Not wishing to teach Grannies to suck eggs,has no-one thought of the obvious.

Its eco-friendly,its from a renewable source & best of all its FREE.

And what is this wonder fluid? - Rain Water.

Before you go on about acid rain & Desert dust & pollution.Filter it through your wine/beer kit paper filters or your wife's old tights!You must have one or the other.

Another use is if you dont have time for a full leather dry after washing the Scoob.Chuck a bucket of rain water over from the water butt.No water marks guaranteed.

Your butt needs to be spotless for this.No zitts.

Rain water starts on the ground,evaporates into clouds,condenses into rain drops.Will be limescale free.Physics lesson over.

Mark

[Edited by FLAT ERIC - 7/1/2002 11:35:10 PM]

 

MY02 Sti. My IC water spray light has come on for the first time and need to know just what type of water can go in there.

I know it has to be purified water, but surely someone out there has had the same questions and gone out and found the best solution.

Please let me know as it is warming up out there and my baby needs cooling down a bit now and again...

Cheers

Simon

 

i have an imported classic shape STi and it has only ever been used with tap water. guess thats purified enough to spray onto an intercooler. if its good enough to drink its good enough to go on my engine.
i imagine with purified, they just mean dont use puddle water or water from the sea or something as it will have all crud in it which could block the jets.

 

I heard that tap water has lime content and iron content, or something like that. Over time this causes limescale build up on the pipes and in the jet(s).

Remember seeing a post on here some time ago about different waters that can/can't be used. Like distilled water etc...

Simon

 

Am I on another planet or is this a '**** taking'' post!

Tap water is fine - everyone uses it... as far as silting up with lime goes - yeah maybe after about 20 yrs use..

 

Of course if you feel better putting in distilled water... then I wish I had a job like yours

 

yorkshiresimon,
i wouldnt think that this would cause too much of a problem. theres no build up on mine and its a MY94.
maybe you should move up to scotland where the waters clear.

 

Steve

Thanks for the, erm, constructive comments/criticism....

Maybe you are right, maybe tap water is fine. However, my question is a serious one and not a '**** take' as you call it. I do recall reading a thread regarding this a few months ago and there were various comments on what water to use, and what not to use.

As with anyone else on here who posts questions, I look for a number of constructive responses to which I can gauge my own course of action to take.

Thanks

Simon

 

If your than concered about the tap water, just boil the kettle let it cool and hey presto distilled water!!!

Edited to say I also have an STi UK.

Rob.



[Edited by Rob D - 6/26/2002 3:25:37 PM]

 

Cosworth recommend distilled for our Focuses so go that way...

 

Cheers Rob/Dave

I was thinking along the distilled water lines as well. Is that right then, boil it, let it cool, and you have distilled water... Nice one if so...

Cheers

Simon

 

1. I reckon perrier is good.

2. boiling the kettle and letting it cool will NOT give you distilled water. boiling the kettle dry, and condensing all the steam from the spout, on the other hand, will. boiling the kettle will kill the bacteria in the water and make it safe for drinking.

3. if you really want to be poncy about your water, go to halfords and buy de-ionised battery top up water. this is about as clean as you can get.

 

Sure, i've read on here that some of the guys add pure alcohol to the water to help reduce intake temps. further,(think how cold alcohol is on the skin).This would also probably help stop any limescale build up from tap water.

 

I am not sure than you would want alcohol added to your intercooler water sprayer.

Boiling the jug/kettle what ever you want to call it, is the next best thing to using distilled water as it gets rid of almost all of the lime out of the water. Which is the biggest problem here as it blocks your jets and scales the intercooler.

[Edited by submannz - 6/26/2002 10:52:04 PM]

 

Hi Simon,

The official line from the STI course the dealer mechanics have been on is that you should use deionised (pure) water. Apparently it was stressed quite heavily. Extended use of tap water with all the added chemicals at best clogs the intercooler in the same way you get deposits in a steam iron or kettle. At worst it can eat through the metal.

Your local chemist should stock it. At a pinch you could get away with a water purifier depending on where you live (hard vs soft water). Subaru don't make money out of selling pure water so I have taken the recommendation on good faith from one of the best Scooby mechanics in the trade.

Ken

 

Cheers guys

Like I said in my earlier post, it is good to get constructive comments from people who know because they have asked the same questions. And this is the sort of mixed results I wanted to here.

