long time on our R56, and it was sitting there doing nothing because there was no way to turn in on. At least there was no way to turn it on using the injector pulse signal.



The R56, as many know, is a Direct Injection engine. This means, instead of the injectors firing fuel in the intake runners, the injectors are fired directly into the combustion chamber. This is a very big thing in the world of gasoline engines because it allows for a better, more complete combustion of the fuel. This posed a problem, because the signal the injectors put off, is very very short compared to normal injectors, not to mention 80V not 12v! The injectors pulse is very small because the fuel pressure is more than 30 times more than normal fuel pressures (3bar vs. up to 150bar). The higher pressure means it take less time for the injectors to be open to deliver the same amount of fuel as a lower pressure injector (3ms vs .4ms). Also at lower engine speeds the injectors fire more than once per cycle! I could go on an on about DI engine, but that is another thread! The point of explaining all of this is to explain why we took so long to adapt our Water Injection system to the car. Our controller just couldn’t do anything with the signal. When we got the Unichip installed, we were able to create a normal injector signal to turn on the PWI-1.

Another great thing about using the Unichip on the R56 with the PWI-1, is we can use the failsafe to switch maps! This means that if the PWI-1 sees a blocked nozzle, or hose burst, it can switch to a low boost safe map. This is a very important feature as a water injection tuned car can run dangerously lean when the water runs out.



Some that are familiar with Water injection might be wondering why we don’t just hook up a pressure switch to our system to trigger it. We could, but this would be defeating one of the biggest features of our system, the Progressive injection! Most WI systems inject a steady flow of water/methanol at all RPMS and load points. The ALTA PWI-1 injects a steady % of water/methanol compared to fuel. This way you do not get too much water at lower RPM and load, and not enough at high RPM and load. Around 20% water/methanol ratio is what is recommended, and this is not something the cheaper systems can do.



The PWI-1 Brain mounts very nicely above the cup holder. Don’t worry; your Starbucks will still fit in there! The brain allows the adjustment of not only the on point of the injection, but the amount of water compared to fuel. To adjust is just a couple of tweaks of the trim pots. This allows us to play with the exact amount of water being injected, and adjust from run to run.


Back to the test!

We have proven Water injection on the R53 with a customers car, but we were using the Apex AFC to tune it with. So we really only had control over fuel. On this car we gained a decent amount of power by re-tuning for water injection, and not to mention a large amount of safety. This whole story can be found HERE on our site



But these gains were very good and very promising especially for those who live in California or places with 91 octane fuel.

On the R56, with the Unichip being installed, we not only can tune for fuel, but we can tune the timing, and increase boost! So on this car we can really push it to the limits and keep it safe. The R56 test we did was done with our new GT2560R turbo kit installed. We will soon do something on a stock turbo, and a Unichip and prove its worth there!


This graph shows the tuned GT2560R runs, with the water injection tuned runs on top of it. The blue line is our highest HP stock turbo R56 runs.

The most important part of this test to note is the boost. Normally with a water injection system, it allows you to run more boost, which we planned on doing, but with the initial tests, we are running the same boost, 18psi. The only thing that we changed from run to run was fueling and ignition timing. Running water injection produces a cooler in-cylinder charge, and a cooler boost tube charge temp. This allows for higher ignition timing, and leaner mixtures, without the potential of detonation. Leaning the engine out produces more power, and torque, as does increasing ignition timing. Normally both of these are limited by the octane and quality of fuel. The water suppresses the effects of poor octane, in laymen’s terms its like running on race gas, but only having to run it under boost!

So why did we stop at 270WHP?? We ran out of our water/methanol mixture! Just as we were about to turn up the boost, the water ran out. One of the nice things about our install, is we use the OEM window washer tank, which has a nice warning when the water is low. This is nice as there is no visual gauge to say when the tank is dry.

In the upcoming weeks, we will be testing the water injection further with different setups, and slowly turning up the wick. Can we hit 300?? Of course! Will it hold? I think it will hold just fine, but its better to start slow, then just go blow it up! At this point the car feels great! Besides the loss of low end power, the car is much faster and more linear, meaning once the power comes on, it just keeps going!

