I tracked down the compressor wear and why it came about.

It did not dawn on me until I started thinking about the actual cause. I first installed my water injection setup when I was using a stock port JDM engine. I was running 15psi and hunting for more power. I installed the WI, spraying just water, and drove it for around 2 months. No issues or hickups at all. Knowing I was going for bigger power, I decided to swap in a built and ported engine.

When I swapped the engine I inspected my turbo and the system as a whole. No wear, no issues.

Once the new engine was in, and ready to rock, I took it for a tuning session. I was making less power at higher boost levels while spraying 50/50. My intake temps were in the mid 50deg C. My tuner and I were both scratching our heads. Compression on the engine was solid, but something was causing this power loss and unusually high temps for spraying water meth. I left making 401whp @ 19psi. Far from flattering, even for a T3 35R.

After posting on the forum, and looking over my setup, I revealed my Tial 44mm wastegate was sticking open. Furthermore, the diaphragm was starting to rip at the seam. I rebuilt the wastegate, and headed back to the dyno.

Problem solved!! I then made solid power with intake temps never topping 40 deg C. Ambient temps were 90 deg F as it was a hot day. Spool was solid, and I made 454whp @ 23psi. I have put only about 1k miles on the car since.

So as I contemplated paint, it was time to tear apart the engine bay for the respray, and revamp my setup. I THEN noticed the compressor wear. I am absolutely confident it was caused from the massive overspooling of my turbo, excessive heat of such, and spraying into the compressor in those conditions. Its the only possibility to explain why there was ZERO wear before, and suddenly I have wear. The turbo was likely spinning to death, generating massive heat, and then spraying in the mixture caused the erosion.

I am now installing a fresh T4 P-trim 35R with plans to run the same boost. I will definitely be posting back once I can confirm no wear for the same mileage as the previous setup. However, I will be able use a larger filter, with intake pipe as my Vmount core is going to slant more. Atomization is always a good thing, so the extended room can not hurt.

I am confident pre-turbo water injection didn't cause the wear, but rather my system not working as it should.

 

^ How exactly would you turbo be overspooling if your wastegate was leaking? You weren't over boosting, correct?

 

Its been about two months since I got tuned using the preturbo kit. I'm currently changing my setup a bit to make it more efficient (new manifold, AEM coils, replacing stock fuel hard lines and high flow fuel filter, and a boostapump), well as I was tearing things down I decided to check my compressor blades and they are perfectly fine, no erosion. I know its only been two months but I drive my car hard and have gone through about 3 gallons of my water/meth mix, so a large amount of mixture has been going through the compressor blades with no ill effects. I made 450whp at 18psi on a mustang dyno with my 6766 and I've had no problems with this preturbo injection kit, I just periodically check my mixture level.

 

Yeah, correct. Revisiting my theory, it really doesn't make sense. Once I rebuilt the wastegate, it made excellent power, fast spool and proper intake temps for a 50/50 setup. No other change was made. I tested my WI system with an air compressor, and everything looked great. But yeah, I see what you mean. When I disassembled my wastegate, it was chalked full of carbon. With the spring moved, I could barely move it.

 

After a little thought and consorting with a friend of mine, I believe it was the heat that eroded the compressor. After all, my intake temps were through the roof for a reason. The excessive friction from exhaust heated the entire hot side, and compressor. This softened the compressor causing the wear.

So yes, not over spinning, but super-heating.

 

Yes it will handle meth/water mix. 50/50 is safe, any higher methanol you run the risk of fire. You could probably run more, as water mixed in makes it difficult to ignite. Definitely don't run 100% methanol.

 

 

I recently inspected my turbos at the end of last season (winter here) and I had no wear on either compressor. I've put roughly 10 gallons through this kit and the only thing I've replaced is a couple push lock fittings that just did lock consistently.

 

^ Great to hear. I think this really is the norm.

 

I bought two of these from Brent this March for my car and a buddies car. We just installed these on our half bridge setups. Great results. I am only gong to 16 psi for now due to a restrictive exhaust (I don't want my neighbors to hate me any more). I am spraying at about 10psi and am seeing 430 rwhp. Great setup and would recommend this to anyone.

 

I have bought a few of these kits now, I have one particular customer who races his car at the drags every week and car is unstoppable. Car runs 25psi all day every day.

 

any damn day.

 

That's awesome, I like hearing this.

 

New engine setup is getting close. Ball Bearing TD61 1.15ar at 25psi should make for some good results. Also moved to a 4" exhaust and a much better manifold.

I will still be running Brent's atomizer with the same basic WI setup. It has really been a solid setup. We'll see how it does with no BOV

 

I had similar wear on the outside edges of my compressor blades, it must have been caused by a problem I was having with my AEM controller that was for some odd reason spraying water for a few seconds every time I turned the key on and off, so a puddle of water would sit it in my intake and then get sucked through at some point. Also a bad check valve or not running a check valve can cause this because the engine vacuum will suck water out of the injector, I had this problem too.

 

If your air source is at the uim where it sees vacuum you need a check valve. If your source is before the throttle body a check valve isn't needed since it only sees positive pressure.

 

A source anywhere between the air filter and the engine is going to see vacuum when you are driving part throttle without boosting, air is getting sucked into the engine all the way from the air filter, water was getting sucked out of my water injector (with bad check valve) pre turbo, during part throttle (no boost) and bogging down the engine.

 

Oh I misunderstood, I thought it was sucking it out of the tank when running a mechanical injection system. You ran a pump driven system right? The solenoid should prevent it from continually sucking water from the injector? I'm not sure how the check valve would work in a preturbo situation. The check valve is to prevent boost pressure from flowing backwards into the injector when its not spraying in a post turbo install. Preturbo would not see positive pressure at the injector face, and the turbo suction could theoretically open a working check valve, though with a solenoid in place it seems it would be difficult to open the check valve or pull more than a small dribble. The nozzles I use don't have check valves and with the solenoid shut that prevents the water from being pulled from the line.

 

Ya mine is pump driven, AEM. So its just a water line to the water injectors, no solenoids (progressive controller sends power to the electric pump), I have one injector pre turbo and one after the intercooler and put a check valve in line right before each injector, not taking any chances given the problems before, the check valves also work so no water gets sucked out under vacuum, and the injectors will slowly drip without check valves. The way yours is set up sounds good with the solenoid.

 

Would this be a good option when running stock turbos?

 

There's a couple guys running it with stock twins, and another guy with bnr twins with really good results.

 

Great thread! Just curious, but has anyone put together failsafes for mechanical systems like this?

 

I've had a couple customers install various fail safes, optical water sensor, led low level and activation lights, a boost gauge on the tank is a very effective way to monitor tank pressure and general operation of the kit. Other than that the system is very reliable with such few components, and the nozzle is less likely to become clogged because it's water port is physically larger than that of a high pressure nozzle.

 

Thank you. I had seen people mention a couple of those like the tank level sensors, and saw another thread where someone contemplated using an AEM flow gauge with your system.

 

No problem. Yeah I remember someone checking into the AEM flow restriction fail safe, but I'm not sure If they ever tried it or not.