H² + H²O = 25% More HP
 

I saw an ad in a magazine for this, claiming "We guarantee to increase your mpg's by at least 25%".

So, for those who may be interested in something like this, there's a chance you won't be tossing all your money away for nothing. ;)

AquaTune.com - AquaTune Water Injection Systems


My personal beliefs are that H² introduction to intake airflow may increase combustion, but as of yet I've done no such testing. This setup apparently combines H² and water injection - which could bring different, if not favourable, results.

Appreciate the voluntary unicorn classification. Nice to see they have testimonials instead of those boring crackpot "theories" or truthy "facts"....

OTOH, that darn rash just won't go away.

Its a bit like HHO - although maybe less Unicorn curry flavoured.

I have to ask myself if these systems were so good, why aren't manufacturers fitting them?

But it's both! Water injection AND electrolysis, or to the more informed, a more inefficient form of bubbler that makes steam too.

Hmm - question still stands.

I'll answer that too then, since no one else is jumping to defend. They don't work, and that's why they aren't standard issue.

There is no A-B data shown, of course. The "guarantee" is subject to restocking fees, ludicrous as they should not be selling used units. They also will charge for "repairs" on returned systems, so my guess is they will not be issuing very much of your original purchase.

Bottom line, you could buy one and document no mpg gains, return it under the "guarantee" and they will still make money, and you will still lose money Forget about any class action stuff about false advertising, as they would surely make the claim the users did not install the units correctly.

Next they will have HH0, water and epicycles. And then more and more levels of epicycles.

Monty python will end up doing a sketch about all the epicycles.

Nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition.

HAHAHA go into the Distributors list and look at the emails adddy's.

This stuff is just... unrelentless!!!

let me get this out of the way. for economy I know most of these hho and the likes kits are snake oil.

heres another spin on it.

can the combustion chamber cleaning abilities and lower emissions be worth it in the long run?

as in would it be worth it to but out lower emissions and keep your engine free of carbon deposits etc that could lower the economy anyway?

here is an interesting review of the AquaTune
A 30% Power Boost With AQUATUNE?? Accord/TSX/Accord Hybrid - Car Questions, Answers, and Discussion

The email notifications of replies in just this thread are getting filtered as spam in my email account. LOL! I think it's some kind of hint. :P

Decoking was something that only needed doing when petrol didn't have the detergents etc. it has now, and for the bits that misses I understand there are potions, ungents and other magic spells ("seafoam" I think is one in the colonies, we use carb cleaner or Redex) which perform the same role in one go ?

Better than driving round with a permanently powered Unicorn feeder leeching off your car, no ?

Like I tapped - if it worked it would be on every car - and would be tuned, perfected and advertised as a feature.

I'm thinking (not making any claims here) that perhaps the best way to use water to increase efficiency is to try something I think was called a six-cycle engine. After the fuel powered four, another involves injecting water into the hot cylinder, which turns to steam and applies pressure to the piston.
There'd be some engineering involved, with timing for ignition and injection, you don't want to cool the engine too much with the water injection, so adjustments would have to be made there...
Still, a lot more believable to me than the HHO fad.

how bout 2 injectors for each cylinder? one for water one for fuel and they just swap back and forth for every cycle? or just add a set amount of water in every cycle.

but then again that would be 2X the fuel tanks, lines, pumps etc.

it would let you run a more advanced timing and high compression and still use low octane fuel. or on some cars lower the oem requirement of high octane fuels
maybe even lean the mixture and still be safe.

it would deff need quite a few hrs on a dyno to perfect though

Yeah, it'd need another tank and pump... don't know exactly how much water it would use per cycle, but that's one of those things that a bit of math and a bit more experimentation would determine.
Six-stroke engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Very interesting. Someone with a bit of knowin' and a machine shop could probably do a bit of work on this...

Bruise Crower's 6 stroke was patented no later than 2006, probably much earlier but shows no sign of moving beyond the prototype stage. IIRC the problem he's had is acidification. Hot exhaust gases and steam will chemically 'crack' into all sorts of organic compounds, but the acids are the ones that will kill the engine by reacting with hot metal. Potentially you might need a far more complex catalytic-converter as well, I don't know.

