Water-Alcohol Vapor Infusion System ( EWAI )

Actually platinum is an amazing (and expensive) catalsyt used in industry (and catalytic converters) becuase trace amounts of platinum can indeed speed up combustion remarkably even in ppm quantities.
However the OP is not using Platinum.

OP is trying to utilize "evaporative cooling" to cool the air into the engine (to cool down his radiator becuase he is hauling a 1900-lb RV...). He is trying to cool the air by vaporizing an alcohol/water mixture. I am thinking there might be a better way such as auxilliary add-on radiator.

 

might want to keep an eye on cvt temp also. The thing is the car is not set up for towing, so doing things to keep engine and cvt temp down may just cause a different type of issue like working the hybrid parts to hard. so I think the OP is playing with fire so to speak.

water injection can cool the engine a lot from what I understand so it may be an effective method for this issue of overheat in 100 deg weather towing. If this is how the prius will be used frequently I think it would be wise to pull the trailer with a auto made with towing in mind.

 

The central problem.

A Fred and his money are quickly parted. He extols the virtues of his investment in hopes of bringing more Freds into alignment with his viewpoint. Of course, this is never malicious, but just a matter of enthusiasm (instead of the wiser skepticism) and doubling-down with other people's investments. Because the more popular, the less he can be wrong, right?

At some point down the line, he may eventually come to the conclusion that the device didn't actually work (pure snake oil), or worked either minimally or at-a-high-drawback (some popular mods-not-to-be-named) to be not really worth the cost/effort from a practical/performance sense.

The device then comes quietly off the car (or just isn't opted-for in the next vehicle)... and the mistake is never admitted to and nullified out there in greater society.

Meanwhile, the myths of the device/mods are perpetuated by either word-of-mouth, or linger about in Internet form.

 

I don't think distance will affect vacuum as long as there is no leaks. I used drip watering stuff like .5 gal hr mister and used a section of clear tubing so I could see how much water was going into the intake. and also had a shutoff so when it ran out I could shut off so I had no vacuum leak. I did have problems with changes in the amount of vacuum the engine had in different situations. My eventual goal was to have a larger tank in the back with a pump that came on with engine if the switch for the pump was in the on position. anyway I never did it because I got a new prius c and I am not going to mess with it very much. I have blocked the grill upper and lower, in these cool temps the engine has to run often so I am thinking of enclosing the under engine area like it is in the regular prius.

Good luck with your system, but I reccomend if you are towing very much get something else to do it. Just my opinion

 

engerysaver

that look so promising, can't wait to see all final product. Please post all pics if you cann, I just want to do exactly what you did.

V/r

Khoi Nguye

 

If we are not allowed to call snake oil snake oil, this forum will be nothing but K&N filter and Royal Purple threads.

I try to expose the bad ideas, not attack people.

 

And again in 1975 gas will be unleaded and ethanol free, while in 2013 gas is lead free and has 10% ethanol already.

So with totally different inputs, you hope to show 40 year old testing on a car without fuel injection, unlike 100% of cars today, is still relevant.

 

I say let the OP do what he wants while we watch his Prius croak pulling a 1900 lb. RV. Plenty of Prius to replace it if need be.

 

The next time I want to improve the fuel efficiency of a carburated, 1970's car, I'll give it a tumble.
Why are you trying to run your "Like" numbers up BTW???

Did I miss some new Prius Point Giveaway announcement???

I concur.
Let him post his posts....let others post theirs.
More info....more truth.

Why stifle debate?

 

;-)

Mobile on my SGH-i717

 

All I can say is some people are extremely gullible but, I'm not one of them. Enjoy the needless debate friends, I'm out.

PS: Press "like" if you like me (lol)

 

well I guess many of you will blame the experiment if he has any engine problems. but it will more likely be due to over working the prius engine. and towing in high temp with a poor little car designed for light work and great mpg.

I would say that most of the things we do with are cars to get better mpg be difficult to prove. like pulse and glide I haven't seen any EPA study that confirms that you get any better mpg than driving steady. yet it is true you do get better mpg pulse and glide.

some of the posts are not helpfull, some questioning of the mod. is fine. but don't loose sight of the OP this is to cool the engine under extreme conditions of towing in 100 deg heat. injecting water/alchol seemed to work for him. and the concept of that type of system cooling an engine is known with race cars. do a search and there are kits out there and Im pretty sure they do work. usually on turbo charged engines. If the OP trys the system out and his engine temp drops then I'm thinking it cools the engine even if many don't believe.

someone could also mist water on the radiator and this will increase the amount of heat the radiator can remove from the coolant. this would be a simple mod using a portable mister tip and an rv water pump.

I do question the wisdom of using an innocent prius to pull that trailer.

 

But what if there's money in it for you?

 

You're missing much of this entire thread if you think he's injecting anything. This an un-pressurized system. There is no atomizer/injector in the intake. The intake span of the tubing does not actually access any fluid*, but to the air space at the top of the reservoir. A separate length of tubing that goes into the bottom/fluid side is there merely to let air in. As a whole, this is a bubbler/car bong powered by the modicum of negative pressure there is on the intake side. Very little of this fluid is ever consumed, i.e. makes it into the engine. That should tell you something.

* - speculation was should the intake span actually ingest and pass along any significant amount of fluid, say, from sloshing about... this might have some bad ramifications for the engine.

Do not confuse this with an actual water-injection system, since they exist for much different reasons, for much different engines, and are implemented much differently. Do understand that there are people who know more than the mere, "what has been done," from a moment of Googling, but rather the "why," and the "how." We can see that this is not one of those systems. Even had it been a bona fide water injection system, you might not be able to get more out of the Prius' Atkinson cycle engine, and it might even incur some real problems.

This is like sticking a straw into a nostril, and waving the other end near an open bottle of Gatorade, and calling it a glucose IV drip.

And yeah, there will be people who will declare, "I feel better already!"

This *could* actually do something, although the OP said nothing about any sort of overheating issue. That said, I think the copious amounts of water vapor that this would generate (and condense into visible steam; water vapor is actually transparent, it's the microcondensates that are visible as steam) out of the engine compartment would cause a bit of concern to both driver and passing cars.

 

I knew if we pulled on this thread long enough that we would get to the 200MPG carburetor.
Just imagine.
A car built in the 50's...or 60's.....
Getting 200 MPG!

Heck.....that's almost four times the measly 50+MPG that I get from my G3.....and they built some pretty fun cars back then!

 

This thread has officially jumped... er... hypermiled the shark.