HHO Mod, Does it work?

[mcrews]

You (all of us) realize that op has not come back since his " I only found 1 thread" claim????

[Havens78]

If you want to experiment, hho4free is a good place to start. I'm not promoting them but they have good info to start you down the right path.

Is it worth it? That is a loaded question, but let me ask you another one. What is 20% improvement worth to you? is it worth 4-6 months of trial and error in tuning your vehicle? 30 hours of installation time? $1500 to $2000 in parts? That is what i've found to be more true on some vehicles, every vehicle is different and has to be treated as such. There is no one kit fits all and a $400 dollar kit won't do it, if its cheap there is a reason.

I would suggest implementing aero mods and driving habits from this site first and if you're still interested see how the hho suits you. I am doing this in the opposite fashion but I believe it has merit to change the way your vehicle moves down the road. I have personally seen it work, but only in providing more horses to push me down the road and thus I need less foot action.

my 2 cents

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by Havens78

If you want to experiment, hho4free is a good place to start. I'm not promoting them but they have good info to start you down the right path.

Is it worth it? That is a loaded question, but let me ask you another one. What is 20% improvement worth to you? is it worth 4-6 months of trial and error in tuning your vehicle? 30 hours of installation time? $1500 to $2000 in parts? That is what i've found to be more true on some vehicles, every vehicle is different and has to be treated as such. There is no one kit fits all and a $400 dollar kit won't do it, if its cheap there is a reason.

I would suggest implementing aero mods and driving habits from this site first and if you're still interested see how the hho suits you. I am doing this in the opposite fashion but I believe it has merit to change the way your vehicle moves down the road. I have personally seen it work, but only in providing more horses to push me down the road and thus I need less foot action.

my 2 cents

20% is pretty big. If I could get 20% more out of my Insight, my list trip back from Jacksonville would have been over 100MPG, and saved me $1.14. Skeptical would be putting it mildly, though, because switching over to 10% ethanol can cause a 5-15% loss in economy in my car, because the engine is tuned to burn petrol and not ethanol (in addition to the lower energy content of ethanol, though the losses are greater than the lost energy content). Why would switching over to a hydrogen mix + added parasitic losses, which is probably farther from pure petroleum combusion than petrol + ethanol, result in better mileage out of an engine that gets worse mileage when burning something other than pure petroleum due to its design and tuning?

Originally Posted by Ecky

Probably redundant, but why should we expect HHO systems to do anything?

1. Our engines and computers should be designed to be optimal for burning gasoline, not hydrogen. If they were better at burning hydrogen, why wouldn't manufacturers realize this and redesign engines so they're actually best at combusting gasoline and not hydrogen?


2. As I understand it, this idea is this: Combust gasoline -> mechanical work -> electrical energy -> break chemical bonds in water -> reform chemical bonds to create water in the combustion chamber -> mechanical work

Every step added will have losses involved, why not just take the mechanical work you get from burning the gasoline and cut your losses?


3. HHO systems that are available make minuscule amounts of hydrogen. Unless there's some weird chemistry going on in the combustion chamber (see #1), any gains or losses should be small enough to disappear into background noise.


Maybe there are engine designs that would work better with a hydrogen-gasoline mix, but current engines were designed to burn pure gasoline. In the case of those hypothetical engines, you probably still wouldn't want a HHO system because of the conversion losses, you would want a hydrogen tank filled at home where energy is relatively cheap.

[Frank Lee]

Originally Posted by Havens78

If you want to experiment, hho4free is a good place to start. I'm not promoting them but they have good info to start you down the right path.

Is it worth it? That is a loaded question, but let me ask you another one. What is 20% improvement worth to you? is it worth 4-6 months of trial and error in tuning your vehicle? 30 hours of installation time? $1500 to $2000 in parts? That is what i've found to be more true on some vehicles, every vehicle is different and has to be treated as such. There is no one kit fits all and a $400 dollar kit won't do it, if its cheap there is a reason.

I would suggest implementing aero mods and driving habits from this site first and if you're still interested see how the hho suits you. I am doing this in the opposite fashion but I believe it has merit to change the way your vehicle moves down the road. I have personally seen it work, but only in providing more horses to push me down the road and thus I need less foot action.

my 2 cents

Got data?

