Heres another Chickasha "find"--- mount it between carb and manifold and just add water . Somehow, I`m skeptical about adding water vapor to the fuel mix. Ethanols bad enough......Paul

Given how much better my T runs on a misty or wet day, I don't doubt the virtues of this device (I wouldn't mind having one myself). As to mileage improvement, no idea.

I'm reading Murray Fahnestock's book, "The Model T Ford Owner" and just passed the section about those accessories. As John H. noted above, T's run better on a damp day or evening, which is what Murray said in his book. There were lots of water-injecting accessories available "back in the day" for that reason. He mentions that these devices were common on Fordson tractors, since they often used kerosene rather than gasoline as fuel, and they achieved a 5% increase in power using water injection. Apparently the water injection had more benefit with kerosene than with gasoline. At that time, automotive gas was about 50% kerosene, so some improvement in power was achieved in cars as well. I don't have any first-hand experience with any of these devices, just reporting what M. Fahnestock said.

Water doesn't burn. It DOES cool the combustion chamber, and prevent detonation with poor quality gasoline. It also cleans carbon off of the valves, piston, and combustion chamber. Cool, dense air does make more horsepower than dry, hot air because it contains more oxygen. Water injection back then would have been useful to help with pinging and carbon, etc.

Any engine will put out more power after sundown than when the sun is still up on a hot day. It is especially noticeable on farm tractors when pulling heavy load like a plow.

My .02¢, borrow an Operating Handbook for any airplane, read the Section on take off and other procedures on hot days, you may be surprised. Mr. Griffey is 100% correct, I would commonly shift up one gear after dark, especially on a damp day.

So there's another reason for living in the Pacific North-Wet. It's always cool and damp here.

The trouble with these devices that are powered by vacuum is that they add the most water when you don't need it (coasting and idling) and the least when you need it most (accelerating). In about l982 I built a water injection system for my l974 Dodge pick-up with a 318 engine because it had become increasingly fussy about the rotten gasoline of the day (I thought it was rotten at the time, looking back now maybe it wasn't so bad). My system used an A/C electric fuel pump through two solenoid valves (stages 1 & 2) and two needle valves (for regulation) divided between two nozzles installed in the top of the air cleaner right above the carb throats. Light throttle would activate a micro-switch which would open one of the solemoid valves and let a small amount of distilled water go through the two nozzles. Heavier throttle would open the other solenoid and let more water go to the nozzles. Experimentation with the needle valves taught me that the engine was perfectly willing to drink quite a bit of water. So much so that at one point a little water was showing up in the crankcase oil, had to back off somewhat and change the oil. Near as I could tell all this only increased my gas mileage one or two tenths. However, from the factory suggested initial timing setting of top dead center which was giving me preignition under acceleration I was able advance the setting to seven degrees btdc. This gave me no preignition and much better performance. It was almost like souping up that old 318. I apologize for being so wordy but thought some of you might like to know how the experiment worked. I was quite happy with it. Bob

Water vapor actually hurts horsepower and torque. Your Dodge may have run smoother, but water or water vapor displaces fuel and air mixture, which by definition causes there to be less ability to make power.

Supercharged engines (particularly aircraft) in days past sometimes used water or water methanol injection to cool the inlet air temperature, allowing for more supercharger pressure to be used before detonation occurs. However, this only applies to supercharged engines. The water injection itself does not increase power in these engines.

Those old gimmick devices like Paul pictures are cool to collect. I have a similar one.

The reason that no car uses water injection from the factory is that it does not help mileage or power. In modern supercharged engines typically an intercooler is used to cool the charge rather than water injection so that the amount of fuel / air mixture is not diminished by the water. By carefully controlling intake temperature through thermostatically controlled intercooling, computer controlling fuel mixture and spark events there is no benefit to water injection.

Right on , Royce! My Chickasha acquasition vaporizer definately goes into my "old gimmick devices" collection. Thanks paul

Hi, Royce. I agree, that adding the water didn't increase my horsepower but it gave me the ability to advance the ignition timing quite a bit. That's where my extra power came from. That being said, I'm not too sure but what a little water enhances combustion. Try this sometime. When you have a good sized bonfire going set the nozzle on your garden hose to a fine mist and spray the fire with it. For a few seconds before the fuel starts to get wet the flame will flare up higher. Respectfully, Bob

Robert has it right. A bit of water.... A bit of timing advance....

Paul,
When and where did you find it? I didnt see it at Chickasha on Thursday!

Jeff--------Bought it Thursday from a guy outside on the west lot. He had LOTS of interesting Model T accessory stuff. Sorry that I passed on a "bolt-on" replacement axle device which was designed to get your wheel back on, in case you broke you axle.(not sure what you did after that---rolled your car home?) I thought Chickasha was a Model T parts "festival" this year. Paul

I once read that the internal combustion engine should be considered more of an air pump. It was noted that with every gallon of gasoline burnded a gallon of water would exit the exhaust. Any truth to this?

Paul,
Yes, I remember him, he did have some nice stuff. I too admired his two broken axle tow devices. he was asking around $150 or $250 each, he had them last year too. Chances are they will be there next year. I have seen them on e-bay a couple of times they have sold for around $50-90. I have not seen one for the larger 26-27 brakes yet.

Mick,

An engine is indeed an air pump. I don't recall the chemical equations for combustion, but water is a product of combustion. The water vapor in the air will also have to come back out. Sorry, but I don't have a feel for the quantity generated. That is an interesting question and I hope someone can answer it.

When you start a cold engine, you can usually see liquid water dripping from the exhaust. Of course after it warms up the water comes out in vapor form, but it is water, nonetheless.

The water you see dripping from your exhaust can come from two sources. First, the humidity in the air, which condenses into liquid water when the hot exhaust gases cool in the time after they exit the combustion chamber.

Second, if the car has a catalytic converter, the combustion process in the catalytic converter results in the production of liquid water. Some unleaded gasolines use oxygenated fuel injector cleansing additives that contribute to this effect.

Water is a result of the combustion of fuel and oxygen in the engine, with or without any catalytic converter or water injector.
The ideal chemical reaction on a molecule level is like:
C8H18 + 12.5 O2 + 47 N2 --> 8 CO2 + 9 H2O + 47 N2

where the nitrogen gas in the air is essetially inert.

Since the specific weight of the molecules are different, the reaction looks like this with weights for one gallon gasoline:

6.3 lb fuel + 19.7 lb oxygen and 73 lb nitrogen gives roughly 8 lb water vapor, 18 lb carbon dioxide, the same 73 lb nitrogen & a lot of heat.

In the real world some pollutants are created too, but not that much in comparision.

6 lbs of gas and 8 lbs of water is roughly a gallon of each. Looks like what Mick had read was indeed correct.

So, the "carbon footprint", for a little less than a gallon of gas, is 18 pounds of carbon dioxide. I have wondered what that ratio is, and the weight of the carbon. Interesting. Thanks.