Any Experience With HHO as a Combustion Enhancer?

[roosterk0031]

The idea of a tank seem like great way to go, weigh it before and after testing to figure out how much was used, regulator to drop the pressure to a few inches of water column, find the good stretch of road and do some ABA testing just manually opening the valve near start.

You could time filling a plastic bag and come up with a flow rate, probably easier than weighing the tank.

[BLSTIC]

I have two hydrogen generators and have done some testing. Using an inefficient generator drawing 60 amps from a second 12v battery (not connected to the engine) I was unable to make a difference to an idling engine. The engine was a SOHC 2L carburettor equipped mazda B2000 engine.

However my delivery method was flawed (hose into the top of the carby) and I had no guarantee that the hydrogen was actually going into the engine (the hose was not under vacuum). I'm going to try my test again using a vacuum port to guarantee the gas gets to the engine. I'm also going to use the more efficient generator at a higher electroyte concentration to hopefully get more gas output without melting wires or generating steam...

Watch this space I suppose...

*edit: the engine was also badly tuned at the time. not so now

[MPaulHolmes]

That's what I'm talking about! A test! I can't wait to hear how it goes.

[iluvit]

Proving a scientific theory is not science without data to back it up or to de-bunk it. I have read no posts on this forum in which the disbelieving author had anything but theory to support his claims. I see many claims that it is impossible to surpass unity but that is not the argument. The supporters of HHO are not claiming that HHO is the primary fuel so the claims of energy losses from the alternator are irrelevant to the argument and fail as argumentum ignoriantium logic.

Detractors are helping no one by saying it cannot work based on a conservation of energy argument because no one is claiming that I know of here to exceed unity with regard to energy production. I have no idea of this H injection works but equally I have seen no scientific data to show me that it does not and do not have a dog in this fight.

The point is question is does the hotter-burning and faster ignition provided by hydrogen result in more efficient burning of the fuel. If the addition of H gas to the chamber results in more of the primary fuel then one would theorize more fuel economy would result.

Every fuel yields varying efficiency and is altered by many factors such as additives in particular. I know that in my vehicle, driving under the same conditions of terrain, city, highway, temperature, etc that I saw approximately a 30 percent drop in economy when the mandate for 10% ethanol was instituted. For an answer we need either side of this argument to present cold hard facts and results and get away from the useless conjecture.

Another important point is that if anyone is trying to run hydrogen without managing the 02 sensors, then the tests will be pointless because the computer will incorrectly be forced by the on-board computer to incorrectly read lean or rich and make incorrect adjustments to the fuel mixture.

Importantly a few contributors here have suggested simply hooking up a tank of hydrogen and testing. This is totally absurd and may very easily get someone killed. Several things would have to be accounted for to prevent converting the vehicle to a moving high-impact and lethal bomb. With an incorrectly configured system a simple backfire would detonate the system and likely kill anyone nearby. Such a suggestion of a "simple" test is wholly irresponsible. Additionally as noted above to get any results of usefulness one would have to control the feedback from the o2 sensors.

[iluvit]

Any results on the H test?

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by iluvit

Any results on the H test?

...they're waiting for the radiation half-life to cool down and stop "glowing" in the dark (wink,wink).

[iluvit]

Be sure to have a valve in the intake line to prevent a backfire being transmitted all the way back to your tank! Obvious, I know but maybe not to everyone who decides to tinker with this. Pick one up at a welding shop or air/gas.

[rmay635703]

If you plan on using H2 gas get an LPG setup and a flashback arrestor. There are already safe methods of putting flamable gass's into your car. No sense discovering how explosive a can of compressed gas is.

Originally Posted by dcb

Sounds horribly overcomplicated. I'm not suggesting that you follow through with this experiment, but starting with a tank of hydrogen to quantify it's effects under different conditions makes the most sense to me, then figure out how to make that hydrogen efficiently if there are significant gains to be made (your assertion, not mine)

Nasa did this already, but that was before electronicly controlled ignition among other things, which may help a bit but I think we are slicing pennies even if it did work.

Hydrogen is a known reformer gas used in the processes to break down components within crude into gasoline.

I don't say that HHO does anything more than a mild water mist but...

If people want to setup PROPER testing procedures and test this it is fine by me.

The trouble is I have a feeling that the effects of water misting/steam in the intake needs to be taken into account and the usual changes to ignition are already known (aka lean burn works on its own with or without HHO)

Something else a bit odd, is that the places that are selling diesel emulsion systems many times use HHO in their "water" they mix into the diesel along with a effectively a soap to hold the stuff together, several systems are already being used in campus by a few companies, so maybe there is a use for HHO, use it to help emulsify oil and water.

What I would love to see is a true dyno test of water mist, lean burn and other understood technolgies used in place of HHO and then test the same with HHO to see if it has any effect on the known knock point, timing, minimum A/F, power etc. My guess is it would, but only if you used compressed H2 from a tank.

Do these tests the right way and it will either show improvement or not.

Personally a DIY computer controlled lean burn/water mist add on for existing cars would be a nice fuel economy product and it would actually work (unlike most of them) if it was apart of something like megasquirt and tuned correctly.

I would add water injection and lean burn to my cobalt if I could make it computer controlled just like the ECU does now.

I would also like to try onboard water emulsification with fuel to see what affects it has on FE, I would think onboard would be best since the cost of soap and other BS would not be needed for "spot" use, I have never believed the claims of similar fuel economy but heck, who knows?

Aw well nice pipe dream. Lean burn is for hondas only I guess.