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I did the conversions and found out 23mm is roughly 29/32", which is close enough to 7/8". Bought a stepped drill bit from HFT and plunged it to the 7/8" step and managed to shimmy the outlet fitting and tank level sensor in their appropriate holes.
Got my pump fitted to the tank assembly but now I think the two 6mm elbow adapters that Jeff sent me with the tank that screw into the inlet on the pump and outlet on the tank are the wrong thread. Oh well, at least I got the pre-fitment work done and everything is waterproof.
Installed my HFS4 finally. Primed the system by disconnecting the 6mm hose from the FAV and damn near filled a 2L soda bottle in a minute (I'll admit I wasn't going for accurate measurements, just to see it worked). Conencted it back to the FAV and disconnected the jet from the intake pipe to put on the wind shield. Nothing. Can't get anything past the FAV. Tried priming while connected to the fav, tried running the system normally and blipping the throttle, nothing comes out of the jet. Checked already for kinked hoses and didn't see any. Checked and ensured the FAV is the right way. I'm just at a loss right now as to what to troubleshoot.
To make sure our terminology is the same, you tried the whole system jet and all (while on the windshield) with the jumper in SYS?
Actually I just double checked I may be doing this priming procedure wrong. I for the life of me couldn't find the "PRK" jumper on the board for the windscreen part of the test procedure, so I was instead just pulling the FAV jumper and putting it on SYS, then moving it back. Half my issue is that my movement of the control module is limited because they barely gave me enough wire on the power harness that gets connected to the ECU wiring harness to make it into the glove box.
Anyway I did the test where I pulled the 6mm off the FAV. Pulled the FAV jumper and put it on SYS. Did the rest of the procedure and water came out.
Reconnected the 6mm on to the FAV, reinstalled the FAV jumper. However I didn't pull the PRK jumper and put it onto SYS. I tried the jet in bottle test and nothing came out (obviously because the system wasn't in test mode).
Then I tried starting up the engine and doing the activate by gas pedal test. Again, I got nothing. But maybe the system wasn't fully purged and primed yet? Also I may have turned the THRES dial full clockwise and not counterclockwise for this, working out in the sun for 7 hours can make one do dumb things like that. Also going back and forth between the RMW install instructions and the HFS4 owner's manual made some things a little confusing.
I'll update this if I have further issues, but I may just be dealing with my own incompetence at the moment.
The best is to put the PRK jumper on the SYS. The PRK is the farthest one to the right, if you haven’t found it all ready. You can also use an flat head screw driver to act as a jumper to short the terminals.
The best is to put the PRK jumper on the SYS. The PRK is the farthest one to the right, if you haven €™t found it all ready. You can also use an flat head screw driver to act as a jumper to short the terminals.
Okay my stupid brain got confused because it doesn’t say “PRK” it just says “PK”. Hence why I couldn’t find it . I wound up driving to my friends with no further testing beyond what I did before (dumb I know) and I did see a little bit (like 2 or 3 bars) of water flow buildup on the gauge before my cold side intercooler tube blew off So I couldn’t build up boost past 3.5 psi for the rest of the drive but for the moment my car was working everything seemed to be in order. Maybe just a bit of fine tuning needed.
Okay, boost leak fixed, primed and purged the system properly today at work. Everything seems to be in order. With no adjustments to the module (other than turning the dial to make it work purely off boost pressure) and no calibration of the gauge I'm getting about 3 bars on the gauge at WOT in most gears. Also shut off the failsafe for the time being considering I don't really need it and nothing is adjusted. Gonna calibrate the gauge and play around with the threshold and gain levels sometime soon to see if I can can get it to come on sooner and hit peak flow. In the end my goal is to see it come on at around 10 psi and ramp up to full flow around 17 psi to start out. Also picked up some meth from my local speed shop so I'm adding that to the mix for calibration. Tank is about 1/3 full right now so my ratio for now will be about 66/33 meth/water.
Good to see everything back on track and going well I’m pretty sure you already know this but new members tuning in late to this thread might not realize that water/meth ratios are calculated on weight not volume. The Mini seems most happy on 25/75 or 20/80 mixes. Without boring everyone to death with formulas related to specific gravity, temperature and volume shrinkage due to molecular bonding the following is pretty accurate.
25/75 = one quart water with four quarts meth.
20/80 = one quart water with five quarts meth.
Smaller displacement long stroke engines tend to like less water. Vlad never made over 256 hp on a Stage 2 meth tune at 50/50 but made 263 on 80/20. Running pure meth can also sometimes lead to pre-ignition depending on ambient conditions and boost level so at least 5% is recommended. I found that out when I switch Vlad over to Stage 3 meth at 1.7 bar on pure meth. You can also use 5% acetone to prevent the pre-ignition and it boosts torque and spool by increasing the flame speed.
