Myth Busters SUCKS! (HHO mod, does it work?)

[Christ]

Chuckm - Not to be a smart ass, but don't batteries produce hydrogen as the electrolyte level drops? (I was under the assumption that the "Vented" gas is a mix of hydrogen and other gasses, since it's supposedly flammable (I've never tested, so supposedly))

I would guess that, if it were true, extracting that gas would probably be the cheapest way, per unit, to get H2, since it's a waste product, easily captured.\

Of course, you'd never get even close to enough to have an effect on a vehicle, either.

[Nerys]

Irrelevant Fact.
Your Metro is overloaded to the tune of 550 pounds.

Not in 6 months. Lost 50 pounds got another 200 to go by the time my sister loses 200 pounds and I stop carrying the tools I will be under the SUGGEST weight limit. The vehicle seems to have no problem handling it. Not even a little bit.

Irrelevant Fact.
It's illegal

Really? show me the statute how could you even REMOTELY POSSIBLY EVEN CONCEIVABLY enforce it. My guess is your quoting trucking law and not consumer car law. most people probably nearly all have NO IDEA there car has an upper limit or what it is. it sure is not 1300 pounds for the metro. Does not even fully compress the suspension.

Irrelevant Fact.
You are willfully operating a vehicle in an unsafe manner, and endangering your life, but even more importantly the lives of others, by compromising the design limits of the vehicle.

The design limits would seem in reality to far exceed what you suggest.

FINALLY a relevant Fact but off topic.
You seem to like to be abrasive while interacting with others, instead of simply stating your point and letting the reader draw his own conclusions. When you read something you do not understand you insert the "what is relevant to me" caveat and reject constructive imput.

No I reject input that any intelligent person would clearly see as not mattering. the POINT is to save money. talking $ per BTU is not relevant to this if it is not equal to $ per mile IE what we have to actually pay.

I reject input that costs me MORE MONEY (Fuel cell cars) without any real benifit TO ME and only benefits greedy corporations


Out of the Blue WTF Fact.
You have made some bad choices in life, and chosen to take risks, for no real benefit. Risks that affect any future employers decision to hire you for a better job.

Huh? where did that come and what reality is it from? Future Employers? Decisions that risk this? care to elaborate?

yadda yadday Fact.
Your responses are in violation of forum rules.

Quote the rules that were not violated against me first? or any for that matter.

Fact.
Back to the original thread objective, HHO will not increase your mileage, but you are certainly free to find out what we already know, even though you choose to reject any empirical evidence that would help you with your decision. The best output HHO generator will only produce less than 1/350 of the fuel energy content necessary to operate your vehicle. It's your money, waste it however you please.

REAL FACT #1 its fun
REAL FACT #2 it might work (you have shone ZERO and I mean ZERO empirical ANYTHING to show it will not.
REAL FACT #3 its DIRT CHEAP to try. about $25 if you already have a battery. I have wasted more money in quarters on video games in one night in my life than that.

IRRELEVANT Fact.
You claim to be in a financial position that severely limits your choices, but you still make choices that have no basis in informed logic. One of those choices is to consume fast food, when you are capable of making your own meals.

I drive 4+ hours a day most of the time. its convenient and its CHEAP financially. its actually costing me MORE MONEY to not eat fast food.

I have not eaten a single gram of fast food in what will be 8 weeks come november 18th. Not one gram. Not one piece of candy. not one tiny piece of junk food. I am 46 pounds lighter because of it.

Why?

Why What?

Maybe a lunch bag and a different vehicle, with fuel paid for by your fellow commuters would be a wiser choice. At least it would be LEGAL and much more SAFETY oriented.

I'm done with this thread.

Good bye. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

regards
Mech

[Nerys]

Originally Posted by chuckm

Yo, homey, I've never suggested that you buy a natural gas car or convert one. Let's go back and follow the thread. First, I said, "Actually, it is much more expensive than the currently most popular means of industrial hydrogen production: cracking natural gas." Your responded, "only if you ignore the cost of the natural gas which is HIGHER THAN GASOLINE." I then proved that you were incorrect regarding the relative costs of gasoline and natural gas. I'm simply trying to point you toward the only economic source of H2 for a car: bring a bottle onboard. That's been my point all along.

