Completed Aquamist HFS-5 - Anyone else get it up and running?
 

I have been talking with Richard at Aquamist off and on over the last few months working on the summer feature that is unique to the RX7. After some prolonged down time that was mostly due to bugs with my car I didn't have a chance to install his most recent version of the summer. Well after talking with him on the phone this afternoon I feel like we have mine up and working 100%. I have all the settings calibrated to work properly and with some initial low boost testing on the freeway on my way back to work, it is looking really good!

I just wanted to open this thread to see if anyone else out there whom purchased the kit, has installed it and gotten everything up and running properly. Even if we could just have a small role call of who actually purchased it, I would be interested to know.

I will be putting together a pretty detailed install thread of my setup as soon as I clean up some of the connections and routing. Everything should be looking pretty by the end of March (right now it is functional, and not bad, but definately not 'pretty').

On the way to work 8-10psi yeilds a 40 degree C IAT with my pure water setup. When I am just cruising in vacuum my iat reads 43 or so. So it is working from that standpoint. Hopefully I will have some 50/50 water/meth results from tuning this weekend on the dyno.

I am not using an intercooler of anytype, and do run a true Cold Air Induction.

So, anybody have this installed yet? If so, let me know, if anyone is in the process, I am more than happy to volunteer my help for any questions you may have. Richard has helped me along from England and I will gladly pay that forward to anyone whom needs assistance getting this thing going.

Let me know!

Regards,
Brian Kraemer

I'm hoping to get mine at least wired in and tested this weekend. I've been putting it off for too long now. Wiring is all set to go into the car, just have to mount the tank and pump.
Once I'm happy with that I'll be relocating my AIT sensor to the IC outlet and tapping the pipework for the nozzles.
Out of interest what percentage of water are you injecting?

Steve

I have the smallest restrictor that is included with the kit in the HSV (500cc/min??)... to feed the 0.3mm nozzle precompressor, and a 0.8mm nozzle in the elbow. I am right at about 12-15%. I plan on using 50/50 when the car is fully tuned, hence the slightly higher percentage. We will see how my ignition and egt behave when I am on the dyno.

IF I was going to keep just water I might go down to 10% but that would all depend on other variables that I haven't measured yet.

Well I was planning on running up to 20% pure water!
I'm not injecting pre turbo though. I'm keeping my v-mount setup and injecting into the pipework post IC.
Made a bit of progress today. I'm about to start my own thread with some pics.

thanks,

Steve

Thats going to be way too much water. You'll put out too much flame, cost a lot of power. Since you've got an intercooler that is no need at all to put that much in.

Yeah, thanks for the heads up on that one. Looking at the theory side of things, 20% is fine but in practice it seems people aren't injecting much more than 10% (between 300 and 400cc/min).

50/50 by volume is really like 64/36 by weight (I think)... so I am running about 64% water at 500cc/min with no intercooler and I think I am good. You definately will need less than 20%...maybe even as much as half that much.

Brian,
we are all interested in a number of aspects of your trailblazing. good luck on the dyno.

the idea of not running an IC is attractive from a weight, clutter and response aspect and i have no doubt that w a properly fixtured AI setup the engine would be happy in boost but the IC works all the time taking heat out of the motor and it would seem that there is a cumulation of BTUs removed that can only be a help.

i note a significant temp diff between the IC intake and exhaust tubes while not in boost.

as to the 20% water project... i suggest 500 CC initially.

good luck to all and it is great to see so many projects going forward.

howard

Brian,

It is very nice of you post some feedback on the HFS-5, it has been a while since the GB and I doubt if many has yet installed it. This is partly my fault taking time to get to the production stage of the "Summer".

You are absolutely correct that the IC will work to cool the air while not in boost. I am sure you see much lower temperatures than I see, while we are both in vacuum. What I am saying though is that my temps are not anywhere out of the ordinary while in vacuum. I see from 35-45C in vacuum depending on ambient temp, ect. What I dont have is heat soak. Eliminating that was a major plus to getting rid of the SMIC.

Also I experience the reverse of what an intercooled person experiences and as a result I gain consistency in air temp. When you have an IC (and just an IC) your temp starts at a certain point and increases as you build in boost. The efficiency of the intercooler is constant.

With the HFS-5, I have a temp at which I run in vacuum while not on W/I...which I quoted above. As the load builds and my IDC increases, so too does the W/I %. So in theory I could possibly tune the system to provide a relatively constant intake temperature. I would do this by varying the methanol constration in my AI mixture. More meth = more cooling.

