[DiscountPowerParts]

Well, 2 days ago I got the AEM intake on, easy......quick......and effective!

Today, well.......we did the Snow Performance Water/Meth injection and I am pushing 50/50 meth. WOW! Its unreal! Add 30 or so HP to this car and things begin to get a bit more....well...... interesting. This thing is getting down-right violent!

I am running the pump at the full 150 PSI, activating at 6PSI and full on at 15PSI.

All I can say, is if your in the Pittsburgh area, and your on the fence about doing this mod......come on over some time and we can take a ride! Its like superman just ripped his street clothes off and is now taking to the air! Thru the gears it pulls so hard its nuts. On a hard start with TC off I had it spinning all 4 (But after that four gear shot I smelled clutch burning.....) and it was slamming thru gears at a scary and alarming rate. The 0-80 MPH times are drastically faster. I will try to quantify the change with our G-tech accelerometer once I get time. Its still busy time in the shop, so I will wait until the end of October to get to that.

Crazy. Fun. Exciting. Adrenaline. Muscle. Power. I cant really describe it, you would have feel it!

I took pictures of the install, the bracket I made for the coolant bottle, removing the intercooler and allum intake tube going to the T-body, the MAP line, the pump and bottle positions....everything.

The stock Intercooler is a joke, mounted flat on the engine with no place for air to really go... now it does not matter! When I get the boost going, the water/meth starts flowing!

From wwwSnowPerformance.net

The Boost Cooler® is Snow Performance’s latest generation water/methanol injection system. The primary function of water/methanol injection is to provide “chemical intercooling”.

In gasoline engines, as with any intercooler, this suppresses detonation so more power producing boost and timing can be utilized. Water, with its high latent heat of vaporization cools the intake charge and combustion. Methanol cools the charge and combustion but also acts like an extremely high octane fuel (some researchers claim as high as 120 octane) as well as adding more oxygen to combustion.

A brief History:
Water injection was evaluated scientifically in the 1930’s by H. Ricardo who demonstrated that one can basically double the power output of an engine using water/methanol. The first widespread use was during WWII on supercharged and turbocharged aircraft. In 1942, the German Luftwaffe increased the horsepower of the Focke-Wulf 190D-9 fighter aircraft from 1776HP to 2240HP using 50/50% water/methanol injection. The allies soon followed by fitting the P51 Mustang and other high performance aircraft with water/methanol injection. Following the war, the turboprop aircraft industry used water/methanol injection and called it the “automatic power reserve system (APR)” for use in hot or high altitude take off. It surfaced again in the 60’s when GM used a system on the OEM turbo Corvair. It was used effectively in Formula 1 before being banned for adding too much power.

The latest competitive use is in World Rally Racing (WRC) where virtually all teams use it in some form and in diesel truck/tractor pulling competition. It is important to note that in the fall of 2004, the long standing world record in the quarter mile for diesels was broken twice (now 7.98 sec) by two different vehicles; both using the Boost Cooler® water/methanol injection system by Snow Performance.

 

[DiscountPowerParts]

insatiable desire to buy windshield washer fluid by the case!

Danger.....it is commonly used on over the road trucks that run for hundreds of thousands of miles, lowers EGTs big time, and you remember the turbo glowing red.....gone.

If you use a back yard water meth injection you could easily hydraulic the engine and blow the whole dang thing.... The snow kit is a digital box fully adjustable. I have mine at 150 PSI at the pump, flow begins at 7 PSI of boost and reaches full 150 PSI at 15 PSI of boost.

When I get time, I will show pictures.

I have a small shop in Baden PA, but today I am at the airport leaving for 6 weeks on a business trip to DFW Texas.

Larry......

 

[DiscountPowerParts]

Right now the delivery is not tuned. I got the snow stage 2 kit (at cost, I am a dealer) and I did not need any extra parts. I even took pics of the installation, but the pics are home in PA, I just got into DFW Texas this evening for a 6 week job at a nuclear plant here. When I get home I can add pictures.... sorry.

The water/meth usage is slight under normal driving because I have the control box set to not operate the pump until 7 PSI of boost, but if you hammer through the gears she sucks down the water at an alarming rate. I still need to back off the pump pressure, this will decrease the delivery rate. As it stands, these cars are tuned pig-rich, so the alcohol is not a worry for me. I can use a solid 1/2" out of the bottle in just two 1/4 mile runs (1st through 4th gear wide open throttle). I drove 50 miles to dinner last night and drove very average, I barely used any. The idea is that a 2 qt bottle should last a tank of gas driving normal. I am not running Snow boost juice, I am using regular blue windshield washer fluid (50/50 mix from the bottle).

