Increasing MPG with HHO ?

[Mako Koiwai]

What does our Scientific Advisory Board think of using our cars electrical energy to create HHO from water ... plumb it into the air intake system, for getting added MPG?

Lots of youTube clips on the subject ... like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3-HMRYQ ... re=related

[John Williams]

There is a guy down the street from my shop that claims with his system you can double your MPG.
I'm going to have a meeting with him next week. He also makes hydrogen on demand. Pretty cool stuff.

[Jayson Woodruff]

Gas--->electricity--->HHO--->mechnical power > Gas--->mechnical power?

pffft.

Jay W

[Steve Collins]

Gas--->electricity--->HHO--->mechnical power > Gas--->mechnical power? Jay W

Yes indeed. Double "Pfffft" with waste heat on top.

[Mako Koiwai]

The electricity is already there ... the HHO would just supplement, like NOS but not for added power. Thinking back to the old HS Chemistry demo, I didn't think enough HHO could be produced to have a noticeable effect, but there have been "improvements" in the anode/cathodes along with more efficient power delivery ... which allow fairly prodigious amounts of the gases to be produced. Also there are systems to cool the gases for better density. This isn't about delivering more power, but to supplement and reduce gasoline requirements. There are cheap household additives that can help produce even more gas when added to the water.

[Steve Ekstrand]

I've decided that the best way to raise gas mileage is to only drive downhill. I thought this would be easy after getting married (its all downhill from there). But surprisingly, I spend most days going uphill?

[Reijo Silvennoinen]

Do you remember how it was when we were young - had to walk a mile to school (elementary school for me was a mile), rain/shine/snow/(-30 for me) and back ... and how it was uphill both ways?

Well, as I got older, eventually I realized that walking uphill was a b*tch and I turned around and walked the other way! ;)

Reijo

[George Schilling]

What does our Scientific Advisory Board think of using our cars electrical energy to create HHO from water ... plumb it into the air intake system, for getting added MPG?

Lots of youTube clips on the subject ... like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3-HMRYQ ... re=related

I no nothing about the science of it all, but cmmon sense would tell me it's a crock. If the technology were there and it was this easy, don't you think one of the majors would have perfected it by now. Think of the competitive advantage. These claims of gas saving devices always pop up when prices go through the roof.

[Reijo Silvennoinen]

Hmmmm.....seen these things in the back of magazines when I was a kid - or similar ones. Hard to believe it's true? Unbelieveable? Maybe it is un-believeable.

Of course, I know of water injection used for turbo'd cars and such ... cooling effect I think is where the benefit comes in.

Thinking like Red Green now, another way to try something like this is take those old water bottles we use for cooling tires at autocross and hooking them up to the intake to see what would happen. Drown the engine?

Maybe the easiest way to check these kind of claims is to run to one of the really, really cheap gas stations where they water down the gas and see if you get better gas mileage. }:)

On another note, I've noticed my best increases for gas mileage have come from simple mods (like the front air dam on my old 240z ... which got me almost 2 mpg!) but most simply from controlling my right foot.

Reijo

[Mako Koiwai]

HHO is not H20 ... water vapor into the intake doesn't work because it displaces oxygen. Water vapor/spray added after air is mixed with fuel helps by cooling the mixture and perhaps by adding to the "compression" once in the cylinder ... if I recall correctly. Water or Alcohol or a mixture of the two helps in slightly different ways I believe ... water has a greater ability to cool per unit; alcohol burns.

I no nothing about the science of it all, but cmmon sense would tell me it's a crock. If the technology were there and it was this easy, don't you think one of the majors would have perfected it by now. Think of the competitive advantage. These claims of gas saving devices always pop up when prices go through the roof.

Which is why some people think that it's suspicious that the top inventor of using HHO was murdered:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8stApCmx ... re=related

[Marshall Grice]

If you were making HHO from weight-less solar panels it could be considered a benefit. the electricity generated by the alternator is not free.

also carrying the weight of the water would reduce fuel economy.

[Bob Beamesderfer]

HHO is not H20 ... water vapor into the intake doesn't work because it displaces oxygen. Water vapor/spray added after air is mixed with fuel helps by cooling the mixture and perhaps by adding to the "compression" once in the cylinder ... if I recall correctly. Water or Alcohol or a mixture of the two helps in slightly different ways I believe ... water has a greater ability to cool per unit; alcohol burns.

I no nothing about the science of it all, but cmmon sense would tell me it's a crock. If the technology were there and it was this easy, don't you think one of the majors would have perfected it by now. Think of the competitive advantage. These claims of gas saving devices always pop up when prices go through the roof.