[RustyLugNut]

Originally Posted by elhigh

At this point I'm strongly considering building an HHO system and buying some time on a dyno just so I can generate some solid, irrefutable numbers. I don't need them for my own convincing, I already know it's 100% BS.

Unfortunately doing that would only bring out the flat-earthers shouting I had done it wrong, that I was faking it - faking it failing! - that the system was rigged. Knowing that it would be expensive to do and that that would be the result, however, takes all the potential fun out of it.

I did extensive work almost two decades ago on hydrogen augmented combustion. Some of it touched on HHO as a matter of course. It was not seriously considered for the market, but it was a curiosity which showed how small mixtures of hydrogen and oxygen could affect combustion. I am working with our legal department to see what information I can reveal as much of the work is general information at this point. If you are going to just build a "YouTube" unit and stick it on any engine and run it on your local performance dyno - you will probably get little useful information. The engine may not be a design that is responsive. Also, most performance dynamometers are not calibrated to fractional horsepower outputs that ecomodders are interested in. Not all of them have fuel flow meters calibrated to the low flow levels we would be looking at and the resolutions needed. Luckily, in cylinder pressure sensing suites are now available for under 10k sidestepping the need to engineer your own as we did. Complete engine management systems are also available for 3K dollars or so - though, I still prefer to program my legacy MicroPic Industries MCUs simply because I like the complete control it allows me and I'm stupid that way.

I would simply like to have a more defined view of the technology than the simple opinions and rants provided by the forum members - let us be honest, that is all most on this site have provided. With a battery of testing and a level of understanding, we can authoritatively confront a scammer salesman who will have nothing more than "testimonials" to throw back. Also, if a forum member decides to experiment, there will be a framework of understanding from which to start - or not.

[Ecky]

Another thought - doesn't hydrogen spontaneously recombine with oxygen when it comes in contact with it? Or does it not happen that quickly? Does the hydrogen generated in a HHO system even make it to the combustion chamber?

[RustyLugNut]

Originally Posted by Ecky

Another thought - doesn't hydrogen spontaneously recombine with oxygen when it comes in contact with it? Or does it not happen that quickly? Does the hydrogen generated in a HHO system even make it to the combustion chamber?

. . . spontaneously recombine. Both hydrogen and oxygen form stable diatomic molecules - though some of the oxygen forms up as O3 or ozone. This occurs at the anode and cathode and is instantaneous for all practical purposes and does so to provide the system with the lowest energy state.

The highly reactive radical forms do spontaneously recombine. This is what happens when the mixture has added energy in the form of a spark or flame front.

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by RustyLugNut

. . . spontaneously recombine. Both hydrogen and oxygen form stable diatomic molecules - though some of the oxygen forms up as O3 or ozone. This occurs at the anode and cathode and is instantaneous for all practical purposes and does so to provide the system with the lowest energy state.

The highly reactive radical forms do spontaneously recombine. This is what happens when the mixture has added energy in the form of a spark or flame front.

What I mean is, H2 and O2 (as I understand it) will react with each other at any non-absolute zero temperature. The rate with which they react varies (hugely) with temperature. What is the half-life of hydrogen gas in the conditions you're likely to find under an automobile's hood? Is the reaction rate small enough that a vast majority of the hydrogen will still be present by the time it's sucked into the cylinder? Does it survive the entire compression stroke so it can actually be used for mechanical work?

[Havens78]

Frank Lee:

The only data from success and failure I have is from my own foot on my own vehicles. Even a-b-a testing is difficult if I can't get all the runs in the same day or at the same time in the mornings. I've never posted all of my data because it isn't scientific in the eyes of most. I can provide my own experiences only.

I don't see hydrogen as a cure all for getting better mileage, I see it as a tool to make the over all vehicle more efficient. I'm more interested in the combined whole of the vehicle getting better mileage, because my wife can take the same car out on the same track of road and see half the difference I do.

[Frank Lee]

All I see is that your pickup is on the thirsty end of all the pickups out there.