Anybody know anything about this?

[Keith.P]

water injection on 4-stroke engines.

But by injecting water you are essentially taking up space that would normally occupied with fuel/air/oil, and water does not add to properties of combustion, with a good chance to hydraulic lock the motor.
Water in a cast iron cylinder after it stops running will do wonders.

[Oyster 49]

There is a very good write up on wikipedia, google search search on "water injection"

In the 1940s and 1950s this was very common on high performance piston engines and gas turbines, at high power settings. The water mist cools the incoming mixture of air/fuel, and gives greater thermal efficiency.

We carry out compressor washes on modern gas turbines, by either dry cranking or running at idle with a water source like a hose pouring into the inlet. It can make a huge difference to operating margins and keep an engine on wing a lot longer.

Not sure it would be much use on a seagull, it runs too cool and is hardly high performance! It might help one of Charles tuned up beauties though.

[david doyle]

Stelios, if you are interested in this there is a pile of info out there, all the figuring has been done. Bottom line is that for 100 years or so folks have been injecting water into combustion chambers. Both as performance enhancer, fuel economy improver and as a method to move fouling.
Nowadays it usually involves a bank of solinoid valves, start, idle, highway. YES it increases pressure. Hence the reduced requirement for fuel. Water expands more then air.

ANy how I am done with this topic, was just trying to give an idea of how to battle plug fouling for a 24 hr run. If the engine is going to quit at hour 18 due to fouling might as well spritz in some water or kerosene. Before the marathon run a fouled plug could be installed, the engine run up to temp and a water/kerosene/ATF spritz introduced. then the plug could be checked to see if it helped. If it reduced plug fouling great if not no harm done.

EDIT it just occurred to me , is'nt water a by product of combustion? So I guess we are all 'spritzing' our combustion chambers on every stroke anyway........

[Stelios_Rjk]

Really interesting! I read on wikipedia the article. There are certainly advantages but if someone want to try it, should know exactly what he is doing.