TOPIC: Wet weather= Power Increase

Well at least for now we are having rainy weather in northern Nevada and California. Today it's like February weather, except staying above freezing. Driving home from work in the Subie, I noted a decided power increase. The wet weather, being the only change, is what I attribute the engine's torque increase to. It's interesting to actually have to be careful w/ the throttle as the slick roads demand careful driving, the power increase is that good!
So I give thanks to Ma Nature for the very much needed water for the region, it's forecast to rain off and on for another week. Amd I'm glad also I have the BMW cyclone AOS and my home-built water bottle catch can inline in the Subie's PCV hose!

Tracy G

Could you provide some pictures of that? And what do you think about putting a bubbler here in line with the valve cover vent hose, see picture. It's a 1994 Honda Civic VX but all the civics in that era look virtually the same.

yeah, I'll have to get more pics of my AOS setup on Subie, though it's visually confusing.

Bubbler in the breather hose...? Like as in the HCS system on another forum??

If so that's Another Kettle of Fish!

I see you have Dan's "Pipeline" setup on this Honda, that's what I call it anyway. How's it working for you?

Can you expand on what you're asking about a bubbler?

And today coming home from work, I noticed still-elevated power and low end throttle response, as the rainy weather continues!

Tracy G

Rainy again today. Coming home from the salt mines, the 'lil red'n white Subie broke 'em loose leaving a red lite at a freeway onramp again. Nothing dramatic, but this is a car that 10 yrs ago couldn't outrun it's shadow. Just a tiny bit too much throttle...Now I'm not exactly sure- but one thing extra the Subie has is- a basic Plasma Spark Ignition. There are many youtube vid's about spraying water mist on an exposed spark plug connected to a Plasma ignition. The water mist intensifies the sound of the spark, and the water mist is seen to "explode". It actually looks/sounds violent.

IT's not like water injection, it's humidity. Air cool but not too cold, tons of water vapor in the air, prob. 100% humidity. I've read lots re; water inj. and using a water bubbler. Thing about a bubbler is- you need to connect to a Venturi vacuum source, not Manifold vac. Not all engines have a venturi vac. port, and there Is a difference in the two. Connecting to Man. vac. is self defeating, you get highest draw at idle and decell. in gear w/ closed throttle, backwards from what's needed.

One idea I've had and seen posted about elsewhere- is to insert a mini Venturi into the main intake duct, I think some have tried something like this w/HHO. Think of a Venturi booster from an old carburetor, the round structure out in center of the carb's bore. If something like this was in the main air inlet after the filter, before the TB, and was connected to tubing coming from a bubbler, it may work. But how to get it balanced out right? Another idea is to have the bubbler's outlet port routed to a small dia. copper tube w/ as many coils around the hottest part of the exhaust pipe as practicable. This copper coil should ideally be covered in insulation to contain heat, and coils need to touch the ex. pipe closely. Idea is to make steam. This is the concept in the HCS system.

Probably better, conceptually, would be an annular discharge ring in the air inlet tube. I think Holley or maybe Motorcraft carb's had this type of "booster" Venturi instead of the normal type. Never seen anything like this as a separate piece. Would likely need many hours of tweeking to get it to work. If it existed, would be a breakthrough piece for water or fuel vapor introduction in the air inlet stream, I can't be the first to daydream of this. 3-D modeling/printing...??

OR else- just find a way for it to rain on YOUR car everywhere, hey that can't be so hard, right?

Tracy G

Reno is almost 5000' above sea level...air's a bit thin and dry up there, so it totally makes sense that some rain will make the gas vapour in your carb spread into your cylinders for better power at that elevation.
I'm within 300-500 ft of sea level where I live/work, and in a place where the air generally has no less than 30-40% humidity year round because of the Great Lake I live next to. I have noticed my truck runs a bit more efficiently on cool nights around 50 degrees F.
I'd be interested to see what your observations are as far as temp/humidity correlations, Tracy...

Well I haven't done any meterological studies on this. but lately it's been generally in the mid 40's to low 60's, and rainy/humid.
You're right about Reno's elevation, though most of the area is lower than 5 K, I think it's like 4400 or so at the airport. There's lots of hills here, from small to bigger and steeper. Elevation, terrain and "atmospherics" all being conditions we all operate in. Probably the most ideal would be near Sea Level at about 55 degrees, w/ high humidity, and no wind.

An interesting place to drive in is Death Valley, about 350 miles south of here. 30 years ago I was down there in my '73 Plymouth wagom w/a mildly hotrodded 400 Mopar big block. Down in the valley floor is about sea level, and there's a place called Badwater, which is I think 282 ft. below sea level. Freaky- you can hear people talking audibly hundreds of feet away the air's so dense. Car camped that night at Badwater, nobody around, no birds bugs nothin' totally silent. I remember looking out and seeing the moonlit contrail of an airliner at altitude, and hearing it too! The Plymouth 400 ran like a Striped A** Ape too! Weird beautiful place that is. At Badwater you're standing there-you can look up at the sign up on the rocks high up the steep cliff that says Sea Level, then turn to look across the valley to see Telescope Peak in the Panamint Range at over 11,000 feet. Just avoid the place in summer- there's another place there called Furnace Creek, and deservedly so!

So finding a practical way to add humidity (weather depending) to the incoming air charge seems tantalizing. I've had two different water bubbler setups on the Subie, but neither seemed effective.
Seems the trick is the right amount of water vapor added in the right way.

