Matt16

You plum it into the intake, its all going to the right place.

elripster

Why would that help you? The piston has no mechanical leverage at the top of the stroke.

The problem is that theory says this should not work and there is no independently gathered data to prove otherwise. That HHO will only return the energy it took to break up the water molecule in the first place. That energy came from your engine to start with along side the extra energy from your engine that was wasted in losses through the electrical system and mechanical friction (belts, alternator bearings...). That means your engine consumed more energy to make the HHO than the HHO can return.

How did this change the engine's operating characteristics such that it was able to do more with a given amount of fuel than before? That's the theory that needs to be explained and then PROVEN here because the energy balance doesn't add up.

It's funny, but these sites never explain this. They throw out a bunch of pseudo science most of which doesn't even apply to confuse/impress the lay person.

I say bring the data and detailed test procedures. I will be happy to review them and if they hold water (pun!), I'll gladly say so.

Frank

22mr2

I have seen alot of people trying to build these set ups, most of them with poor results from lack of know how. There is a race team here who has been tinkering on and off to get better mileage from a few of there tow rigs and from what he explained to me does work but they have a huge amount of time into it.

elripster

Ah, see here's the thing. Hydrogen injected into the fuel/air mixture can do a few good things. One, it can act as an octane booster which SLOWS combustion so it can complete more thoroughly. (http://www.hydrogenassociation.org/general/faqs.asp) This can allow for more aggressive timing and turbo charging. So, if you are a race team with a high revving high compression or turbo charged engine of which you can control fuel, spark, etc... this or just plain old water injection, will work. Heaven forbid your run out of water, you'll probably destroy the engine very quickly.

If you are normal Joe with a factory spark and fuel map on an 87 octane engine, it won't make a difference. If you had a lot of carbon buildup causing detonation, it might restore performance, but then so does a can of sea foam which is cheap and easy, and fixes the issue of carbon buidup instead of band aiding it.

Frank

elripster

The funny part is, the people pedaling this water fuel crap often don't even know that their "highly combustible" hydrogen is actually LESS volatile than gasoline. Scam....

Frank

fireman1559

i was thinking about doing this same thing to my last truck i was a member of v6f150 and a guy on there did this same thing to his truck here is the url http://www.v6f150.com/forums/showthr...light=hydrogen

elripster

Hydrogen is 2.5x more powerful than gasoline??? That is total crap! Liquids are hugely more energy dense than gases. Ridiculous. Again, where's the drive cycle fuel economy testing or anything even close?

Frank

elripster

Check out this paper...

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science.../sdarticle.pdf

They use a different method to turn gasoline into hydrogen (this is essentially what your engine is doing by generating electricity to crack water) which had a thermodynamic efficiency of around 80%. They concluded their system efficiency was about equal to that of the gasoline only engine when you combine the increased efficiency of the dual fuel engine minus the loss in the reformer.

Now, since you start this onboard electrolysis at the efficiency of your engine deducting from there, it is highly unlikely you will see a net gain.

Frank

ryantowry_81

that is not entirely true. for one these devices dont produce strait hydrogen they produce H-O gas or browns gas that is produced by rearranging the H_2-O molecules to have a different bonding structure to allow it to burn. this makes it extremely volitile becasue the oxygen is already there so it can partially burn in a vacumm.

As for this being a hoax, i have experimented with the process and have a coworker that has a home made one from a mason jar in his 76ish celica with the 3 speed automatic and he went from 24 MPG to 32MPG with an average run temp drop of 10ºF. he had to lean out his carb by a full turn on the mixture screw and advance his timing an additional 12º to make it run efficiently becasue it burns so much quicker and becasue the browns gas is not carbon based it dose not have any negative emissions and will actually decrease the amount of carbon deposites you get in your motor.

I have a copy of instruction on how to make a basic browns gas generator like my coworker has in his car, if you are interested in a copy PM me your email and i will send it to you so you can build one to play with for your self.

MattGGT

Rearranging? You're breaking water into it's respective molecules, not rearranging them.

ryantowry_81

your not fully breaking them down becase the oxygen is still bonded to the hydrogen, i know you are going to say where does the other hydrogen go, but the devise does pull in air too or it wont work a s efficiently. It also uses baking soda for a catalyst to make this reaction work. i am not a chemist just an engineer so i dont know exactly what reaction is taking place but i have seen it work and made it work my self. just havent run it on my truck becasue i need to be able to work the air supply for the device into my snorkle or it will be bead news, and it snowed here today so i putting off working outside!!