In about 6 months there is going to be a complete stage 3 similar to what you see if you look at the diesel section. That will have a dsah mounted controler with LED display and adjustments, just like the diesels have.

The power is VERY noticable. The car was entertaining before, now its getting closer to what I want.....violent!

My plan is to find 350-400 RWHP in this car for next spring. I plan on doing the turbo back exhaust, front mounted intercooler, and upgraded turbo before spring. Then I will play at Beaver Run (race track) against my pals in thier M3 BMW cars.

I typed out the install, it was very straight forward.......I did have to fabricate the bracket for the bottle, but anyone that lives local can schedule and evening at the shop with me to get help with metal work. I have a fab shop set up, its not a big deal for me to do this kind of work.

Instructions:

Begin with the SNOW PERFORMANCE water/meth injection kit by opening the box, getting familiar with the parts of the kit and instructions. Pay particular attention to the addendums to the instructions. On the MazdaSPEED6 car, your only real option is to install the water/meth injection where the factory air box once was…… yes, this is to say that you will do a intake system prior to the injection.

Plan yourself about 5-6 hours for this install. The excessive time is nothing to do with difficulty, this is going to be very easy….. but you need to do some fabricating! This means you need to have some basic welding ability to manufacture a bracket to hold the water/meth 2-QT bottle. To keep things simple, I went and found a simpl 1”x1” angle and cut it to the exact L of the bottles W. I went to the grinder and rounded all corners and wire brushed every thing to assure a nice looking part that would not prove to be dangerous to any one working on the car later!

I made a upright out of a similar material, I started with this piece being 5” long, but ended up going to 4.75” long. The ¼” we cut off allowed us to gain a bit of clearance on the intake tube (its still tight!) and also if I were doing it again I would have tried to get the bottom hole on the bottle about 0.5” to the rear of the car to go on the OEM bolt/nut that is there! As it is on mine, the upright is setting on a simple piece of 1/8” plate steel I cut and drilled to fit on the AEM intake system’s rubber mounted bolt/nut. This alone actually is a very effective mount, and does not allow for excessive movement.

I also chose to mount the pump on the inner fender directly under the AEM intake tube. This was as simple as getting the 90 degree fittings and installing them to the pump, placing the pump on the flat inner fender, and drilling/screwing the pump down on this flat inner fender section. This is a great fit! The pump disappears under the intake, and the water/meth bottle with the nice bracket painted gunmetal grey …..(Hey, its what I had at the time!)… pretty much melt away into the car and look natural!

Now its time to get a bit closer with your car! Start by taking the plastic cover off of the Inter-Cooler. This is done by taking the 2 bolts off of the front corners. The rear is held on by a spring clip, simply ease the cover back towards the firewall about a half inch and the clip slides off the tab.

Now take a look at the intercooler, notice the gold coated bolts holding it down, you will see two along the front, and one on the back (passenger side of the back) and nothing more aside from the hose back by the firewall that comes from the turbo, and the alum intake pipe going down to the throttle body in the front. Start by looking at the alum intake tube at the front of the inter cooler, remove the black pastic part from the intake tube and reinstall the 2 bolts. Remove the hose from the turbo by loosening the bolt on the hose at the inter-cooler end and easing the rubber hose off, then remove the hose from between the throttle body and the Intercooler intake pipe by loosening the clamps on that short rubber hose between the two parts there.

Now take hold of the intercooler and ease the rear of it up a few inches until your free of that rubber hose, and rock it a bit to slide the aluminum intake (Shaped like a “U” almost) up and out.

Set the intercooler on a surface like a towel or similar, and place it upside down. Remove the four 10 mm bolts holding the aluminum intake on the Intercooler. This is what we need to do so that we can safely drill and tap for our injection nozzle. Notice that there is a raised flat boss at the throttle body end of the intake tube. This is where we will center-punch the intake (In the center of the raised/round boss) and begin drilling with a small drill bit (1/8”) and work our way up in 4 steps to a 21/64” drill bit. Once we get that done, take the included 1/8”-27 NPT tap and use a socket that will grab it, and after applying anti-seize or oil to the threads, run it in slow and steady about 2/3 of the way. Do not over run the tap! If you run the tap all the way in, you will ruin the intake! The nozzle we want to install will not get tight, it will thread right through the intake and fall in the intake without ever getting tight! Once this is drilled and tapped, clean all anti-seize and install the smallest nozzle in the kit (verified by color on the chart included in the Snow Performance kit). Install the nozzle as well as the 90 degree hose fitting.

