Who are we?

ERL was formed in 1980, initially designing and manufacturing industrial and telecommunications equipment. In 1986 we began our involvement with the automotive sector, mainly researching the effect of water inside the internal combustion engine. Two years later our first electronic water-injection system was born: the first system on the market that could accurately meter water-flow. It received a very warm reception at the 1988 Design Show in Birmingham, England. A few months later a parallel aftermarket system was launched, to explosive market reaction: just about every automotive journal wrote it up, and over one hundred systems were sold in the following nine months.
By 1992 mainstream car-makers were waking up to the benefits of water-injection: first Volvo contacted us, and we designed and made a system to enable their engineers to explore the enormous cooling effect of introducing water into a relatively high-compression turbo-charged engine. Rolls Royce was next to get in touch: we designed them an advanced learning/self-programming unit, which enabled their engineers to extract more power and torque from their existing 6.7 litre turbo-charged engines (their Bentley Malsanne turbo broke the 0-60MPH sprint in under 6 seconds). During this era ERL came up with the world's most intelligent water-injection system, listening for engine-knock and programming its own water-map, using flash memory in the ECU.
About the same time, the Ford Motor Company 'phoned unexpectedly. "Can you supply 3,000 water jets yesterday?" "Yes of course: if you had called yesterday, you would have had them on your desk today..." we replied. That was our first major encounter with a real life-and-death situation: we shipped the lot in six weeks with only a few minutes to spare! The first of the new Cosworth Escorts rolled off the German production line in January 1993. Each car was fitted with our specially-developed water jet. To date over 5,000 jets have been delivered, and we are still shipping them out every month. The 'phone rang again yesterday, but ... it wasn't Ford!
In 1997 we are committed to devoting a large amount of our time to our aftermarket customers: after all, they have given us the thrills and excitement to carry on: no words can describe the smell of high-octane fuel, nor the ticking of the high-lift cam. "To tell the truth, all advancement of the internal combustion engine comes from the aftermarket world, a place where everything goes, acknowledging no limits," said the departmental head of a world-sized motor manufacturer.
Up to now: 2001 Four years on, we have been battling against all odds and managed to achieve some success on introducing the water injection concept to the aftermarket world, for those who prepared to venture into the unknown and tried the concept has broken into a whole new world of tuning possibilities. There are still plenty of sceptics and "anti-water injection" groups out there trying their hardest to dis-credit the concept.
As far as the professional racing industies are concerned where water injection is permitted, we have achieved total acceptance; in particular the World Championship Rally cars, we have since supplied Aquamist systems to six out of seven works team current running the championship.