If you are absolutely deterimined to stuff an onboard electrolysis unit into your vehicle, by all means go ahead. The gains will forever be outweighed by the cost required (ROI is negative). I strongly suspect the battery weight will actually eat whatever mileage gain you would have otherwise gotten. Hence my offer of a bottle system design. You could install something that weighs, at most, 1/5th of your battery-based system. You'll have no recurring costs of replacing battery packs.

Sorry man. you jumped into the middle of a fray with the CNG suggestions so I absorbed it into the discussion I was having.

ie as a suggestion for another fuel. Sorry that was my bad. Got carried away :-)

either way CNG is still more expensive than gasoline. the only way it could not be is if I did not have to buy the CNG specific equipment ON TOP OF the cost of non CNG equipment.

ie the cost of the equipment can not be ignored even in hypothetical discussions because in reality I would have to BUY that equipment.

SO for the average person CNG would cost MORE per mile than gasoline for the first 85 or so years.

then and ONLY then would CNG become cheaper than gasoline.

you can only say it is cheaper if you IGNORE the added cost of using it which in reality you can not.

Unless off course you got a CNG car for free or something. but that would be the exception and not the norm.

I don't know if it will be ROI negative though. if I get even a .5mpg increase it will be ROI positive very quickly. I am doubtful if I will get even that but its cheap enough and FUN enough to try. Plus I want a hydrogen generator anyway. I want to try my hand at making hydrogen balloons to loft camera platforms to near space (yeah another wishful dream project)

so its zero loss to me. no harm if I try squirting some into the car when not using it to fill balloons ehh? and the batteries are only $40 and good for 3-4 years if I don't abuse them so even they are quite cheap. Somehow I do not think adding 150 pounds of batteries is going to have THAT big an impact on my mpg. In fact I doubt I could even measure it.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by Nerys

"I'm delighted that you mention that electrolysis is the least efficient,most expensive, and highest entropy form of producing hydrogen."

well most expensive is incorrect. Electrolysis is by far the cheapest. Very little materials are required and electricity is dirt cheap.

ie the REASON end users go with electrolysis is because its the ONLY viable means of "end user" hydrogen production and its simple and very cheap. The biggest problem is end users trying to use CAR POWER to power the generator.

And yes as the next few posters mentions the COMPUTERS in the cars will resist and fight you. If you only have one upstream O2 sensor you have a fighting chance but if you have up and down stream sensors its going to be dicey since you will be sending "triggers" to the computer that will result in it RICHING up your fuel mixture even though it does not need it. Some think this is intentional but I think its just because of the triggers the "simple" computers look for.

I just lost 20-minutes of typing so I'll try again.
Steam-reforming was listed as the most efficient form of hydrogen production and electrolysis as worst,at 3X to 4X the energy.
On-board electrolysis appears to be vindicated in the greencarcongress papers,with a net energy gain.
If you were charging batteries off the grid and using them,there would be inertia issues with acceleration and momentum issues with handling and deceleration.
I've missed many posts so I will close and try and catch up.
The only glitch I found in Vosper's paper,was that I could find no vehicle in production around 1998 when he did his testing that got as low as mpg as he reports ( 12.05 mpg hwy ).

[aerohead]

Okay,read all the posts.
It appears that the science for hydrogen enhanced combustion is good.
It appears that even on-board hydrogen production using the alternator is okay.
The hydrogen accomplishes what Larry Widmer's high-swirl, Smokey Yunick's "expander-homogenizer" cycle processes,or HONDA's VTEC-E technology accomplishes,which allows more complete combustion of the charge during a point when the piston can make best use of it,with "lean-burn" a symptom of or CONSEQUENCE , and not a premise for the technology.
I would like to know how much is used and how/where it it is introduced to the intake tract.
The hydrogen is mentioned in the body of the literature all the time,with only one mention of,and use of the free oxygen.Anybody want to speak to that?

[Christ]

Phil -

The oxygen. I've asked a few times of all those HHO marketers why it simply gets wasted en passant, and noone has ever been able to give me an answer.

That's part of the reason that I don't believe in the whole HHO 'ghost marketing' scam that goes on. If the Oxygen is there, and the HHO increases the combustion rate of the fuel, it also needs to increase the combustion intensity, creating a resultant stronger pressure wave over a shorter period of time (exactly the opposite of how a diesel engine works, for those who care), that should be converting the H, H, and O back into water, leaving the normal combustion gasses unaltered, no?

As potentially misinformed about the chemical reaction in the combustion chamber as I very well may be (not a chemistry major), I just don't see the "extra" oxygen being in the exhaust stream to begin with, so no further modifications should be necessary to "see a gain" from HHO, correct?