The DSC really doesn't like us anymore!

Lots of good info is found here on our site .

 

OVer an hour and no replies? :shock:

anyway, I'm cackling with insane glee even if I don't plan on going this far down the road myself.

 

Same thing I was thinking - actually had to check the time ALTA posted to see what's going on... But very, very cool! The larger turbo and water injection won't be until wayyyy down the line for me as well, but it's very good to know 300WHP is quite close indeed. Gotta get my turbo back exhaust and FMIC on first though.

 

 

Just wondering how often the water/methenol (sp) mixture needs to be refilled? Will it last a tank of gas? More? Less?

 

 

You guys really should look into the BMW 335 engine. If you can produce a product that controls timing and fuel, AND offer water injection... you'd have a hit at your price point.

 

We posted it kind of late, and there are many guys a few hours behind. It is a good idea to work your way up to the turbo. Going from stock to the turbo is not really the best path.

WAY MORE than a tank of gas! Of course that depends on how much you floor it, but realistically every couple of months is not out of the question.

Ya, that is a cool car, and engine, but we could say that about alot of things. We feel we do better if we focus on a couple cars rather than every single car we think we can make faster.

The dash display can go anywhwere, but for a shop/show car, we wanted to show off the system. So both the brain box, and the display could easily be hidden away. Even the pump system for that matter! In that position, you can still see the light blink a bit, but it could be in a more prevalent area.

 

A couple of months ain't bad at all. I too thought of a much stricter replacement schedule. Woohoo!

 

The WI stuff is all on a special price BTW. $729.99!

 

Does the WI unit will work with 2007 MCSa without the Unichip?

Will Alta offer Unichip for MCSa in the future?

 

At this point, the Unichip is the only way to get the WI system to work. This is because of how our system picks up the signal.

All the maps we supply to the R56 guys will have a WI map in them so with plugging in a couple wires, you can be on your way to running more power.

For 100% the auto will work, same pinout and what not.

 

ALTA2.........are you saying Unichip already avaliable for auto tran?

 

Well it will plug in, and we can tune it, but its not ready to ship. Very soon though!

 

Super.

I am interested to upgrade to Alta's max. hp which include turbo, Unichip, WI, straight pipe, cooler...etc. all together at once.

Please put me on the list and let me know when the Unchip version for auto tran is released.

 

How difficult is it to install the WI system? Is it pretty straight forward?

 

Yup, just some plumbing mounting, and a little wiring. The integration into the Unichip will be simple. Just a couple pre-pinned wires, and it will work just fine.
The above graph has our current power we are making, and in the next few weeks after more testing of the turbo kit, we might go for the 300WHP barrier.

 

What happened to your water injection system??
Why arent you selling it on your site??
Is the erl aquamist water meth injection the same system as yours??

 

Guessing....just guessing, it never took off because they have no way to tune it....

 

Hey all! We did stop selling the PWI-1 last year for a few reasons. The main reason was $ vs GPB. When we first offered the part we could comfortably sell it for $700, and over the years we had to bump it up to $900. But what pushed us over was the $ vs GBP exchange rate changes last year. We would have had to make the price of the system $1000+, which we felt was way too high and customers wouldn't be interested in it any more. Or at least they would be interested but scared of the price. So we started working on a completely new system!

Also we didn't really push the PWI-1 on the R56 because the only way to make it work progressive is with using a Unichip or something that could drive the PWM (Pulse Width Modulated)signal properly. This is improvements we made with the new WI system. It can use 2 different methods of reading load.

The PWI-2 is brand new, we just released it on our PERRIN site a week ago and as of 5min ago its on the ALTA site! You will see that there is tons of info about how it works, but for the R56 guys the thing to concern your selves with is how it can pick up load using both injector pulse (can't use on the R56) or any 0-5V sensor. Meaning a MAP sensor, or MAF sensor, or TPS sensor can be used for load reference enabling the Progressive-ness of the system.