I wound up dumping all the water out of the tank and running straight meth. Adjusted the gauge to read properly and only had to adjust the threshold dial on the module to get it roughly where I want it. Also switched to Manic 2C. Been driving pretty hard and already used half a tank of meth lol.
I might throw some water into the mix next time around to help dilute it and see if it runs a little better. I'm just happy to see intake temps below 65 degrees with this mid October 80 degree heat wave we've had here on Long Island these past few days.
Smaller displacement long stroke engines tend to like less water. Vlad never made over 256 hp on a Stage 2 meth tune at 50/50 but made 263 on 80/20. Running pure meth can also sometimes lead to pre-ignition depending on ambient conditions and boost level so at least 5% is recommended. I found that out when I switch Vlad over to Stage 3 meth at 1.7 bar on pure meth. You can also use 5% acetone to prevent the pre-ignition and it boosts torque and spool by increasing the flame speed.
Thanks! As always great explanation.
BTW. Is there any tune done for that increase in HP?
you had me at "5% acetone blahblahblah..increases torque"
*future meth head here.. care to elaborate a bit on acetone usage? I love to hear whats possible and curious about running fuel blends for added benefits.
One has to be extremely careful running blends through a meth injection system. All use basically the same pump heads made with EPDM diaphragms. The seal in the Aquamist FAV is also EPDM. EPDM is made from petroleum. As such using most petroleum based products will cause them to swell and fail in very short order. So most power adders like oh say nitromethane are out the door unless you want to be changing pumps and valves every couple of months.
When I ran into the issue of pre-ignition on pure meth I started digging. What I found was that some top fuel alky cars had already run into the same issue and resolved it already. Some used 5% water while others used acetone.
Acetone is water miscible since they share similar dipole moments and form a strong polar bond. In addition the specific gravity is .787 which makes mixing it with meth at .7866 very straight forward. Another benefit is that while acetone has an octane rating of 111 it’s flame speed is higher than that of methanol. This results in higher cylinder peak pressures and slightly higher EGT’s. The former means more torque and the latter means quicker spool.
Any additive to methanol should also pass the cloud test. This involves using an eye dropper to drop distilled water into the solution. If the drop immediately disappears it is safe to use with EPDM. If however the area around the drop becomes cloudy even for a split second it will trash your system.
One has to be extremely careful running blends through a meth injection system. All use basically the same pump heads made with EPDM diaphragms. The seal in the Aquamist FAV is also EPDM. EPDM is made from petroleum. As such using most petroleum based products will cause them to swell and fail in very short order. So most power adders like oh say nitromethane are out the door unless you want to be changing pumps and valves every couple of months.
When I ran into the issue of pre-ignition on pure meth I started digging. What I found was that some top fuel alky cars had already run into the same issue and resolved it already. Some used 5% water while others used acetone.
Acetone is water miscible since they share similar dipole moments and form a strong polar bond. In addition the specific gravity is .787 which makes mixing it with meth at .7866 very straight forward. Another benefit is that while acetone has an octane rating of 111 it’s flame speed is higher than that of methanol. This results in higher cylinder peak pressures and slightly higher EGT’s. The former means more torque and the latter means quicker spool.
Any additive to methanol should also pass the cloud test. This involves using an eye dropper to drop distilled water into the solution. If the drop immediately disappears it is safe to use with EPDM. If however the area around the drop becomes cloudy even for a split second it will trash your system.
I thought that I only needed to add water/meth to the tank and that was it. So what should I add to my Howerton Tank.
Detonation occurs after the ignition event, pre-ignition occurs before. So in a pre-ignition event the flame front strikes the piston on it way up during the compression stroke. This places far more stress on the pistons and will destroy an engine in short order compared to detonation. During detonation torque falls off. During pre-ignition torque disappears and the engine feels like its bucking or stuttering. Needless to say if you run into it you need to address it immediately.
09-27-2017, 11:10 AM
. I wound up driving to my friends with no further testing beyond what I did before (dumb I know) and I did see a little bit (like 2 or 3 bars) of water flow buildup on the gauge before my cold side intercooler tube blew off 
So I couldn’t build up boost past 3.5 psi for the rest of the drive but for the moment my car was working everything seemed to be in order. Maybe just a bit of fine tuning needed.
I’m pretty sure you already know this but new members tuning in late to this thread might not realize that water/meth ratios are calculated on weight not volume. The Mini seems most happy on 25/75 or 20/80 mixes. Without boring everyone to death with formulas related to specific gravity, temperature and volume shrinkage due to molecular bonding the following is pretty accurate.
