I would like some advice about water injection please.  I will explain my situation I live off grid in the UK have been doing so for the last 19 years.  For most of that time I have been running old Lister 8/1 engined Startomatics on WVO. No preheating just a thermostat to get the engine up to temperature quick.  One thing I have noticed is that when I first get an engine thats been run on diesel all its life it starts first compression.  However when starting on WVO it takes progressively more turning over to start on cold WVO.  Not a big problem because its electric start.  But not ideal also when doing a decoke I find a lot of erosion occurring above the top piston ring. So I fit a new piston and away we go again.

I have managed to acquire an almost brand new 1974 8/1 Startomatic.  It was bought in 1974 when we had 3 months of power cuts to provide power for a Mansion house in Oxfordshire.  It looks brand new no wear on anything.  Probably done about 300 hours in total.  With this bit of kit I want to set it up right.  I've cast a concrete base and bolted it to that.  It runs so smooth on red diesel at the moment.

I intend to start on red and after 15 mins when the engine is warm changeover to WVO run on that until shut down then change over to red for long enough to start on red diesel next start.  This will be controlled by an Arduino.  Before I run on WVO I intend to fit water injection again controlled by the Arduino.  The Arduino will be used to control a mains operated peristaltic pump this way I can control exactly the amount of water injected per given load.  The 8/1 uses about 500ml fuel per Kwh. 

So the question is how much water to inject the same amount as fuel or less?
Another thought would steam injection be better?  Because I am using a peristaltic pump I could wrap 3/16 copper brake pipe round the exhaust and inject steam in to the inlet manifold.

For the last 5 months 12 hours a day I have been running a genuine 8/1 engined 4.5 kw Start O Matic on unheated WVO. No dual fuel just the clear runny stuff from the top of the barrel filtered to 5 microns. I have not had to pull the head off yet. It starts ok but I have the benefit of electric start.

I have just had 2 injectors serviced and according to my Lister manual the pressure should be set at.

1323 psi for the 6/1  8/1 and 12/2 engines at 20 deg BTDC injection setting.
 
2205 psi for the 16/2 engine at 26 deg BTDC injection setting.

This got me thinking and asking questions off the man who was servicing my injectors. Why is the injector set higher for a 16/2 engine when a 16/2 is basically a twin cylinder version of the 8/1 engine they both run at the same speed 850 rpm. He couldn't tell me why but he did tell me that the higher pressure setting was why the timing had been advanced and that the actual injection point when the injector injects into the cylinder would be the same. Because of the increased pressure the pump had to start pumping earlier for injection to occur at the same point. In fact he said the actual timing occurred even later because the setting is for spill timing not when it actually injects.

I got him to set one injector to 1323 psi and the other to 2205 psi. My plan is to try the 2205 psi injector in my 8/1 engine with the timing set to 26 BTDC. I reckon this could be a good improvement for running on WVO. Higher pressure coming out of the injector sounds good to me. I don't intend to do this job immediately but will do when it gets a bit warmer.

Anybody else got any comments.

Mick