36 replies to this topic

[ohsuchislife]

Just want to know your views on water heading a inlet manifold ... is it a good thing or bad thing .. i have fitted a HIF44 with a manifold that has water heading pipes but have not used them .. if i was from where would i take it from ...

love your thoughts

[haz]

assume you mean water heated?

They're pretty much useless in the uk to be honest. They whole point of them is to stop carb icing (a problem more associated with old motorbikes than cars)... you might get carb icing if you live really close to a motorway and your engine is cold when you are doing 70mph when its like -10°C outside. Unlikely to say the least.

Other than that, it will lose you power as your inlet air temp will go up.

Having said all that... I still plumbed mine in as I didnt like seeing something not connected lol

[ohsuchislife]

thought as much .. i was going to grind the pipe inlets off just to make it look good .. i hate things not being piped up ..

[Sprocket]

The heated manifold is a very important piece of kit. It will keep your engine running correctly in all ambients and driving conditions. Leave it off in the winter and you will have to retune the carb, and then retune for the summer. It has nothing to do with carb icing

Far from USELESS

[ohsuchislife]

so where is it taken from then .. i mean what pipe is used to heat it

[crum01]

It's a case of diverting the water hose going to the radiator, you will probably need some extra hose. The only problem I had when fitting on my old mini was the hose that was on the mini was the wrong size for the inlet manifold, I had to increase the hose size going to the inlet manifold and decrease it coming off.

[Cooperman]

I can never quite see the point of heating an inlet manifold. If they need them on later cars, why didn't they need them on the Cooper and Cooper 'S'?
You even have tuned cars fitterd with 'cold air boxes' to ensure that the petrol/air inlet charge is as cold, and thus as dense, as possible to give the optimum power so why is heating the charge before it gets into the combustion chamber thought to be a good thing?
The old rule I learnt in 'Engine Technology' at college was that the colder the inlet charge the more potential power there was in it.
On some turbo-charged cars you even have an intercooler to ensure the air is as cold as possible going into the engine and thus maximise efficiency.
I never connect the hot water pipes to any manifold and my cars don't need re-tuning for Winter or for Summer.

[lrostoke]

I never connected mine up purely for the reason that the pipes looked ugly
Never had any issues with it like that in 2 years. Even on morning where the doors have been frozen shut.

[satvinder]

when air warms up it becomes less dence ( kinda like theres less air around) this will mean that less air goes in the engine so its useless unless urlive some where, where theres big drops in temprature!!! if it hot outside then the manifolds gonna get even hotter and air will be less dence. ur manifold attached to the engine and sits over the exhauset its gonna get really hot as it is. so in my mind uselass

[Nightrain]

The water heated manifold was introduced to help atomization of the fuel. Which in turn helps combustion efficiency, which will reduce emissions. A mixture that has been turned into a gas is easier to burn/ignite than one that still has large fuel droplets in it.

[Cooperman]

In other words it's an emissions thing. Might have guessed as much.
Arguably the finest Minis were the Cooper 'S' Mks 1 & 2. They never had or needed a water heated inlet manifold and the theory of heating up the inlet charge pre-entry flies in the face of all established theories about cold air/petrol mix having a greater capacity for burn efficiency. My old 2003 Rover 75 Turbo had a water heated inlet and when the manifold failed the engine blew up! That manifold was water heated to improve emissions, apparently.
The established fact is that the cooler and damper the air going in, the better will be the burn. In some sophisticated engines they even have cold water spray injection into the inlet manifold to promote better a expansion ratio when the mixture burns.
Water heated manifolds really aren't necessary on a Mini.

[ECG317W]

Slight unrelate, but the same is true in the aviation industry with jet engines. They work more efficiently when there's drizzle or light rain as the added moisture in the air aids combustion.

[Cooperman]

Quite right. Jet engines love a bit of cold water in the front. They have the same problem with a warm mixture at the intake and lose a lot of power. in fact, 'hot & high' airfield tests are a part of the ttest programme for all aircraft and engines as this is where their take-off performance is poorest. It's exactly the same as the situation with the internal combustion engine.
A few years ago, together with a friend, I looked at a water injection system for the Mini. It needed a microprocessor to control the amount of water to be injected linked to throttle input, revs, and other variables and that cost, plus the dyno time to develop it made it not economically viable, but we believed we could have gained a few bhp here and there.
A simplified system could, perhaps, have a fixed rate of water flow through a small spray nozzle in the inlet manifold, the actual optimum rate determined by dyno testing, at full throttle over, say, 4500 rpm.

[Nightrain]

Agree with all of the above, back in the seventies vizard built his economy motor with water injection. He got some amazing results touring around the states.
It's possible to run a much higher compression ratio, which helps economy no end. The water prevents detonation problems associated with the higher compression ratio.

[satvinder]

Quite right. Jet engines love a bit of cold water in the front. They have the same problem with a warm mixture at the intake and lose a lot of power. in fact, 'hot & high' airfield tests are a part of the ttest programme for all aircraft and engines as this is where their take-off performance is poorest. It's exactly the same as the situation with the internal combustion engine.
A few years ago, together with a friend, I looked at a water injection system for the Mini. It needed a microprocessor to control the amount of water to be injected linked to throttle input, revs, and other variables and that cost, plus the dyno time to develop it made it not economically viable, but we believed we could have gained a few bhp here and there.
A simplified system could, perhaps, have a fixed rate of water flow through a small spray nozzle in the inlet manifold, the actual optimum rate determined by dyno testing, at full throttle over, say, 4500 rpm.

it have to be a cold water spray nozzle, and set at the right velocity and amount otherwise ud just end up fluddin the engine.

and yaaa boy to cooperman. ive just done 2 years of aerospace engineering!!! just ent got a aerospace job!!!

i never had the water pipe but ive takin it of a few of my mates minis and they have prefered it aswell. it also helps with coolin a mini because you arnt running hot water into a hot manifold!!!!!