This isn't like evaporative charge cooling (injecting small amount of water into inlet air) this is Lots of water in contact with hot metal surfaces. Very hard to get right if possible at all.

Great water injection link:
RSR Water Injection Calculator

(need to add that to my water injection wiki)

Water injection - EcoModder

Glad to see someone had already posted this in the Unicorn Corral. I was searching Youtube for something else and this thing popped up. What an annoying presentation. Glad I didn't waste 23 minutes listening to it!

Note especially list items #25 and #27:

25. No, water does not burn. We are not combusting the hydrogen in the H2O.

27. '...The last time we checked water wasn't a very good fuel. Water Injection definitely doe not give "a 5-15% increase in fuel economy" as some marketers calim.'

These guys are specialists in their field.
 

But that does not make them scientists.

Water does INTERACT with combustion and this can be manipulated.

Water and it's electrolysis by-products can extend the lean limits of operation allowing a potential 5-15% gain in fuel economy.

The marketing claims may be unicorn material, but the science certainly isn't.

The question is not in workablity.
 

There is the simple matter of cost to benefit. Throw in system integration and reliability and these devices, even if beneficial, will be overlooked for much more robust solutions. Customers demand a superficial interaction with their cars. Fiddling with adding fluids on a regular basis brings on irritation.

I remember interviewing with an electric car manufacturer here in Southern California 20+ years ago. They sold only to municipalities and corporations that had technical service departments in place as the lead-acid batteries required re-watering, testing and balancing and constant replacement. Their Geo Metros would have been welcomed on these forums, but for the general public, they were just too "fiddly".

Then of course there is the government emission regulations. The slow rate of reaction of an electrolysis device and a steam generating device means sluggish control. This makes them difficult to integrate into a system that needs milli-second reactions to maintain a clean exhaust stream.

Two things to be aware of: 1) you do NOT have to be a scientist to know science facts and (2) water has three physical states:

1) Water DROPLETS are liquid-state; liquid water is NON-compressible.

2) Water VAPOR is gaseous-state; vapor water and *IS* compressible.

3) Water ICE is solid-state; solid water is NON-compressible.

Oh, and mankind has been using water to extinguish combustions for eons, not using it as a fuel.

Lastly, their APPLICATION is knock-reduction, not combusion. Do NOT confuse them. They know what THEY're doing; you seem to be fuzzy about comprehending what THEY're doing.

And this is where a science background would be helpful.
 

That is the simple answer.

What they don't teach you in 8th grade is that liquid water has a pH - a certain percentage of the H2O dissociates into -OH and H+ ions. As water turns to steam, this dissociation increases proportionally with temperature until around 1200 degrees C, thermolysis of water becomes significant. At 2200 deg C it is around 3%. At 3000 deg C, it is roughly half. This doesn't take into account catalysts that can reduce the thermolysis temperature significantly. Add in the reactivity of Carbon at these temperatures and you can easily see the effect water has on combustion where flame fronts with temperatures of 1200 - 2500 deg C occur. The presence of reactive -OH and H+ radicals effects the combustion balance within the flame front.

And I assure you, I understand the difference between combustion and knock suppression. The link to the original device indicates a study in combustion. You take quotes from a marketeer who specializes in knock suppression. They are very opposite applications.

Like Einstein says, "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."

...or, as my Dad put it, "Talk to me in words of one syllable: Yes. No. Maybe has two syllables, so not acceptable."

With all due respect to your father . . .
 

. . . not everything is simple or can be simply stated. This is one of them.

My father was a scientist. He finished a degree in Architecture and then completed Chemistry and Microbiology eight years later. He made it clear that as the subject matter became more complex, so must the language.

"Yes and no and maybe" do not begin to describe the language needed to discuss the dynamic interactions of combustion.

Just because this happens to be my field does not mean I have to devolve. I make my posts as reasonably understandable from the viewpoint of the subject complexity. There are enough key phrases and words for anyone to do a quick check on my content - assuming you have the background to understand what Google spits out at you.

I saw this on the local News this evening.