Reinstall the intake to the intercooler, and reinstall the intercooler. Reinstall the rubber hoses.

We are almost finished! Time to get boost pressure from our intake manifold. You see coming off of the number 3 intake runner there is a nice steel 90 degree elbow that has a rubber hose coming off of it. We will cut this hose and use the supplied plastic “T” to rejoin the hose. Now the hardest part of the entire job, getting the TINY diameter hose that Snow gives you to go onto the plastic “T” that you just put in! The hose diameter is matched to the nipple on the Snow Performance control box….and this will make your fingers sore in the next 10 min! You can do it, I did!

Now we simply run this hose over to the front of the fuse box where we will Zip-Tie the control box to the OEM wire harness there, and slide the hose onto the boost reference nipple. Easy. Next take your ground wire from the Snow Performance pump and ground it on any bolt within reach. Take the red wire from the Snow Performance pump and connect it with a simple butt-connector to the green wire out of the control box. Take the red wire out of the control box and run it to a power supply (Keyed is recommended, but I went with a always on source.) Run the ground from the Snow Performance box to any bolt in steel…you have plenty of choices!

Before you start the car, adjust the control box to go live at 6 or 7 PSI of boost by turning the pot switch. Now make the fully on pressure occur at 15 PSI of boost. This will allow you to introduce the water at about 7 psi with a nice low flow, and ramp in the flow over the next 8 or 9 PSI of boost to the full flow. Since we are starting out with a small engine that has low power to begin with, we may be forced to back the pump pressure off a few turns to stop from putting the fire out! I am getting away with the full 150 PSI pump pressure for now, but I have felt a couple hard pulls where the power came and went……I was almost over watering the engine. I will back it off a bit as I play with the controller and see what I can get away with, and what I can not.

Take your car out for a ride. Your going to be amazed at how much harder and faster this thing pulls! Now the car is starting to really run! Take your time on the bracket, make it nice, paint it, smooth the edges, and don’t paint it some crazy color! The idea here is to blend into the car and disappear!

With this simple install, you just added about 30-40 RWHP to your car without adding any major components, or spending more than a few hundred bucks. We at Discount Power Parts have been running and playing with water/meth injection systems for 3 years on our competition sled-pull trucks and had great success with absolutely no failures from the system. I expect to run this MazdaSPEED 6 thru its paces and not experience any trouble whats-so-ever. I do expect lower EGT’s, more available power, and longer engine and turbo life!

Larry....

 

[DiscountPowerParts]

I did call and talk with CP-E about the OEM fuel/air ratio, and they described it to me as "pig rich" and problematic for making power. If I am running leaner than stock (I have no dobt I am) I dont think it is overly lean. I am running the smallest jet snow has, rated for under 300hp engines, and when I get back to Pennsylvania I will be pulling it back out of the shop to start cutting pump pressure. I may also add a AEM AF meter and probe in the downpipe to let me see what we have going on. I am not out to blow the engine, but if blowing the engine is a part of the learning process......so be it! I have blown MUCH more expensive engines, and you regroup and try again. I just blew apart a 521 Ford at 8500 RPM's......can you say 2 pistons on the track! I lost about 20 grand on that run. It will be back together for next season. This car is intended to be fun. I want to race it, make power, have a good time, and maybe get a new understanding of this tuner car thing.

I hope to expand my business into this tuner car direction, but before I try to market any products and talk to any folks, I have to play the game, walk a bit of the walk, and know how to talk the talk. I dont like the guy that calls me to know more than I do! So, here I am, trying to learn from you guys some of the background to assist me in getting started on a new adventure! Tuner cars.....

I love the Speed 6 because rather than starting with trash and trying to make a silk purse out of a sows ear, I am just polishing a gem. The car already handles well, runs well, and looks clean. All I have to do is finish what Mazda started and make it a true performance car!

