It's been a while since I added anything about my diesel project. I posted about adding some bar end mirrors and signals, but nothing about the other things I've been working on... mostly because I've been very short on time and my girfriend had a family emergency to boot...
Still, I've gotten a lot done since Christmas. From start to finish, I built a system to inject water into the fuel/air supply. The purpose was to increase fuel efficiency, of course.
I used an old scuba "pony" tank (a small supplementary tank) as a tank, rebuilt my Mikarb to act purely as a float/control valve, and installed a product called a "Dial-A-Jet" which is designed to inject fuel on a supplementary basis into a carburetor, to improve the power curve of any engine. After some discussion with the tech guy at Thunder Products (Lon) we agreed it could work, so I ordered one.
I built a ramscoop to help funnel air to the diesel (the more air the better, with diesels) and used a cheap circular air filter as a cleaner. On the side of the ramscoop, I drilled and cut a mounting for the dial-a-jet, so the jet is pointing directly into the air intake, inside the air filter itself.
The Mikuni carb I mounted on a plate sitting at a point just below the seat and level with the Dial-A-Jet. Tapping a hole into the base of the Mikkarb bowl, a small hose connects the Dial-A-Jet. Using the mounting points for the old dual seat, I built a frame to hold the scuba tank, and then I tapped and threaded two extra holes into the tank itself, one for the water feed, and one at the top as an air bleed. The main tank hole I used as a water filler tube, adding a 90 degree pipe and a brass cap.
It appears to work as indicated; water flows into the engine in proportion to the speed of the engine or the amount of air it is inhaling. How much efficiency it will add will be discovered over the course of many runs!
I added a oil temp meter becuase I found one pretty cheap and was working on the electrics anyway; it now sits under my cylinder temp meter and gives me a pretty good overall monitoring of the whole of the engine.
The electrical work is all comlete on my HID (high intensity discharge) headlight system, although I am still wrestling with one gremlin, my off switch. I wired my engine kill switch (which I don't use on the diesel) to act as a simple ON/OFF for the headlamp; but so far, the headlamps come on no matter what. I will need to check the wiring of the relay that controls the headlamp. At any rate, the HID is installed, it is very bright, and works fine except at a very low idle with a low battery it will start to flicker.
For those who have read earlier postings on this subject, the problem with diesels is that the generator only produces 48 watts - at 3600 RPM! This means that a standard lamp cannot be successfully powered by a diesel engine generator, much less all the other running lights.
I've converted to 100% LEDs and a 35W HID headlamp to solve this issue, and it is on the borderline of being solved. I'm still under the impression that the wattage produced at 1500RPM (a medium idle) is probably only 25-35W total, which still leaves me a little short.
I'll keep working on it.
Lastly,while working on the headlamp, i added a headlamp visor. Why not? Looks good, I think!