Ok, so the math may be there to support the enhanced combustion theorem (source, please?), but I still can't warp my intelligence enough to figure out where this "extra" oxygen gas comes from.

[Christ]

In the future, Phil, if you type for a long time, and you're not sure if you'll still be signed in, use a combination of CTRL+A and CTRL+C (Select all, Copy), then hit submit. If it notifies you that you are to sign in before posting, you can sign in, go back to the thread, and simply use CTRL+V (Paste) to re-enter the entire post instantaneously.

I've lost a few long posts over the years as a forum hopper.

[pgfpro]

One of the companies I work for purchased a few Hydrogen generators for their fleet of vehicles. Some were used on Dodge diesel trucks and two others were used on some gasoline trucks. The ones on the diesels showed gains in mpg. The ones on the gasoline trucks showed no gains.

I can use one of the generators for free if I want to but I have know desire to go down this path. I haven't seen any improvements from them and I don't know of one person that has used one that has seen fuel economy gains.

Plus with my engine I feel there isn't much fuel left over to burn running as lean as 25:1

When it comes to burn rates I do agree that the idea is to have the flame speed as fast as possible but for fuel economy I don't see how this would help in a light load throttled condition. I actually tested this with very small amounts of N2O at light load low rpm.

What I found was when the engine is running lower rpm's a fast burn rate likes to kick the piss out of the piston, due to low piston speed. This is with even an optimum max cylinder pressure around 12 to 14 degrees atdc.

I will use Ben Strader's from EFI University analogy.

Think about piston and rod angle like pedaling a bicycle. Your best force on the pedal (or max cylinder pressure) will happen around 12 to 14 degrees atdc. If you start applying force earlier you actually have to much force closer to tdc and you are trying to force the pedal backwards. To late you don't have much force applied before bdc.

But back to a low rpm accelerated flame front. So you retard timing to get the desired 12 to 14 degrees pedal angle. IMHO you have a shorter amount of time and pedal angle to apply force. Its almost like trying to kick start your pedal. The bicycle doest accelerate that fast by this method. Now take the same amount of force and apply it over a longer duration with the same desired 12 to 14 degrees atdc max cylinder pressure or in this case pedal angle (slower flame front) now the bike accelerates faster or maintains its speed.

Now where a fast flame front works great is at a high rpm. Anything over
6500+rpm. At these rates the piston will out accelerate the flame front.

Example; With an convential burn rate you could just increase the ignition timing btdc so you will have your max cylinder pressure back to 12 to 14 degrees but you're increasing the chances of detonation with a longer crank angle power stroke(trying to push the pedal down when its coming up to tdc). Not good.

So to fix this we come up with fast burn technology heads. Now you can start the ignition timing later to avoid detonation and still have your max cylinder pressure at 12 to 14 degrees.

So as a fuel chemist you have to make the fuel work at lower rpm's with a slower flame front and at higher rpm's where a faster flame front is needed.

[Christ]

Piston speed isn't necessarily determined by engine speed, and the piston can fall away from the expansion of gasses at MUCH lower speeds than 6500 RPM. It's also dependent on stroke length.

For example, in an engine with a stoke of 35mm, piston dwell time is going to be much higher than in an engine with a 20mm stroke. A shorter rod will accentuate dwell time and acceleration, as well as offset angles more steeply. Longer rods allow for a closer-to-straight-line xfer of power to the crankshaft. Longer stroked engines, with higher dwell time (at TDC and BDC) also have higher acceleration and mean piston speeds, during up and down travel.

Remember, higher dwell time means that the piston has less overall time to complete the up or down motion in the same 360* for the same engine speed.

[Mustang Dave]

Originally Posted by Christ

-snip-
If the Oxygen is there, and the HHO increases the combustion rate of the fuel, it also needs to increase the combustion intensity, creating a resultant stronger pressure wave over a shorter period of time (exactly the opposite of how a diesel engine works, for those who care), that should be converting the H, H, and O back into water, leaving the normal combustion gasses unaltered, no?

-snip-
I just don't see the "extra" oxygen being in the exhaust stream to begin with, so no further modifications should be necessary to "see a gain" from HHO, correct?

Ok, so the math may be there to support the enhanced combustion theorem (source, please?), but I still can't warp my intelligence enough to figure out where this "extra" oxygen gas comes from.

That's the part I've been trying to figure out, as well.