 

[DiscountPowerParts]

I can tell you this much.....when I installed it and took the car out for a ride, I was VERY impressed. And I run Sunoco ultra 94 from the pump... My partner (in business, not life!) Patrick took the car for a ride....(Patrick thought the casr was lame and stupid) and he came back with all smiles! I had my old man take it out again for a thrashing (He is the official driver of all our 700+ HP trucks) and he said it was night and day. The amount of high end gain is unreal. Why? Is it the extra fuel added with the meth? The computer seeing the ability to toss more timing on the 116'ish octane fuel with the meth? The huge decrease in intake air temps? Could it be a combination of vastly cooler air, more fuel, and ability to allow the PCM to do as it wishes without any detonation at all? Whatever it is, it is huge. I spoke to Snow about the system and what they would expect, and they said that going off of thier VW/Acura experiance they would expect an honest to god 30 wheel HP without tuning. I say that I am seeing every bit of 20-30 HP, the car is much more fun to drive, it pulls thru each gear so much harder at full throttle, and pulls thru each gear much faster. This thing has already eaten a new Mustang GT, a Mitsu 3000GT AWD turbo car, and my pals new BMW M3. It is running well. I hope to be able to get more with tuning, but for now...there is no real option I know of that allows for air/fuel mixture and timing table adjustments. If there is a tuner/module for the car that can actually adjust all of this, and especially if it will allow me to adjust some of it.....let me know. I am game.

 

[DiscountPowerParts]

When I get back to PA I will run the car with and with-out the system armed....3 runs each. I will post the average power of each run. I have an old G-Tech from before the digital display was introduced, but it works great as a comparator. I wont set here and argue with anyone about if it makes power or not...that is like beating your head against a wall while no one is around to pitty you....But once I get the chance to be in the same state as my car, I will prove or disprove what my butt tells me. The car feels significantly quicker. Over and out...... Chill guys!

 

[DiscountPowerParts]

Wow, I need the boost controller! What is the verdict on the Turbo XS fuel/boost controller? I called and talked to them and it sounds like an easy install, no wire cutting....just use wire taps. I could then control the A/F ratio and boost. They said that there will be an upgrade avail in the future to also control timing....

For the money, this looks to be the best option out today. CP-E is trying to do the system that does timing and A/F....but as of this moment you can not buy it that I am aware of.

 

[DiscountPowerParts]

Wow, comparing a diesel tuner to a gas tuner is crazy. A diesel does not follow the same set of rules, it is dependant on the injection pressure, pulse width, and pulse timing. Your SCT looks terrible by the way. If that were properly tuned you would have a 6.0 in the area of 410-430 HP with 4" exhaust and an intake. 380 is about 40hp low, unless that is a SCT Strategy Flash tuner. If thats a custom tune, who did it? Any ways, you can not do to a gas car what you can with a diesel when talking about tuners. On a Duramax I can do a 350 HP gain with a tuner, on a 6.0 Ford I can do 160HP. On a gas.....most consider themselves lucky to get 30-40 HP tops from a tuner. The water meth kit is not comparable from gas to diesel. Take your 6.0 and toss a stage 2 or stage 3 snow performance kit on there and your talking about 80-120 HP....you will not see that from these gas powered Mazda engines. So you are dead on....it is not a good comparison for tuners or meth, but no one said you can get the same from tuners or meth on a Mazda as you can on a diesel....???? so what exactly is all that about? Diesel.....add tuner and water meth and you add almost 300 HP on your Ford as well as add 600-650 TQ.....no one here claims this is true of a Mazda! Even if you could add that much power and tq....t he engine would crack in half in the Mazda! We are talking 20-30 on the meth, maybe pushing towards 40-50 with a tune that can lean out the fuel/air and increase timing a bit. The 40-50 is not the meth alone, it is the meth and tuner working together. THis is VERY realistic.

BTW your airaid intake is what I consider the best bang for the buck, and performs as well as the AFE that goes for almost twice the cash...good call on that!

 

[DiscountPowerParts]

I installed it on mine, and I notice BIG seat-of-the-pants gains! The white knuckled passenger noticed it as well! I have the Super AFC Neo and a True Boost controller at the shop, it will soon be on the car with a wideband. Jun at APEXi has all of the wire diagrams currently and is working for a pin out for the car. He should get back to me tomorow.

Larry
Discount Power Parts

 

[DiscountPowerParts]

I dont have a 4x4 dyno to test it on, but I can tell you this......it works. Seat of the pants...the car pulls much harder, and you can use less octane fuel because the meth adds huge octane. I set mine up to come it at 7 lbs of boost and be in full at 14 lbs of boost. I dont know if you got the Snow Performance kit or what, but the Snow kit has a box you run a boost line to and it has 2 adjustable pot switches for adjusting the coming in pressure and the full flow pressure. You set the one where you want flow to start, and you set the other where you want max flow. I run the pump at the full 150 PSI max, but you can also turn pump pressure down if you need to decrease flow more. At the moment I am not running meth until I get a couple thousand miles on it with just the electronic boost control, intake, and BOV to see if the tranny is going to be OK after they rebuilt it. I dont want want to hit it to hard until I get a warm fuzzy feeling saying that the tranny is going to be OK....