Installing Snow Performance Methanol/Water Injection

Guys and gals, grab your safety goggles; we're going to show you a great way to make big power and do it safely using two relatively new safety devices. Obviously, practicing a little self-restraint when it comes to tuning your supercharged or turbocharged ride will go a long way, but we wanted to tune you in to a couple of neat safety devices that can save your motor in the event of engine knock, detonation, or in our case, the lack of water/methanol flowing freely into the engine.

We've worked with Woodland Park, Colorado-based Snow Performance before and have shown you the benefits of using the company's water/methanol injection kit on both pushrod and modular powerplants. In this article, we'll once again show you what the water/ methanol injection can do-this time on a super-charged Two-Valve powerplant-in addition to showing you how Snow Performance has taken the next step in its water/meth system's develop-ment with its new SafeInjection control unit.

"Water/methanol injection is great, and our systems are engineered for reliability," says Matt Snow of Snow Performance, "but in the case where you run out of fluid with an aggressive tune, many want the peace of mind that this system provides."

The chemical intercooling properties of the water/methanol mixture allows the end user to run more ignition timing than normal. If you run out of the boost juice, though, an aggressive timing table can mean bad things for the engine.

The user-friendly nature of Snow Perfor-mance's Boost Cooler system means a lot of people use it on their street cars. Let's face it, we've all run a few miles over our next oil change at some point, so what's to say you won't forget to fill up the Boost Cooler reservoir? Snow Performance is here to prevent anything bad from happening should you have an absent-minded moment.

Snow's SafeInjection is a handy piece of hardware that monitors the flow of the water/ meth mix. If the mixture stops flowing, the unit sends a 12-volt signal which, in addition to illuminating a warning bulb, can be used to trip numerous devices that can activate a bypass solenoid or wastegate to open and dump boost or, as in our case with the J&S Electronics SafeGuard, reduce timing.

The J&S SafeGuard control unit is a handy piece of hardware that retails for about $600 and is wired into the coil packs of your '96-'04 Mustang GT. It can detect engine knock using the available Bosch sensor and pull timing through the coil packs to save both your engine and your pocketbook from melting down. What's better is that the J&S unit can be triggered to work via a 12-volt source, such as the one from Snow Performance's SafeInjection, so in effect, you'll have two safety devices working together to protect your underhood investment.

Snow Performance's SafeInjection unit (PN 30020) retails for around $100-a small price to pay for engine longevity. It's also extremely easy to install.	Our subject vehicle was equipped with the J&S Electronics SafeGuard, which is an individual cylinder knock-control system that's designed to pull timing when it senses engine knock or detonation. It can also be triggered by a 12-volt signal, like the one from the Snow Performance SafeInjection.	The J&S SafeGuard is almost as easy to install as the SafeInjection unit. You can adjust the sensitivity of the knock sensor, the boost rate, and when it starts to retard the timing. For more information on the installation of the SafeGuard, visit www.01bullitt.com or www.jandssafeguard.com.
The knock-retard monitor tells you how much timing the SafeGuard is pulling. Each LED represents a specific amount of timing in degrees, depending on how you have it set up.	You'll want to mount the SafeInjection box in a dry area. We mounted our control module right next to the nozzle, which also happened to be the only available space in this cramped Two-Valve engine compartment. Wiring the SafeInjection includes connecting the black wire to a secure ground, connecting the green wire to the device that will receive the 12-volt trigger signal, and connecting the red wire to the red power wire of the water/methanol injection pump. Do not connect the red wire to a direct 12-volt source or the positive battery terminal, as doing so will result in a malfunction of the SafeInjection unit.	Our subject vehicle already had the Snow Performance Boost Cooler system installed. Owner Bob Watson mounted the pump and reservoir in the trunk.