How to Use Less Fuel (yet another HHO thread, lacking substantive evidence)

[cfg83]

dcb -

Originally Posted by dcb

problem is lack of comprehensive testing (and lack positive results). It always seems to come down to unscientific anecdotalness, seat of the pants baloney, or invalid assumptions made during testing, or some other form of mpg stone soup (i.e. the driver was simultaneously fixed and the car tuned up).

carlosw2 was pretty adamant that it helped on a diesel, and there's a hundred odd truckers that have shelled out $4000 to $14000 for an hho system, but that's a stupid amount to pay for a couple electrodes, so I'm not real eager to try it on my diesel, but might if I ever figure out mpg feedback on it first.

That's totally fair. I definitely think there's a "kernel of truth" to the HHO stuff. What I like to claim is that they've proven it in the lab, but not in the real world. This was the lab experiment that I was hoping would pan out, but the technology was sold and it just faded away :

Green Car Congress: ArvinMeritor / MIT Plasma Fuel Reformer
Green Car Congress: ArvinMeritor to Sell its Emissions Technologies Group

For me, the conundrum of HHO on gassers is the claim that it requires you to spoof the 02 sensor. From my understanding, spoofing the 02 sensor can get you MPG improvements all by itself because you are tricking the ECU/PCM into lean-burn. However, this comes at the cost of higher emissions, aka NOx. That's a show-stopper for me because I feel like I am cheating.

I've pretty much given up on HHO because I'm not a chemist/electrical engineer and I'm too lazee.

CarloSW2

[Dr. Jerryrigger]

Originally Posted by Phantom

"IF" HHO did work in the situation that you put forth do you not thing that the Oil and Coal companies would not fight to silence and and sue the companies out of existence of buy them and lock it up? Do not think that companies will not lie and cheat to keep there business model propped up that is what the recording industry has been doing (not to be confused with the music industry).

Well possibly, but more likely the "hho company" would become more powerful than the oil company overnight as they would have a much higher profit margin, and the oil company would wine and sue as they quickly fell into the shadows. If HHO worked like that, people would know about it, remember when cold fusion was on the cover of countless magazines?
But as most people with a 8th grade education know; HHO dose not make energy, it's just a way you can use it differently, or store it.

[ChazInMT]

ANY FE GAIN IS FREE ENERGY. Are you completely fricking out of your tree to not realize this???

Even a .00000000000000000001% gain in fuel efficiency would be freaking miracle.

It can NOT and Does NOT Give you Anything Ever!

The System Uses Energy, that is all.

There is No "Good Stuff" when it comes to this, unless you refer to the BS Marketing.

And don't give me this Alchemy argument crap that a pinch of Hydrogen added to the gasoline is going to somehow transform it into a super fuel. Again, we'd all have hydrogen injection devices on our cars by now if it did.

Do you also realize the pathetic quantities of hydrogen produced from these devices, if it ran for 24hrs and you somehow collected up all the gas, it would not propel a vehicle more than 50 feet? So how is this supposed to affect anything over hundreds of miles?

People try to argue about the inherent inefficiencies of alternators and the engines that run them, which are all great points, the electricity to power these HHO things costs pretty serious money. But, the electrolysis process itself is at best, 65% efficient, and these devices you speak of are no where near the best. So we're talking about spending $100 to get $15 worth of energy. I know, when you do the math, it's a 15% Gain in fuel efficiency....But when those of us who do not reside on Planet Crack do the math, it is an 85% Loss in fuel efficiency.

Keep in mind too that with HHO gas, the energy density of Hydrogen is such that you would need 2,680 PSI in 1 gallon to equal the energy density of a gallon of gas, since your device gives off gas at 178 times less pressure, 1 gallon of your gas has very little energy.

So an apt analogy would be this, A car is on fire, burning away, fully engulfed, you show up at the same time as a fire engine does, and you both start to put out the blaze. The fire truck has a hose at 1,000 Gallons per minute to put out the blaze, and your garden hose water, at 2 Gallons per minute is sprayed on as well. When the blaze is out, you look up and say “My garden hose helped put this fire out 10% quicker, and the water was free.” But your water cost 7 times as much as the fire trucks water per gallon.

I love the topic of water being created in the engine due to HHO being used as a possible negative.............When you burn a gallon of gasoline in your engine....it produces a gallon of water as a combustion byproduct.


Crawl back into the hole right behind that snake that gave you this precious oil.

And I'm talking to anyone who believes in, or has any possible hope to believe that HHO is anything other than a gimmick, for suckers to buy, based on BS scientific claims.

I’m done here. Spew forth all the crap you want.

BTW: Water Powered Automobile - Reality or Hoax (Something written by someone not intent on selling you crap.)

[Frank Lee]

Hydrogen HAS been proven in the lab to stabilize combustion for the "homogenous combustion" gasoline engine concept. However it is a tricky, unstable process that has not made it out of the lab and into the "real world" yet. Equally important to note is that the hydrogen is NOT obtained by electrolysis.

That hydrogen CAN be used in such a way is the kernal of fact that gets used as the basis for the HHO lies and deceptions.

[Dr. Jerryrigger]

Okay then, so that guy ether spent a lot of cash on a HHO system that didn't work, or just likes to be ignorant.
The improvements seen with HHO, are to my belief, from better combustion of fuel droplets, higher O2 levels, and some steam (but that's really a different topic). If you ad acetone to your gas you will see less of a gain from hho. If you rig up a fuel vapor system you will see much less gain (if any).
But adding gaseous fuel to your engine will generally improve FE even when you consider the BTU's of the added fuel.
A good HHO system will have an eff of about 80%, but then you factor in the alternator, and the power given back by the ICE and you have very little return, so, yes, anyone who has taken a elementary school sci class can deduce that this ether doesn't work, or there is something else going on. I think the latter, as I have hear it from reputable sources (no one with good testing equipment, but people who don't have anything to gain by lying ether).

[dcb]

third hand anecdotes? beliefs? faulty logic? Dude, you are using all the tricks of the hho trade. Why? What do you have to prove, and are you willing to do the work to prove it conclusively yourself or do you wish to waste someone elses time/money testing your beliefs?

[Dr. Jerryrigger]

Originally Posted by dcb

third hand anecdotes? beliefs? faulty logic? Dude, you are using all the tricks of the hho trade. Why? What do you have to prove, and are you willing to do the work to prove it conclusively yourself or do you wish to waste someone elses time testing your beliefs?

point taken. I do plan on doing some testing myself, but this project is on the back burner right now. And for the money spent on a project like this I could do a lot of say areo mods with more predictable benefits.

[TheEnemy]

I think the SAE tested hydrogen injection, with a slight improvement.

It works by helping support a leaner mixture.

The problem was that it was not considered cost effective for the added equipment and complexity. Supposedly an on board electralysis system was hard to meter, and rather finiky.

The improvement was no where near 2-3x that the HHO sites claim, something like 1-2% improvement.

[gone-ot]

AEROHEAD do you have access to search for SAE papers on Hydrogen-enhanced Combustion, either by title or SAE-number?

[dcb]

why?