[Amc-list] Re; Water Injection

["John Elle" <johnelle@xxxxxxxxx>]

John,
I think the water injection on old tractors was to compensate
 for poor quality gasoline or kerosene.
Don
 
Actually with 4:1 compression in 1915 or so, there was no
poor quality gasoline or kerosene per say, it was the best 
stuff they had at the time and it ran sort of ok. Water 
injection though was used to stop detonation which could 
be induced by improper setting of the timing and other 
variables such as improper mixture etc. etc. when the engine 
was loaded or under power. Remember, these things were 
set manually in many cases or under poor automatic control
due to early design limitations.
The point is, change your times, add some boost, raise the 
compression, change the gasoline or increase the altitude, 
and the basic function is still there, it is used to eliminate 
knocking taking place in the combustion chamber of an engine
and has been around for about 100 years. At any given 
"power" setting you will increase power if you are eliminating 
the "knock" caused by detonation or early ignition timing
thus saving the engine and increase the capability of developing
higher power. Of course if you are increasing power, it 
stands to reason that you could be wearing out the engine 
faster which is why a 500 cubic inch AA Fuel Dragster 
developing upwards of 5000+ horsepower has a life span 
that can be measured in min. rather than in thousands of
miles.  
Timing was adjusted by listening for knock under given 
conditions and then moving the timing control usually on the 
steering wheel until the audible knocking sound disappeared. 
This type of control was used well into the 30's before the 
advent of automatic control of timing. In the crudest form 
and under given circumstances, timing was used to adjust
the speed of the engine, retard timing to slow it down and 
advance timing to speed it up. Of course this was used under
 a very narrow set of circumstances but some engines 
such as out board motors this was till done up into the 40's. 
To change speed, you re-set the timing and adjusted the 
main metering jet to optimize the running of the engine.
There was no throttle butterfly in the carburetor to do this 
with. 
John. 
 
 
 
 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.amc-list.com/pipermail/amc-list/attachments/20070803/3f0a7128/attachment.htm 
_______________________________________________
Amc-list mailing list
Amc-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.amc-list.com/mailman/listinfo/amc-list