Car of the future: less pain at the pump - WOAI News 4 San Antonio - Top Stories

All AIR has some amount of water vapor (humidity is never zero), thus all internal combustion engines (ICE) have, since day one, been operating with water vapor (of obviously varying amounts) in the AIR consumed during combustion. That has BEEN and will CONTINUE to be a fact (pending global warming effects).

Adding additional water vapor into AIR is functionally equivalent to driving through air with extreme humidity, akin to "...a foggy London day/night..." That increased water vapor in the AIR does not itself produce ANY additional heat energy (power), rather it allows the engine's EXISTING ignition-mapping (new cars) or ignition-advance (older cars) to simply USE more of the already existing timing advance without fear of detonation from the same octane-rated gasoline. It is the advanced timing--not the water vapor--that produces more power, by extracting more thermal energy from the combustion process before the opening exhaust valve(s) cause the in-cylinder mean-effective-pressure (MEP) to cease.

And current ICE do not have intentional operating combustion conditions sufficiently hot enough to dissociate water vapor back to free H and O atoms...specifically to avoid combusting N2 in AIR into its oxides (smog).

I had a Mazda 323 about 5 years ago, and I played with a homemade HHO generator. I had mixed results, but ultimately moved on to other things when the car died. I am definitely a skeptic regarding all of the outrageous claims of greatly improved mileage. But, I will say this, I was definitely converting water into a very volatile mixture. I had taken some shortcuts, and had wired in a toggle switch to turn the generator on and off. I forgot, and left the generator "on", then went to start the car about an hour later. The explosion was deafening! It shattered my aluminum airflow sensor, and the plastic airbox.

I won't be attempting the HHO stuff again, unless I see MUCH more convincing proof in the future. (And if I ever do try it again, I will not be taking any shortcuts!)

At no time did I say the water adds heat to the system.
 

Everything you have said is correct as far as combustion quenching using the tremendous heat capacity of water. I am simply making the point that water does interact with the combustion process in a way that could change the pressure profile if used accordingly.

And water dissociates even in liquid form and that is why we measure a pH of pure water. Water is actively dissociating at temperatures where carbon would be reactive. These steam temperatures of only a few hundred degrees C occur all throughout the engine cycle. The FLAME front is in the thousands of deg C. This heat may only occur for a few milli seconds before work is extracted and the heat dissipated, but it does exist.

I am in no way supporting the claims of the Aquatune company. I am simply stating that there is some good science that again is being thrown out with the idiot product claims. Their claim of water splitting by a resonant cavity is bunk science. Their water addition without any form of dynamic feedback would be useful in improving engine efficiency at only one specific set of conditions of engine load and atmospherics.

Again, I am speaking of water reactivity in combustion. You are speaking of water quenching.

Thanks for the link.
 

Unfortunately, it gives us very little to work with as far as discussion.

You were lucky.
 

Stoichiometric hydrogen and oxygen has extremely high burn rates. And using it in an engine via simple water electrolysis is largely hit or miss as you have found out.

I just thought it helped give credence to the concept if an institute thought it (hydrogen enrichment of gasoline) was worthy of investigation.

re: "At no time did I say the water adds heat to the system."

I did not claim that you did, rather, I wrote that water, itself, did not add heat to the process and thus could not/did not provide energy (rebuffing the '...+25% More HP...').

Adding H2 to the intake AIR stream of an ICE is simply "adding" a second level of FUEL, albeit a pure gaseous rather than liquid hydrocarbon fuel. And, since the added H2 is gaseous, it displaces AIR and reduces O2 content available for combustion. Not a winning path.

Attempting to "create/generate" H2 (from water) on-the-fly is a genuine 'fools-errand' because it takes more ENERGY in creating the electrical energy from the engines power than the miniscule amounts of H2 can/could/will every produce, both: singularly, by its combustion (robbing O2 from the gasoline), as well as collectively, by its contibution to the now overly-rich gasoline combustion process.

I *DO* state that 100% hydrogen fuel would be greener for the atmosphere since it's combustion by-product is pure water vapor...which, while not as bad as CO2, is still actually a contributing green house gas.

A small amount of water and consequently H2/O2 . . .
 