One of the tings I often ask other Gadgetmen or potential customers is- what altitude they are at. Altitude terrain and climate are important considerations.

Tracy G

OK now the weather has dried out for 4-5 days now, back to normal late spring conditions, hi temps into the 80's. And w/ this return to drier warmer weather, the Subaru's power has dropped off it's recent highs. Still runs great, but that extra pump is gone. Proves to me the benefit of the high humidity. Causes me to ponder on the idea of adding humidity to the engine.

Tracy G

Tracy.
Have you thought about using your Mystifyer to inject water into the engine?
I know you have a carb and supposedly no manifold vac but you did by the piece and tried it out with no real results but that was a time ago. Dont know how you rigged it without a vac to pull the water in. If the humidity gives you a boost, it probably is good for MPG also. Why not rig the Mystifyer to feed into a heated cracking tube that will vaporize the water like humidity.
Just a thought.

Hey Karl, hows it goin'?

not a bad idea in concept. But the Mystifyer just puts out too much liquid water. At least it did installed like the inventor said to do. I think he came up w/ it decades ago, might be suitable for bigger v-8 engines. But you may be on to something there, I think it was hooked to man. vac. And that of course is opposite of what's needed as you know. I've had a visualization of something like a ring shape insert that is formed in the ID as a Venturi, sized to fit into or be spliced into a round air inlet duct from filter to TB. Ford Motorcraft 2 bbl carbs, many had booster venturi's w/ annular discharge holes. That means- just think of holes that discharge water vapor or gas vapor-are arranged around inner circumference of a tube section. These holes are at just the right spot at the narrow section of a Venturi cross section. Might not make sense unless you know about carburetors. Basically a way to inject vapor into an airstream, in proportion to the volume and speed of air in the round duct. An analogy to the venturi vacuum source so often spoken of in the HCS stuff. I'm no carburetor design scientist, I may be way off, or on to something. Never seen anything like this anywhere, if it worked could be used for lots of stuff, HHO etc. A better way to inject vapors into an airstream...?

Anyhow I'm going on about this, it would be a way to introduce water vapor into the incoming airflow. First sending proper amount of water, water mist/ or bubbled air thru water thru the exhaust coil ala' HCS, then up to my idea of an injection method. Prob. would need a flowbench, computer aided design, extensive testing, and 3D printing to make. Only in my head for now.

And BTW- it's been raining it's a$$ off today, it stopped this afternoon, w/ the hi humidity, the Subie was a Happy Camper!!

so after my long rant, thanks for the suggestion, Karl!!

Tracy G

Maybe if you did straight water it would be too much but you were not vaporizing it when you did.
Then you could also put in 50/50 alcohol where half is water so it doesnt choke your engine and put that through the cracking tube. I hooked it up on mine and yes too much water even through cracking tube is too much but it seems to be less of a choke with the 50/50 alcohol.
Have not seen a difference yet but then again, you know my truck doesnt cooperate with any mods.

Gents, I seem to recall from an older thread that Dan Merrick alluded to cooking the humidity from PCV system condensate back into the input air stream with exhaust gas waste heat. As best I can think it, EGR gasses would have to be bubbled into the catch can, meaning a regulator/check valve and/or a bypass or two. It might get complex, but my guts tell me not.

The cool thing about the system - if my thinking is correct - would be that it is self -contained and -perpetuating and might solve the winter condensation issue in the crankcase with the existing PCV re-route. The vessel itself may need occasional replacement rather than emptying, but I'd bet engines equipped with one would run super clean and not suffer as badly with cold weather efficiency drops, especially with MPG Remedy in fuel.

As far as control goes, with an intake air tube on modern FI engines, manifold vacuum creates input airstream SPEED prior to throttle body...could Bernoulli's principle be put into (further) effect here somehow? (it already is to an extent with existing PCV re-route if you think about it, right?)

Need to ponder this whole thing a bit further...

This whole concept of reusing and processing the constituents in the PCV stream, the EGR gas, and the combinations thereof could really use further development. I do remember some of what Dan was talking about a couple years ago. But I never got a precise idea of how/what to do. I think Dan basically said that the chemical makeup in the water/oil gunk has valuable hydrocarbons that are being thrown away via the catch can AOS setups. Combining these w/ the chemicals in EGR gas, plus the heat energy of EGR gas, could yield benefits dome right.

Mike Hollar, who only posted in here a few times, developed or helped develop a kind of catalytic device to treat PCV gas streams, it was for sale and fairly pricey. Mike has been involved with quite a few bleeding-edge things, and Dan has his awesome contributions as well. Karl Britz got into the Hydrocarbon Cracking System (HCS) over at Fuel-Saver.org and I messed w/ it as well.

Combining chemical and thermal principles is fascinating, but can be murky for those of us not properly schooled in these arts (like me!) I spent hours trying to research and decode info on these subjects, to understand enough to try to make something worthwhile. Bruce McBurney was also deep into this territory. Just google Thermal Catalytic Cracking sometime! I got mostly research papers, and oil refining industry stuff.

I can understand things on a mechanical basis, and can follow along with these other ideas if adequately explained, so I can understand a process in layman terms. Until I'm familiar, it can feel like scientific legalese. I never took chemistry, math ties my head up, but I'm an excellent reader.

When I get stuck, I will go looking 'round online to see what others have already done, this usually helps.

Back to the original idea of humidity and it's apparent benefits. Am I alone w/ this, anyone else noticed similar results? The Subie just seems to love it!

Tracy G