MattGGT

Nope. You are splitting the oxygen and the hydrogen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water


I never said that electrolysis is infeasible. It's something which has been around for yonks. Rust removal, electro-plating, you name it. Someone just thought they could make a few bob marketing an age old tech as a 'fuel supplement' type technology. Btw, bicarb is about the lowest yield, (with regards to gas output), variant of the soda/sodium family you can use.

imanut43

Do your research first. I have been building these for about a year and a half now. I can run my lawn mower just off of my hydrogen cell.But it's only a 12 horse motor. It's not an easy task. I have built many of these.Theres good and bad as with everything else out there. Honda has manufactured a hydrogen fuel cell car. There are other's that are going to be trying the same thing. I beleive Ford was one of them if I remember correctly.
If anyone wants to google it, try Brown's gas, Stan Meyer, there is a lot of bogus info out there so be carefull of what you read. I can tell you that if you start experimenting with these cells make sure you build a bubbler and a flash arrestor. I have had one explode (my fault).I thought it was a load of sh&* when I first heard of it but if you do the research and put some common knowledge of science together you'll figure it out.
If I think of it I will try and get some video footage of the mower this weekend for you guys so you don't think I am full of b.s.!!!

abecedarian

So where's the documentable, reproducable, scientifically viable results?

Everyone bitches when some whatever claim is made and no one can reproduce the results... so where is the empirical data supporting these claims?

and manufacturing a 'fuel cell' car is not the same thing as these HHO / Brown's gas things.

A hydrogen 'fuel cell' car uses hydrogen to generate electricity to operate the vehicle, not create some mythical gas that can be burned in the engine to increase combustion efficiency.

elripster

Alt fuels is my area of specialty and I'm yet to see the physics applied or explained correctly. The energy balance does not work out as has been mentioned many times. If it works, why? I have bachelors and masters degrees in mechanical engineering, I work for a premier automotive powertrain research lab, show me da numbers and test procedures. That's all I ask. If it is a valid repeatable test with statistically meaningful results, cool, post 'em up. Right now I have seen nothing, nada, zip.

If you want, I'd be glad to provide some pointers on how to set up a repeatable on road fuel economy test. You can pull your tank and weigh it to see how much fuel you used. I mean, if you can even get the truck on an dyno at a medium load for an hour or two, you can perform two tests, one with and one without the device. You'll have the hard data to back it up, what could be better?

As for the example with the Honda where the timing was advanced and carb leaned, out, that's the kind of tuning one has to do to take advantage of this and can't on modern OBD engines. Try running that Honda when the water runs out.



Frank

ryantowry_81

well i am also a mechanical engineer that works in diesel powered power plants, and my coworker mentioned down the page did a "test" he didn't have access to a dyno or take the tank out to weigh it but what he did is monitor his commute which is from Wasilla to anchorage about 48 miles each way and he would fill up every afternoon at the same gas station, at the same pump, all with 87 octane, and only fill up to the first time it clicked off every time. he did this for two weeks before and two weeks after installing and tuning his brown gas generator. He has a 76 Celica with the 3 speed auto matic and averaged 24 MPG on his comute taking the same route at almost the same time everyday. he then made the basic browns gas generator out of the mason jar and stainless steel welding wire coils, turned his fuel air mixture screw one and a half turns out and advanced the timing 12º to make it run correctly. he then duplicated the same parameters he had done the previous two weeks and averaged out to 32 MPG. you could say it was running too rich before but even leaning a car out wont increase the milage that much.

The next experiment he is trying is a 3000 watt generator he has in his garage, he wants to get it to run off of 100% browns gas eventually.

You may say its a hoax and argue all day but why not just do a little research build one and try it or experiment with it it is alot less painful than arguing about every last little bit!

Trustyrusty

Live with the fact its a truck or GTFO...

abecedarian

What is your co-workers name and would that person mind being contacted and having the car monitored? Can we undo the mods done to establish a baseline and then redo them afterwards?
and considering the trip is 48 miles each way, which calculates out to approximately 1 tank per week, with a two week average as a baseline... aproximately 3 tanks... using 3 tanks as a baseline to determine the efficiency of a new system does not even begin to take into consideration the modifications to driving behaviour one would statistically assume to occur given the nature of the system being tested.
The driver should be subjected to a blind test, not knowing if the system was functional or not, in order to eliminate driver bias as a cause for the mileage increase.

ryantowry_81

Why dont you pm me your email and i will send you the instructions he used to make it and you can make your own and test it the way you want.


blind driver? he has a 20r with an automatic!! his most of his drive is down the hwy at 70, how do you baby that? it is on the floor almost all the time.

Also he was sceptical of the idea also so he would have swayed the test to fail if he had done anything subconciously.

gte718p

ryantowry_81 is both right and wrong you can run a motor on hydrogen. Many people have done that. I built a self sustaining system in college. We managed to turn a 5 hp brigs and straton into a 1 hp hydrogen fueled. I do have dyno results and video of that somewhere.
I have no data, but I am willing to believe that hydrogen injection will improve efficiency. The problem is where you draw your system boundary. In order to keep continuous combustion we where cracking and burning something like a litter a minute. I can't remember the exact number but it was big. The problem is you need pure water for this to work. The water input has to be distilled and transported. This has an energy and therefor has a cost associated with it. In California distilled water is between a dollar an three dollars a gallon. If your "burning" three gallons of it an hour to have a 10% increase in MPG your not saving money or energy.

I've been involved in solar vehicle racing, hybrid vehicle racing and development, and alternative energy for a number of years. Its amazing how many people install these systems. Since they are spending a number of hours under the hood anyway they do a tune up, adjust timing, or change fluid and filters while they are there. All of a sudden they are getting better mileage. It must be the magnets.....