Failsafe FTW!
 

Early last year I posted about the Failsafe Mechanism I'd build to reduce boost in the event of a failure of the WI system. Since that post, I'd also equipped the system to switch tables in the MS, drastically retarding ignition timing in the bosted cells when the system was inactive as well.

This morning, that system saved my ass (well, my engine's ass, anyway.)

Long story short- on the morning commute to work, I'm stoplight racing a dude in a Volvo S80 (3.0T) on El Camino. Let him have the first one, toyed with him on the second one, then on the third one I dropped the hammer. 'Bout the time I get halfway through second I notice two things- I'm not pulling nearly as hard as I should, and the grinning douchebag in the Volvo is passing me.

Got to the office, popped the hood, and find that one of my water lines has popped off. These are the plastic bodied fittings with the colorful "depress to remove" rings. The hose stayed in the ring, but the whole quick-disconnect ring came out of the body of the fitting.

Anyway- lesson for the day: Water Injection is the enabler of much awesomeness. But with great power comes great responsibility- design your systems to be fault tolerant.

good job joe im impressed it worked If i was as savy as you i would have something similiar :bigtu:

Of course if you built the system to not be so dependent on WI to make power safely you wouldn't have had a water line blow off and you woulda smoked that volvo driving soccer dad.

If you built the system to not be so dependent on WI to make the power safely, why have the water in the first place?

congrats.....so many meth injected suby's I know got saved by the failsafe its an ABSOLUTE MUST, non-negotiable mandatory thing that you should have if injecting water/meth..

Well bud lemme lay this out for you doing his hp and safety lvl without WI would entail more tunning and quite possibly a bigger intercooler etc and more fueling. And in the end alot more money time and hassle. WI is king and IC's are for lazy people.

Picture of the failed part:

http://img33.picoodle.com/img/img33/...gm_1596b75.jpg


Those of you familiar with WI plumbing in general will recognize this piece. For those who aren't, this is the end of a coupler which provides the press-fit mechanism to retain the tube. That silver bit is supposed to be captive in the end of a hard plastic housing. The rest of the fitting is still on the car. What's surprising is that this part wasn't under any serious mechanical stress, and it's been on there for a year and a half, working just fine. For some reason it picked this morning to fail. I have had this piece on and off the car several times, and it's possible that I bumped it and cracked something a while ago.

And to think that I always used to worry about the hose pulling out of the press-fit ring. Turns out that's the strongest part of the coupler. :rolleyes:

Anyway, I called Speedware, and Kelly is out all week. Something about having a baby or some such nonsense. I didn't realize men could have babies, so I don't get what all the fuss is about... Anyway, ordered a new one from Chance @ DevilsOwn, which, God willing, will be here before I have to move across the country.


To answer Paul, here's my take: WI is something that you can add to an otherwise well designed and well tuned engine to turn it up to eleven and make it give you just that little bit extra. In fact, I do run a front-mount intercooler. And my fuel and ignition tables are pretty well dialed in. But back when I first installed the system, I found that, without changing anything else at all, WI gave me back at least 5° of timing at the upper end of the map- I was previously right on the edge of audible knock, and I'm now running more timing and still have some margin.

Regardless of how efficient your intercooler is or how perfect your fuel tables are, by adding WI you will be able to increase the boost just a bit more, or advance the timing just a bit more, or even just get a little safety buffer against a tank of bad gas- especially out here in California where the best we can get is 91 octane that contains up to 20% cat urine by volume.

The key is to make sure that a failure of the WI system (which, quite frankly, does contain a lot of cheap moving parts) does not cause the destruction of the engine. It's not difficult or expensive to design the system in a properly fail-safe configuration, you just have to know to do it in the first place.

All I'm saying is my method would have had you grinning at the volvo driver instead of the other way around.

Never ever e-v-e-r underestimate a Volvo.

Yes... I am Sweeedish!

Lession learned. Well done.

I had a question about this. Can I use the greddy multi switch thing with the emu to trigger a map switch? I have been looking, and It seems like the only thing I can do with it, is trigger the emu to log, or use it with nos or something. Would it be better to just replace the dip switches on the front with something that could be triggered by wi failsafe?

The "Multi-Switching System" wasn't really designed for the EMU. There is one adapter that lets you use it to retard timing by a fixed amount, but that's it.

Now, there's one other option in the dropdown, for the "External Switch", which is much more useful:
http://img32.picoodle.com/img/img32/...hm_a312efe.gif

From here, you can enable any one function listed. Now, the problem is that you've only got two OPTION inputs, and if you're not a flaming retard then they're both filled (MAP and WBO2) so this is pretty useless.

It might be. You could also try replacing the EMU with something that isn't gay.

Nice save, Joe. Where ya movin to?