Hmm, interesting, mines at 12 and I get to around 75%. Never a steady flow either...never thought much about it though. I always thought it was because of the IDC.

 

As far as I know Jeff is the owner of Howerton Engineering hense why his business is not call Aquamist which is based in the UK.

For anyone who's bought a secondhand system you might be better off sending your questions directly to Aquamist. Richard operates Aquamist and should have no problems answering your questions.

 

What do you guys have your THRES an GAIN set to?
Just curious. Still playing with my settings. Seeing what you mini aquamist owners run.

 

There is a photo of my settings in the thread already. It won't let me post again. Thres 1/2 way between 10&11, and Gain at 1. Running the .8 jet but I have the 1.0 jet to still try out.

 

I finally have mine installed and working. The only real problem I've had is minor installer error (carelessness) and noise on the flow sensor. I haven't asked any questions because you guys already had the same issue and posted some solutions. I haven't started adjusted anything. I'm waiting to get some M1 for it, I'm running a concoction at the moment. I haven't found or looked too hard in my area for methanol.

I think I have the longest time for an install. Between lack of effort and living in a hotel kinda slowed me down

Thank you guys for all the incite and help. Now got to get some time the dyno, sooner or later.

 

My setup is not standard & I did not see any exactly like it so I though I would write it up a bit.

I got the HFS-3 R56 kit without a tank. No tune on the car. I don’t plan on getting one. Right now I am at 75% methanol and 25% water.

I installed mine on the front of the car. Pump is clamped to the frame rail horizontally by the driver’s front tire. I had to ditch the mount it came with, but put rubber feet between the pump body and frame.

This photo is before I had it clamped down fully, but it shows the location.



The pump was weatherproofed with a good deal of black RTV silicone. After it was installed I used rubberized undercoating as well. There is a ground that was close to this location, so the wiring worked out. The frame is between the pump and the road, so debris should not be an issue. The downside to installing it in this spot is that an explosive blowout on the front wheel might be able to get through the liner to the pump. I have been driving around like this for a bit and the pump seems pretty secure.

The stock washer tank was used for methanol storage. It seems to hold enough for my type of driving. The height of the tank should give it a nice pressure head. Most of the close calls I have had in my MINI were from people almost rear ending me, so I did not wish to have the tank in the boot.

I had to pull out the stock washer tank. Since the pump was going in the same general area that part of the car was pretty much apart anyway. I used the tank tap that came with the kit, worked like a charm! The stock washer system was fully retained. Unfortunately the MINI float sensor and the Aquamist float sensor don’t work the same (would have been nice just to tap into the stock one). However, the MINI float sensor is well above where I tapped into the tank. I plugged in the Aquamist float sensor to the box, but just coiled up the sensor and wire under the battery. I will just use the MINI dash light to monitor the level.

I normally clean the windows by hand. However, I would still like the option of using the window washer if needed during an emergency. If you have ever been behind someone on the freeway when their tranny goes, you know what ATF on the windscreen looks like.

Two 90 degree 6mm to BSP fittings were needed to route the hose around the wheel well liner. There is just enough room to make it work.

The methanol line runs on top of the radiator at the front of the car (keeps it away from the turbo).



It then snakes back near the passenger fender to the battery compartment where the FAV is located. After that the installation is pretty much per the instructions. The 4mm line snakes back to the intercooler tube. I had a ton of wire and hose left over. The excess wires were bundled and placed in the space under the battery.

The control box went in the glove compartment. The taps into the ECU was one of the easier tasks. I left all the settings at the default. The only adjustments were setting up the failsafes. The system starts spraying slightly at 10-11 psi.

Quite pleased with the performance! My JCW would only hit 15-16 psi in the summer months. Now it can hit 21 consistently. I am thinking that the cooler temps/higher octane allows the stock computer to overcome our crummy (DFW) gas and boost higher. The bump in power was more than expected.

A few small issues. I am still getting some electronic noise showing up on the Aquamist gauge. I have tried heavy EMI shielding on the wire and aluminum tape at the sensor location. I even put some metal plates around the FAV/sensor setup. Not sure where to go from here. The system works, I just get more of a light show. It is sort of like an air/fuel gauge type of action.

Also turning off the system via the button on the gauge gives me an instant half power light. This would only be used for some sort of emergency, so not a big deal.

The installation was not complicated, just very tedious. I probably spend two hours just figuring out where the pump and tank fitting would go (that pump is much larger than I thought). The rest of the time was stringing wires. One of those flexible claw grip tools is a must. A front end installation could have some time savings over a tank in the back. After you take off the tire and wheel well liner there is access to everything. I know I could do it much quicker next time.

