Cooler gasoline will help to resist knock, but too cool it will give vaporization problems. Cooled gasoline have also been used in racing, it can also allow more fuel in the car if the regs specify fueltanks by volume or the fuel will take up less space if it's specified in another way (by weight or energy content).
For some time ago in F1 they cooled the fuel below ambient temperature (that's not allowed anymore), but at least one time the fuel tank bursted in the start of the race when the engine stalled (the fuel in the full tank then expanded).
Waterinjection was used in WW2 aeroengines as a "boost fluid", the water, or water-alcohol (antifreeze) to be correct was injected so the boost could be increased under shorter periods. On NA engines the gains are small since the only thing we can do is advance ignition timing. This can be used anytime when extra power is needed (fuel octane wasn't that high back then) but I'll guess that the most important was for take off.
But waterinjection has also other downsides except uneven mixture of water, that's corrosion and lower engine efficiency. However, I know Saab did some experiments on this injecting windshield washer fluid instead of enrich the fuel mixture at higher load, and don't know what happend to the concept though.
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03-23-2004, 08:39 AM
