Quote:
Originally Posted by Floordford
The supercharger needs to horsepower to be turned. Much like the way that HHO kits will put a load on an alternator. Both will drag the engine down slightly but the gains are greater than what you loose. So the loss is necessary to get the gain and is worth it in the end. Im not saying an HHO kit will give you an extra horsepower but if the supercharger takes 35hp it gives 100hp. If an HHO kit takes 3hp it can give 5-6hp. Or be a benefit by replacing gasoline with another cheap fuel.
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Don't confuse power and energy.
Increased volumetric efficiency ( Power from a given size engine ) ... is not the same as increased energy efficiency ( Energy output from a given energy input ).
An example might be an after burner greatly increases the power output, by much more than it reduces the power output , for a large net increase in power output ... but it actually significantly reduces the operating energy efficiency of the engine ... it produces less thrust energy output per unit of fuel energy input... but more thrust energy output for the same weight and volume displacement of engine.
One reason Turbos are much more common than SuperChargers is that the Turbo recycles some of the exhaust waste energy from the exhaust system... compared to many SuperChargers which get all their input energy by taking it away from the ICE.
In a similar method ... if you were to use a waste exhaust heat to electricity system ( something like Thermo-Eelectrics ) in order to scavenge / recycle some of the waste energy in order to provide the energy for your electrolysis you will load the ICE less than if you get all of your energy from the ICE via the alternator.
If you run an alternator at ~80% efficient ... 5 kW of mechanical load becomes ~4kw of electricity ... if you manage to get ~80% efficient Electrolysis ( good luck getting that high ) you have ~3kw of chemical hydrogen... with a ~30% efficient ICE you will get back ~1kw of mechanical power from taking 5kw of mechanical power ... you need to make up 4kw of lost mechanical power just to break even.
The method Hydrogen injection uses to increase ICE operating efficiency is allowing for lean burn operation , due to the higher flame speed of the hydrogen itself ... these same Lean Burn efficiency improvements can be had without the efficiency losses needed for an alternator based electrolysis system to function ... The Gen-1 Honda Insight is a good example of what can be achieved for Lean Burn , and it doesn't throw away 4kw of power in order to get it.
Another thing to remember is Lean Burn itself may be better energy efficient but it produces less power ... most people who has driven a Gen-1 Insight when it kicks over into Lean Burn know this effect very well ... producing an equal lean burn using alternator electrolysis reduces the power even more... because in addition to the power losses from lean burn you also have power losses from the electrolysis system.
If your current ICE does not do Lean Burn and you want to tweak it to operate in lean burn ... I suggest starting with other methods first ... if you do finally choose to the some type of hydrogen injection ... either generate the hydrogen separately and just store it in the vehicle ... or generate it from some type of waste energy recovery system that might recycle some otherwise wasted ICE energy.
Personally , I think electricity itself is more useful in some type of HEV setup than it is being used for electrolysis and hydrogen injection in the ICE.
But ... it's your nickle ... best of luck.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Floordford
But ive noticed that the majority of nay sayers havent built one of these units and gathered their own results.
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I have built many things ... including some of these things ... build one test it ... best of luck ... but , there are more efficient ways of producing Lean Burn ICE efficiency gains without electrolysis loads on an alternator.