Thanks...

Enough said for me, I will be going for the deionised water for my baby, only the best as they say.

Thanks again

Simon

 

Given that the STi IC jets cost about £15 and the rest of it is a pump and washer hosing, I'm taking my chances with tap water.

Adding coolant to the water reduces the cooling effect. Not sure about alcohol. Is the main heat loss due to the latent heat of vaporisation of the spray fluid?

 

Don't need to go to a chemist or a specialist water purifier for de-ionised (aka distilled water). Go to halfords. Its battery top up water.

And you are WRONG if you think boiling the kettle will stop limescale buildup. It will not.

>>John Banks said: Is the main heat loss due to the latent heat
>> of vaporisation of the spray fluid?

Yes. The volume of liquid sprayed onto the intercooler is small, and thus has little effect.

Adding alcohol to the system is not really going to be worth the trouble... Yes, it's more readily evaporable, but, it takes considerably less energy to evaporate it, thus the cooling effect is reduced. Which weighs against the gains.

You would likely only expect a benefit if you used a high proportion of alcohol. However, since your evaporate would not be a supersaturate of water, the mixture would probably be explosive. Which is not a good choice for under your bonnet.

All in all, it's probably best to stick with water.

 

LOL at Slippyr4

So you don't reckon a litre of Metholated spirits in the IC bottle is a good idea then

I think i'll be getting me distilled water from Halfords...

Cheers

Simon

 

Checked with my dealer and DI water is recommended, fortunately we use a lot of it at work for our processing. We pay just over £6 for 45 litres, a lot cheaper than car parts stores, if anyones interested i can supply a cost.

simon

 

An alcohol/water mix are used in water injection systems. These systems inject the alcohol/water mix into the air intake, either before or after the turbo as opposed to the intercooler water spray systems. These just spray a fine mist of water over the intercooler.

H

 

Peckham spring mate.

 

LOL at Scooberators

Went into Halfords last night and bought two 5 litre bottles of battery water.

Guy looked at me gone out behind the counter, said I should buy a new battery if it is that bad. Made me laugh all the same..

Cheers

Simon

 

Next time you'll be in there buying 10 of them when you see how quick you'll run out. Wonder what the bloke behind the counter is going to say to you then.

Cheers,

wrexy.

 

I'd agree with KenG, same advice given to me by my dealer's mechanic. Tap water will cause problems (long term) use distilled. I got a friend to check what was supplied with my car and it has distilled (de-ionised) in it.


hawkeye

[Edited by hawkeye - 6/28/2002 2:57:18 PM]

 

Simon,
You live in a "hard" water area, unlike some of the people posting here. ordinary tap water in you case will eventually clog up your system. Use either DI water, or buy yourself one of those "Brittas" water filters - which take out 95% of the limestone from the water.

[Edited by JGRIFF - 6/28/2002 10:20:33 PM]

 

I used normal tape water for the first 6 months of scooby ownership and notice that the standard tapwater had started to attack some of the metal in the engine bay.

Now I use boiled water for both the IC spray and for my direct water injection via GEMS.

all working fine for over 2 years now.

Latest suggestion, use brita filter to remove crap from water, then boil kettle, wait to cool and put in bottle!!

 

If all you've got to worry about is what water to use, you guys really should get out more

As said above, boiling is pointless. Use a Brita filter. The missus says it tastes better, too. Bu99ered if I can tell, though, and I bet your intercooler spray won't be able to tell, either

Regards,

Richard.

 

Guys,

Up here in Scotland our water is of better quality than the reprocessed p1sh u lads have to tolerate, so it`s not a problem here. Even so many moons back whilst intalling a laser cutting machine we invested a whole £55 on a tap water de-ioniser. As recommended by the manufacturer. The canister fitted onto a std tap and water was slowly fed through it and out into a 50L tank.
The canisters were good for 1000 litres or something like that and there is a window on them that changes colour when they r caput

If any1 want`s more info gimme a shout, I`m sure i can still get the canisters. I`d imagine they maybe slightly more expensive now though as that was about 6 years ago. But can enquire if any1 interested.

L8r
Pete

[Edited by teknopete - 6/30/2002 10:40:14 PM]

 

all this faffing about & cost, im gonna use tap water & if in several years time my IC has clogged up, ill buy a new (2nd hand) IC with the money ive saved on fancy water.