. . . can change the pressure curve reducing the energy lost before and after the power stroke. The increase in effective BMEP ( brake-mean-effective-pressure ) results in more power - power that can more than compensate for the losses in producing the hydrogen/oxygen and that can compensate for the energy lost to the water interaction.

Can this result in a 25% gain in fuel efficiency? No, probably not. But can it result in a measurable gain? I say yes and I am willing to stand by that statement. Are you willing to stand by yours? I am willing to bet you are not as sure of your science as I am of mine.

And I can tell by your last post that you know very little of what actually goes on in a combustion chamber.

Changes in driving conditions and driving methods can give illusionary benefits ... but this device will not be the cause.

Too many conversion step losses ... it will NOT "more than compensate for losses" as you claim... nor be a "measurable gain" as you claim.

Take a real look at the additional 3 conversion steps you're adding.

#1> Chemical(Gasoline) to Mechanical -->
#2> Mechanical to Electrical -->
#3> Electrical to Chemical(H) -->
#4> Chemical(H) to Mechanical

The best devices I've seen that are custom designed to do each of those additional steps are not able to achieve .. "more than compensate for losses".

(Simplified) The best I can see would need to net ~1.28 Joule increase from Step#1 output for every 1 joule taken through the additional path of losses ... just to break even and be a dead weight device... which is still not any "measurable gain".

(Simplified) More realistic device would need to net ~2.08 joule increase from Step #1 output for every 1 joule taken through the additional path of losses... just to break even and be a dead weight device... which is still not any "measurable gain".

Given the validated results we've seen on the amount of H needed for the amount of ICE improvement in the often sited NASA papers ... that just will NOT ... "more than compensate for losses"... nor will it be a "measurable gain".

- - - - - - - - -
And Yes I am VERY certain of the science.
I'm happy to walk through some of it if you like.

I am also willing to discuss the terms of a 'bet' ... Done correctly I am certain what the outcome will be ... are you ?

By correctly I mean ... no simple road test ... we need to remove conditions and driving method effects ... which means a good professional dino with before and after testing ... you say it's a "measurable gain" ... we need to measure it ... We need trusted witnesses from both sides at the testing to inspect for 'satisfaction' (agreed to prior) ... the required 'significant' winning test results need to be agreed to prior to testing ... and the total 'pot' for the bet would have to be more than 10% larger than double the total cost of the dino testing + any other 3rd party legal or arbitration costs... that way , after the dino tests are done the winning side makes 10% more than they put in... and there is created a well documented validated test result we can pull out the next couple thousand times someone makes these kind of claims... Those results would be a win for either side ... if the tests show it doesn't work ... that's good for that side ... and if the tests show it does produce "measurable gain" and "more than compensate for losses" ... that's good for that side... plus the 'winning' side makes $money ... To help reach the required total 'pot' size , we could use something like kickstarter to help raise the total 'pot' funding needed...If there does end up being too much legal issues with a pay out bet , then it might have to be reduced to just a measurable validated test results outcome... which I would also be willing to put a few kick starter $ toward such an effort... it would be a win either way.

Water Fuel Technology For Everyone. AquaTune Hydrogen Fuel Systems. - YouTube I ask him to show 2.5 lpm of HHO flow @ 1.5 amps. He deleted my post. It's a bad water injection system. You can see big drops of water in the clear tubes!

First, let us clarify our positions.
 

You are saying that:
"The addition of water and or the products of electrolytically splitting the water via on-board production, added to the combustion process of an internal combustion engine cannot in any way, shape or form increase the said power and efficiency of the engine when consuming hydrocarbon fuels and air".

I am saying that:
"The addition of water and or the products of electrolytically splitting the water via on-board production, added to the combustion process of an internal combustion engine does improve the said power and efficiency of the engine a measurable amount when consuming hydrocarbon fuels and when certain conditions are in place."

Please review your position statement as I have written it and make modifications as you see fit. But, don't back off or retract your challenge.

As you can see, I do not believe you can simply slap an electrolyzer on an engine and see measurable gains. I, more than most people, can see the futility of that exercise. But, under specific conditions, there can be benefits.

...putting some 'numbers' to IamIam's insightful statement (using simple 90% efficiency example):