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It was a published PR report from Honda so I'm hesitant to buy it as science(the hydrogen lean burn in their GDI test-bed).
The problem with hydrogen as a fuel for your engine and specifically DI engines, is it sucks up the same amount of O2 that Diesel or iso-octanyl does. The downside is its got alot less energy of combustion. So you burn 28 grams of air with 2 grams of fuel and you get 2x the combustion energy of your fuel. If instead you burn 1 gram fuel and about 6 grams of hydrogen you get about the same amount of power, but you had to burn 6 grams of hydrogen opposed to 1 gram of fuel.
Obviously there are advantages to strictly hydrogen engines because it burns cleaner(by itself) than most other compounds and its get a better fuel-air ratio(less air to burn hydrogen), but it takes alot more hydrogen to equal the kick of gasoline or diesel.
I have a 97 Del Sol and a 93. Both have CAI and new intake manifolds. Both have a secondary port that allows for gauges or whatever to be installed into the manifold. Instead I just piped H2 into that vent. Nothing noticeable with a laptop running diagnostic and watching the fuel consumption. Cranked the H2 up alot, AIT dropped from slightly above ambient air temps(68, AIT was 80) to much colder(50), and O2 began howling that the engine was running very rich. Threw CEL, alternated to ignoring MAP and following O2, ran lean, power drop non noticeable fuel consumption drop.
You burn alot more H2 in 28 grams of o2 than you do with fuel, but it produces alot less power. ECU decided to run somewhere leaner, power dropped noticeably and engine went into fast idle to maintain battery charge and warm engine, fuel consumption dropped but just barely.
You can susbstitue H2 for fuel . .. but. . . H2 tanks don't hold much fuel, they are heavier than gasoline and much more dangerous. A large large canister will hold about 112 CF of H2 or enough to run your car at very low load for half an hour. It weighs easily 60-70 lbs. For an equivalent 30 minutes I need 1 gallon almost 7 lbs. If you could haul hydrogen in a liquid state it might be more competive, but it has to be chilled and then you are using fuel to maintain cold fuel. . .Think space shuttle 80% or something ridiculous like that of the fuel is used to lift the fuel you need to get you from atmo to orbit.
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