I would recommend that anyone installing methanol injection also put a decent sized ABC fire extinguisher in their car as well. I always carry one in the rear cup holder.

 

For the half-power light, did you hookup the wastegate fail safe? If so this would probably be the cause.

Also on the noisy issue, did you try rotating the flow sensor?

 

Sounds like you have hooked up the boost cut (which is good) but you may not have set the 'CEL' jumper on the contoller to 'DR1'.

Edit: after I moved the CEL jumper to DR1 I had to clear the CEL by unplugging the battery for a bit, it wouldn't clear itself and I couldn't do it with my code reader. After that everything has been great for over a year.

 

Hi there,

I cant finish reading all replies so just gonna ask for the solution here.
How do I adjust barss with SC? maybe my controller is not working properly?
I adjust the SC trim but the bar still goes full 8 bars.
help

Also I would like to ask if anyone could offer the pics of the backside of the board settings. I need to know if mine is same as yours installed with JB+.

Thanks!

 

Red Bandit welcome to the exclusive R56 Aquamist front install running off the washer tank club.

The next club meeting will be held in a phone booth outside your local convience store

 

Here's pics of my HFS4 board if that is what you're asking for:

 

Has anyone tried running 30% MAP 70% IDC by soldering the MPs link

 

Does anyone have the MPS link in the back soldered on the R56 specific unit?
I am a second hand owner and I saw the soldered link on mine. The owner said it came like that when he ordered it from Howerton. I saw that cerenkov's controller above does not have the soldered link. Any of you R56 specific kits have it? I'm hoping I found the problem to my issues.

 

Funny if you look above your post I'm asking if anyone is using that configuration.

Here are some extracts from the HFS-3 PDF I downloaded. Did you get a booklet with your system and what problems are you having, has the link been cut so your only running off map.

Sorry for the bad quality I'm using my mobile and there are screen shots, hard to read I know.

 

John, it looks like you board is configured for a 3.5 bar MAP sensor. If you are using the stock S MAP sensor then this very well could be an issue.

 

Did you buy the HFS-4 used?

 

Stupid question but, how do you turn the brightness down on the gauge?

 

The only way would be to tap the purple wire into the headlight wiring.

 

There is a dial on the controller board but I believe this only works if the purple wire is connected to a voltage source.

So, tap the purple wire into any other wire that has voltage. If you want this to happen when the lights are on then use something that only comes on when the lights are on such as an interior light. If you want this to happen all the time then use the something like the power outlet (cigarette lighter).

 

It has to go to the headlight + switch so it is activated when you turn the headlights on.

 

Thanks guys. I just want to turn it down because at night it is almost blinding.

 

Here's what the manual says.

- DIM: This trimmer works in conjunction with the head lamp
switch. When it sees a 12V signal, the trimmer becomes active.
This coincides with night drive conditions. The high-intensity LED
used on the dash gauge may be too bright for night motoring, so
wiring in the “purple wire” from the 4-way power plug to the
head lamp switch is essential. Do not wire it to the car’s interior
dimming circuit or unexpected results may occur.

 

Does anyone actually believe their charge air temp is actually below ambient due to this water/methanol injection?

It seems like a very small amount of liquid to truly cool down the charge temp of such a vast amount of air that is going into the engine under full load.

Are people sure that it is not just the thermo couple being saturated and it itself being cooled down via evaporation of the saturated liquid sitting on it?

Has anyone measured the external temp of the inlet manifold to check that the air flowing through it really is below ambient?

I love the idea of below ambient charge temps but I just can't buy a litre of liquid sprayed in over a lengthy period, cooling down such a vast amount of air. Maybe a degree colder but I can't buy way below ambient.

Any thoughts on this or actual tests carried out to prove it isn't just the thermocouple being saturated and experiencing wind chill/evaporation effect?

Sounds like a dangerous place to be where the ECU is convinced the charge air is really cold as thermo couple gives an inaccurate reading and advances the timing up when it is not actually...

Love to proven wrong with good solid information :-)

PS - during the F1 Turbo era back in the day in the 80's BMW decided that no matter how they used water they couldn't really benefit and concluded "water doesn't burn". I wonder what they missed.

Cheers,

Steven_RW

 

I have mine wired into the cig lighter light ring.

 

There has been extensive engineering studies on charge cooling effects of varies mixtures of water and alcohol. They are very real and well understood.

One other benefit of methanol/water injection is the in cylinder cooling effects because of the colder burning properties of methanol. This effect can be significant, on the order of a few hundred degrees. Tigger posted in another thread a paper/study that Ford (I believe it was) had performed. There are numerous papers out there especially in the turbo diesel industry.