TOPIC: EGR valve redirect into intake idea

Hola and welcome to the concept.

Idea one.
Redirect waste gases into a custom ring collar before throttle body. Secondary ring collar will have water meth, aka washer fluid, pressurized to offset exhaust gas temp. Could also mix within a single collar with the aid of 3D printed metal or high temp nylon.

Design of collar ring will incorporate Coanda effect for max mixing of water vapor and hot gasses.

Idea two.
Micro steam gen from exhaust manifold.

Coiled tubes supply water to steam from manifold then applied to above collar. Many steps before in-between and after the above, just simplified for general discussion.

May be able to produce steam condensate rapid expansion to add additional intake pressure. Aka non moving part forced induction. May also require an intercooler.

Needed input from the forum members:
What is the volume of gas pressure and temps from the EGR system?
Looking to build this on a 2004 4Runner V6 1GR-FE motor.

Comments, Guidance, and collaborative thoughts welcome.

Thank you, Ben, and welcome to Gadgetman Land!

First, if you want to help us all get to know you, and for you to be properly welcomed, we need you to go to the Welcome Mat where it says "New members Check in Here" and tell us all about yourself. That way, we can welcome you like a true prodigal son!

It's obvious you belong here, judging by the way your mind works. But there's more to conveying an idea to someone than just telling them your idea. To be effective, you're going to need to introduce us to the concept.

DRAWINGS would be SUPERB!!!

So, if you don't mind, break out Paint or whatever and show us what you see so clearly inside your head.

And tell us some of your history!!! Knowing what you've played with in the past will help us communicate our ideas with YOU, too!!!

Ron

Hello Ben -
I’ve just started playing with water injection on my grooved daily driver, and what I’ve determined is that MAP sensors (if engines are so equipped) and o2 sensors are used by the computer(s) in a car for more than fuel delivery: in my case, the MAP is also used for shift points and quality. I’ve had an EFIE on my upstream (wideband) o2 for over a year now, and I’ve (and the ECU) never seen readings from it like this. My conclusions so far: when it comes to injecting water or steam/exhaust into the intake of an engine, a very little bit goes a very long way, and quite a bit more output happens at the wheels. Also, you have to be prepared to alter the signals the sensors relay to the computer to prevent codes from being thrown and the vehicle reacting unpredictably.
So I would offer that rerouting EGR gas to upstream of the throttle body would be extreme and unnecessary IF you gained cockpit control of the valve’s operation instead, and could mitigate various sensor signal irregularities to maintain or enhance the car’s drivability in addition to its efficiency.
Yeah, it’s quite a thing we’re choosing to undertake, so having some arrows in our quivers before going into battle is a smart bit of insurance.

Hi Ben, thanks for re-opening this idea. I'll second Ron- hop into the Wecome Mat topic and tell us more 'bout yourself!

I've noticed definite power improvements when humidity is high. I tried a simple water bubbler into manifold vacuum years ago, but that didn't give any benefit. I agree w/ Greg, I Think a little water (vapor/steam) will do the trick. But so far I haven't come across a good method to do this.

So I'd love to see/hear more on this idea, and more from you in general--you obviously seem like one of the sharper knives in the drawer!

Tracy G

I was sceptical when I read Q ~ Will adding water hurt my engine? - Eagle-Research , but it turns out, in my experience, to have a large element of truth to it
What I found with my simple water bubbler was that by enriching the intake with water droplets, my exhaust got "drier;" less like a clothes dryer vent, more like Vegas in summer. Simple hot air, that was actually cooler than before. Water vapour holds in quite a bit of heat is something we tend to forget or overlook.

A problem I ran into with my bubbler was moderating it, controlling it, making it consistent - rather than attaching it to the intake snorkel upstream of the TB, I had it attached to intake manifold vacuum. That varies with throttle angle, so obviously I was varying the amount of water going in - lots at idle, less at higher throttle angles, completely opposite to what's required. YouTube has a bunch of people with venturi valves on their bubblers, but I've yet to go down that road.
Another side effect of my unmetered set-up was that exhaust pressures and velocities increased rather significantly...I couldn't believe how big or hard the pulses coming from my tailpipe were: turns out that water expanding as steam as a result of gasoline combustion from spark ignition is rather significantly more "explosive" or "expansive" than just gasoline...the power or torque increases people talk about are a real thing.

There's also a great YouTube of a Rube Goldberg-esque method of recapturing water from the exhaust to put back into the intake, so you don't have to refill a supply reservoir as often. I posted that one already.

This thread made an idea pop to mind: How 'bout taking EGR gas output, and directing it into a water bubbler? Then directing output from the bubbler into intake air?

I'm really tired right now, and have only just thought of this. MY old '85 Subaru is carbe'd, the ECM is only along for the ride, controls nothing of consequence. It has the Plasma Ignition mod. EGR looks like I could splice into it's output, since it goes to the intake man. thru a steel pipe.

Thoughts?

Tracy G

The bubbler would need to be able to withstand high temperatures, but the water -when presented to the manifold pressures- would vapourize that much more easily.
However, the bubbler would be acting as a sort of catch can for everything burned and unburned in the exhaust stream, as the source for EGR gasses is pre- catalytic converter, so it would get dirty.

I was thinking about this too, so after my last reply, I revisited my water bubbler set-up. The problem I had before was with modulating the amount of vapour, so I added a venturi (needle) valve to the port on the intake George Wiseman suggested I use. I don't have a photo but here's a diagram:



at low throttle angles when manifold vacuum is high, water vapour gets ingested by the engine mostly from the bubbler.
at higher throttle angles, when vacuum is closer to atmospheric and the bubbler isn't as productive, blowby vapours from the PCV partially make up for the drop in bubbler production, as the system was meant to. The needle valve modulates the amount of vacuum applied to the bubbler, and I've set it to just start a "rolling boil" at hot idle, so water vapour starts collecting on the inside walls of the vessel.

I've driven ~125 miles so far on just over 2.5 gallons (that's a solid 50MPG) according to my dashboard readout...and it's fairly accurate when it comes to comparing how much it pumps to how much I have to put in (within a few percent of what the station pumps tell me, which I chalk up to instrumentation error on the part of both)

If anyone is still following along here, I've found a research paper called "water Injection for higher engine performance and lower emissions" which I'll be happy to upload as a PDF if your googling doesn't find it for you:
"Water vapour does not only improve the power output of an engine, but also improves fuel economy....Similarly, the NOx emissions were decreased by 34.6% on average"
They did their research on a Direct Injection engine, and came up with best results when 15% of the air-fuel charge by MASS was water vapour.

I haven't quite wrapped my head around the math yet, but according to that paper, for every liter of gas your engine burns, you should be injecting 150 mL of water. For the non-metric, for every gallon of gas, you need to inject 22.6oz of water.

My bubbler needs 8-12 oz every 550 miles or so...but I'm port injected rather than direct, have the groove to mix the two up better in the manifold, and make big fat sparks in my cylinders. It would be nice to have some others give this a whack with their cars to see if they get similar results. Anyone?