Which is why some people think that it's suspicious that the top inventor of using HHO was murdered:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8stApCmx ... re=related

Claims that HHO can be used to increase fuel economy have all been found to be fraudulent. A sticky little matter called the Law of Conservation of Energy. Meyer's car uses a fuel cell, not really the same as the HHO conversion kits sold by hucksters. And, according to the coroner, he died of a brain aneurysm.

Some engineer in Texas named Garrett invented an electrolytic carburetor, patented in 1935. Car runs on water until the battery runs dead. It was found that using the battery to turn an electric motor was more efficient.

[Jayson Woodruff]

The electricity is already there ... the HHO would just supplement, like NOS but not for added power.

Like marshall said, the electricity isn't free, you pay for it in gas to get more amps out of the alternator. NOS is different, it's basically an auxililiry gas tank.

This is not a lot different than how common hybrids work. It still takes gas to charge the batteries. But the difference here is not that electricity is being used, it's that the batteries are being used to smooth out the inefficencies of a gas engine (which are very large).

One problem with the electrolysis thing is your're wasting a large amount of your chemical reaction. H2 is useful, but the O2 is already plentiful in the air.

BTW, cooling is not efficient. Heat is waste energy, the radiator (or part of the water injection) gets rid of that waste energy just to make room for more waste energy. People who tinker with old cars for MPG reasons try to keep the engine hot and try to recycle waste heat. I had a heat exchanger in my metro that ran coolent with the fuel inlet line (I had to add an adjustable by pass line, it was getting a little TOO hot). This recycled waste heat into making the gas easier to burn (more energy/mass). I got an extra 5-10% out of that. Down side is it might pre-ignite under high HP loads. Some people did the same with running intake air past the header. I sold the geo before I got to that.

Jay W

[Larry Andrews]

NOS is different, it's basically an auxililiry gas tank.

Hooray - I get to 'correct' Jay this time. Really, it's just additional info...mostly.

NOS is an alternate way to introduce an oxidizer into the intake charge - effectively an additional 'Oxygen' tank. Additional fuel has to be added to give the NO2 something to work on. The nitrous breaks down into nitrogen and oxygen gases at temp/pressure found at about 8:1 compression - but has a 2:1 ratio of nitrogen to oxygen as compared to the 4:1 ratio present in air.

In a previous life, I nearly patented a NO2/Methanol engine for no-atmosphere operation. Idea is to build a exhaust only engine using two 'fuel' injectors per cylinder - one for fuel and another for NO2. Direct cylinder injection would be ideal. Could work as a two or four-stroke - doesn't really matter. Just preheat the cylinder to allow the liquids enough energy to vaporize, start the motor and you've got an engine that will run underwater or in space. Almost got the CEO of IRSN to spend the money for the patent - except that it very nearly stepped on a couple of existing bits of prior art. Darnit.

How badass would it be to have a chainsaw that runs underwater? Would put my Husky 350 to SHAME! (that is such a fun tool, BTW)


OH - and yeah, there's a thin line between 'claims of enhanced fuel efficiency' and 'bald-faced lie'. And I'm not sure that anyone can actually find the line.

[John Basinger]

HOAX

Think nothing is free and conservation of enrgy.

So you break 2H20 apart into 2 H2 + O2. It takes energy that you get from the electrical system of the car. Suppose the electrolysis is 100% efficient. If you want to make 1 HP of Hydrogen + Oxygen you need 746 watts of continuous power. At 12 volts that’s 62 amps. Got 4 gauge wire?
See http://www.theodoregray.com/periodictab ... index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; for electrolysis.

Think closed loop:
So you have required the engine to produce 1 hp of power and you turn it into HHO and feed it into the engine. It works just like gasoline, provided it doesn’t burn up in the intake manifold. It makes energy in the combustion chamber ( in the form of heat) and pushes the piston down, which turns the camshaft, which turns a pulley, and belt and alternator to produce energy. If the engine is 100% efficient you get your 1 Hp back, but you use it up producing HHO no pushing the car.

Unfortunately the friction on the rings of a gasoline engine waste ½ of the energy produced by the burning of gasoline and HHO. Your 1hp of HHO can only produce 1/2 hp of usable power

There was a NOVA on PBS with Click and Clack that talked about how much energy went into ring friction. Its 50%. If you can come up with a super slippery Oil you can make millions.

[Mako Koiwai]

And here they talk about producing large amounts of HHO from miniscule amounts of electricity ... perhaps making HHO a viable "fuel/air addative."

http://peswiki.com/index.php/Video:Wate ... via_ZPE%29