Here is a picture of the newer simpler system!

Here is the link for the R56 guys!

Here is a link to the instructions too!

We haven't started a thread about this yet, so if you guys have questions about the PWI-2 feel free to start one or ask away!

 

Popcorn...... Are you expecting me to say something particular about us not having an ECU product?

You are correct, our ECU flash isn't ready, no secret there. The PWI-1 system needed the Unichip in order to work properly as its not setup to work with Direct Injected cars. We could have really pushed the water injection system with the "Unichip", but you know how that turned out. The customers i talked to about the PWI-1 system were mostly turned off by the fact they had to buy a Unichip/ Additional hardware to make it work. Which quickly turns the $800 PWI-1 into a $1600 option. This is no longer a problem as the system is about $500, and no additional ECU product is need to make it work.

Being able to tune the ECU for WI is important to use it to its fullest. When the ECU flash is available we will offer mapping for this, but its a little ways off. With Jan flying around tuning cars, i am sure he could do a special tune for those looking for that.

But there is one little secret i have for you. The way the ECU works is such that the car does actually make HP by just installing it! On most cars if you install WI it looses a small amount of power, and gains tons of safety margin. On the R56, that is a different story! This was something we found out when tuning our GT2571R powered R56. There isn't as much NEED to retune the car, and for guys living in the land of 91 octane, just installing the PWI-2 can make a noticable difference. Yes tuning can gain more power by increasing boost and timing. More on this later!

 

Just briefly glanced through the site, but figured I'd just look for the answer from you...

So, you can or can't tie it to injector pulse/duty cycle on the R56? And, once it is all hooked up...what are you guys using to tune the ECU to make it all worth it?

 

Lol....that's because it runs so damn lean to begin with that the extra richness from spraying the W/M doesn't bother it all that much.

 

If I want to keep my windshield washer tank, what tank do you recommend getting for this product. How many hours do you think it would take a mechanic to install this? I just looked at the instructions and it looked hard.

 

The PWI-2 system can do injector pulse pickup on a non-Direct injected car. But on the R56 you would use a 0-5V sensor like MAF or MAP. You could use TPS but it will not be very progressive.

Then for tuning at this point, nothing, but below may answer some of that question.

Well its not lean for a Direct Injected car. But lean compared to a normal turbo car. But yes WI does make it run richer, which is good and safe, but there is alot more to this story. In tuning the R56 with the Unichip and other ECU products the fueling is 100% closed loop. Meaning there is an AFR target and the ECU uses the Wideband 02 sensor to maintain this. Meaning the AFR will not change after the WI is install, also meaning the ECU is pulling fuel to meet the AFR target. Why this is weird is this happens under all loads not just cruise like normal cars.

An example is if a normal car is tuned to 11.0AFR, turning on the water/meth will make it .5AFR to 1 AFR richer. Leaning the AFR back to the same level is how we normally tune the fuel side of things. Going leaner can make more power, but that is the general rule. So with the R56, knowing that the AFR curve is just fine (yes can be better, but was very safe on our 280WHP R56) and knowing the ECU will lean it back out after the water is turned on its perfectly safe and it will make more power.

Well hard, is relative to your experience. I would say for a DIY'er with the normal basic tools and a auto parts store close by, not a problem at all. It would just take you about 2-4 hours depending on the tank and pump location. We will soon have some R56 specific instructions that will use the OEM washer tank. We feel this is the best solution as there isn't much room to run another tank in the engine bay. Using this for both windows and your Water Meth mixture is just fine. Windsheild washer fluid is already a meth/water mixture with a little detergent. Besides the water/meth mixture costing a bit more, not a big deal at all. Also the tank is rated for the mixture, and i feel its a better option than installing a tank in the trunk.

If you really don't want to use the front washer tank, a rear tank, with the pump mounted close to it or in the engine bay would work just fine, you may just need some more hose(which we stock).

Hope that all make sense.