The car is absolutely fine to run on my 3psi spring, creeping to 6psi, with no intercooler and no WI. So with the failsafe wired into the boost controler on the HFS-5 junction board I will be fine.

At least this is my theory. I need to tune the car though! That is paramount. It needs to be done ASAP! What has been holding me up so long is getting the car registered and through our local emissions. This was a MAJOR hiccup of switching to this turbo system over A-spec's low mount GT35r system where I could keep the mechanical air pump. Hopefully my next trip through emissions will be the one in which I pass... Only 6 failures so far!

Also the resolution to my street tuning incident where I got arrested for going 101mph is tomorrow morning (final court hearing) so wish me luck there. We have done everything possible on this one, it is up to the judge now.

So that is my status with the car.

we all wish you good luck w the judge tomorrow. do let us know how it works out and thanks for sharing your very interesting project:)

howard

County Attorney wanted to throw the book at me and leave the reckless driving charge on my record (would equal a license suspension, etc.). My attorney and I had put together a nice package of why the charge should be reduced to excessive speeding (including a nice log output of my dataloggit showing the incident in detail, with explanation of each point in time on the log, pictures of the location, etc.)

Didn't work...

My attorney suggested that we take what the cop said in the police report and pile up as many violations as we could and submit that. So we put down excessive speeding (3 points, class 3 misdemeanor), passing on the right - civil violation 2 points (which I didn't do but the cop said I did do - very frustrating), and then added in failing to use the left lane to pass (2 points civil traffic)... together all told it would be 7 points on my license, and a $700 fine, bad but much better than the 'reckless.' The county attorney took the deal and told me to congratulate my lawyer on some creative work.

It is pretty funny that I basically took a fine for two of the same thing, just to satisfy the county attorney (neither of which actually occurred - I accelerated in the open road and had slowed down before I reached any other cars), but all told I am satisfied with the outcome. Losing my license with the 'reckless driving' would be life changingly bad, as it is with the fines and 7 points it is just a 'very bad' experience.

Lesson to learn here? DO NOT think that you can continually get away with street tuning... The risk is definately NOT worth the benefit... do it on the dyno, or on a closed course.


Funny thing I learned later, is the bureau cheif (county attorney's boss) wanted to know why I didn't get endangerment (class 5 felony) for doing 100+ mph with a passenger... It didn't matter that the passenger was the mechanic whom was instructing me how fast to go (what RPM to go to). That was also the reason why they wouldn't budge down to excessive speeding (having the passenger).

Be very careful...I can't IMAGINE ending up with a felony and jail time or probation, because you ran a car up to 100mph on a deserted road... but trust me - they will give it to you!

So like I said before, I am glad it is over...and not a horrible outcome for me.

Now back to getting this thing emissions legal, so I can take the emssions stuff back off and run it on the dyno!!

Our laws are so ridiculous sometimes...lol!

I probably should get a nice and emissions legal E46m3 and call it a day...but something inside me wants to keep the RX7. I think I am a masochist.

that's great news!

:)

Its funny I just read this, because I just got done replacing the downpipe to midpipe gasket on my car. I have a cat band clamped into the downpipe, and a false (hollowed) "pre-cat" welded up stream of that in an effort to have an emissions legal car.

Rotary engines apparently don't like cat converters, because there is nothing left of the main cat, its completely hollow, and it was fully intact 2 months ago when I put it in.


I concur with most of what you said, I am running non intercooled on the stock twins.

I first ran with the shitty HKS behind the radiator intake, and then with a 3.5"pipe sucking filtered air from down low in front, and finally with the stock FC airbox (smog legality again), modified for a 3 inch pipe sucking cold air through the fairly large and well designed factory duct in front of the radiator.

Both of the cooler air intakes bring the intake temp down by about 20 degree's too the 135-150 range F, depending on conditions. I have a GM IAT in the elbow near the TB, I believe the sensor heat soaks some or picks up radiant heat from the metal elbow..

Running pure meth brings the intake charge down below 100 deg easily. I am not assuming either, I am spraying meth about 12 inches in front of the sensor.

Water (pure) brought the temp no lower than 120.

50/50 mix was bringing it down to 110.

The temp drops 10-15 degrees instantly, and then gradually go down, and continue gradually dropping the long I am in boost.

