Using Water Injection on a CVT Insight

[Curious Dave]

Hi everyone!! Question: Has anyone here installed a water injection system on their CVT engine to try and help improve engine performance and possibly boost MPG just a tad? I've been thinking about giving this a try and experimenting with it but am just curious if anyone has done this already? I'm not sure how the A/F ratio sensor, 02 sensor and cat. converter would be affected by this mod but I'm willing to possibly try it to find out. Any feedback on this subject would also be very appreciated.

[boogetyboogety]

Not again...

Two words... snake oil!

Two more words... stay away!

[lesdit]

I've used water injection on several turbo engines, it works great. Not snake oil, more like magic free
octane. On one engine, an air cooled VW turbocharged engine, it *really* helped an engine detonation/ping problem.

On a high compression engine like the Insight it would help a little, but not as much. It basically adds about 3 points to the octane
rating of the fuel. The car then can run the timing a little more advanced, which should get you a little more mileage.
Again, in my situations I used it for ping/detonation control to avoid damage to the engine.

You use quite a bit of water, by the way. Systems that just bubble a little air in a jar and then admit the slightly
humidified air into the engine do nothing at all. On a V8 engine the water amount is about as much as squirting a
kids squirt gun full on into the intake ! You would think it would 'put out the fire' in there, it is so much water !
I used it on a turbo VW air cooled in a bug, a RX7 rotary turbo and a 5 liter turbo V8 engine in a 2600 lb car
-Les

[gpsman1]

Piston aircraft sometimes use water for keeping the cylinders cool.
I do not think it gave more MPG, but helps with "performance" issues.

[Curious Dave]

I'm a little concerned that it might interfere with proper lubrication of the upper cylinder walls and possibly contaminate the oil supply as well. Perhaps the secret would be to use as little amount of water as possible. I will have to give this idea more thought before actually trying it. Thanks for the feedback thus far! Much appreciated!!

[Aaron Cake]

There's no real point in the Insight's naturally aspirated engine with (relatively) low compression. A very tiny mist may help in the same sense that a humid day seems to make the car run smoother but as far as mileage and power increases, you won't get either.