Also along with the intake temps dropping the coolant temps and egt's also drop, after 30 seconds at 10 psi at moderate (~45%) throttle in 5th the coolant temps have the car bouncing off the thermostat, they have dropped to 175 deg or so and it looks like the intake temps would also continue falling, but I havn't been able to stay on it longer than that, as I don't want to get arrested.

I am so sorry to hear the terrible experience your going through.

they are tough here in the valley. Since there arent enough cops to go around, they stab you in the ass when they get the chance.

Brian, I can't wait to hear how your "failsafe' is wired into the boost controller. I will need the same precautions.

slo,

that's interesting data re temps... how much are you spraying?

you mention that temps just keep dropping. i found on my 2000 to 8000 4th gear dyno runs last year that my knock just kept dropping. it was lowest at 8000!

hc

I am using the cooling mist HSV with a 500CC/min nozzle

I will be testing the system with a 500 CC graduated cyclinder and could tell with more accurately in the future (thats a thread in of itself).

But I can estimate at 45% duty cycle at about 10psi with the starting point at 30% DC at 30 HZ (controllable injection starts at maybe 20%)

I would say about 150CC/min

My theory is that as time goes by the injected alcohol and cooler air cools the aluminum components post tubro, which of course readily trade heat with the air charge.


I think the limit of how much alcohol you can put in is that of air temp, at some point you are going to have liquid alcohol en mass going into the engine because the temp is to low to adequately evaporate it.

Another reason its better to not intercool.

BTW with no intercooler and water injection turned off at 10PSI 2 seconds after getting into boost temps are well past 200 deg, and climbing very fast

This really confirms how slow the stock sensor is at reacting.

Also it shows the inefficiency of the stock twins. I have probably, at least 10 degree celcius cooler air in vacuum. I have never run the car in boost to 10psi with no intercooler, but I have run to about 6 psi, I loaded the car with the brake (to keep speed down), and basically floored the gas to see full boost for a long enough period to get the sensor to react. I climbed up to about 58-60C but stayed right around there. I never saw anything above 63C in my extended boost tests with the W/I turned off.

I also think my pre-compressor jet is helping a lot with intake charge cooling. The cooling effect is the primary reason I put it in there (also to shift the compressor map to the right slightly). My pre throttle body jet is more for detonation/flame front control in the combustion chamber.

AIT in vacuum doesn't show the ineficency of the twins, what it shows is that there is a great deal of aluminum in the intakes and y pipe, physically close to the exhaust manifold, this gets hot and gives its heat to the intake charge.

I have run both the stock intake temp sensor and the GM open element unit which I am now running. The stock sensor takes a very long time to react.

Are you running a PowerFC? Did you wire the GM sensor into the ECU or how are you logging it?

To set it up right, I want to use an open element sensor wired into the ECU. This way the air temp correction maps will be proper. I just dont know how to go about doing this.

The short answer is to run a Motec...

The short answer is run a Haltech, and use the money you saved on the Motec to have a nice vacation.

In any case I am running the haltech, but I know the GM sensor can be used with the PFC, hell I would bet you could just plug it in and go.

The stock FD sensor and the GM sensor are incredibly close (as in their calibration is very close) if the sensor input is configured the same and given time for it to react the sensors will read within 10 deg of each other with the stock sensor higher than the GM sensor.

Do you have the PN of the GM sensor or know of where I can get one? We have a great junk yard down here...any particular car I could go pull on off of? I also wonder if the PowerFC is powerful enough to take a AIT sensor that changes so quickly. I would love for my Commander to display actual intake temp from an open element sensor.

GM IAT Sensor #25036751
GM IAT Sensor Pigtail #12102620

I think this is for the non metric version.

you should be able to get it anywhere (autozone, napa, etc) they come with metric and SAE thread. I believe the metric thread version is more expensive and is not the correct thread to directly take the place of the stock sensor.

Its like $21, it would be a waste of time pulling one from a junk yard.

I drilled and tapped the greedy intake elbow at the bottom about 1" before the TB, it is no issue tapping it here, there is like 1/4" or more thikness

edit: available at napa from several different manufactures, this is a real common part

http://www.napaonline.com/NOLPPSE/(S...Dn=0&Dk=1&Dp=3

How would I read it's outputs. I know you have Haltech. Would I need a voltage scaler/amplifier, or can I read this with my dataloggit in the PFC? I wonder if it would work plugged in as a replacement for the stock temp sensor?? That would be nice if it was that easy...