Gas mileage gadgetry

Chris JW

Original poster
Member
May 13, 2014
57
I was on a job a while back with thousands of guys from all across the country(and world) some of them driving thousands of miles regularly
A few of the guys said they were getting around 5mpg better than they had been by using a rig that extracted hydrogen from water
the basic theory of operation was to pass current from your vehicle through a canister full of water this would in theory extract hydrogen from the water which was then diverted to the intake in some fashion.

I was just wondering if anyone has heard of this or used it successful or not.

Personally I have doubts to its functionality not to mention the effects of running hydrogen (if it even worked) through an unleaded gasoline motor.

I did stumble across this when i remember and happened to be at my computer the other day though

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Convert-Water-into-Fuel-by-Building-a-DIY-O/step9/Finishing-Touches/


please note: I am not asking or advising anyone to try this I have no clue the outcome of following this guide and installing it into any vehicle
 

gmcman

Member
Dec 12, 2011
4,656
I think if you could find a way to cheaply fill your tank with water and drive away then your Government will put you in a container of space trash and you wil be on the next rocket out of here. :biggrin:

Even though this has been done I cannot imagine hydrogen being allowed just beacuse of all the untapped $$$ in the ground.
 

RayVoy

Member
Nov 20, 2011
939
It's called HHO (which, I suspect just stands for H2O). Funny, the other night I watched a show on TV about this topic. It does work, you use the vehicles electrical system to convert the water into oxygen and hydrogen (electrolysis).

However, the results are rather dismal, the increase in mpg was similar to the claimed hp increases by supercharging your engine with a 12volt computer cooling fan. The increase was less than 1%.
 

The_Roadie

Lifetime VIP Donor
Member
Nov 19, 2011
9,957
Portland, OR
Chris, thank you for including the disclaimers and all that.

You know in those westerns where somebody rolls into town, the citizens recognize them with horror, and then there's a scene of mothers pulling their kids inside, the saloon keeper removes bottles from the shelves and locks the door, and the sheriff loads up his rifle and straps on his six-shooters. And then the town goes silent......

That's the situation around trailvoy and here whenever somebody rediscovers one of automotive's most persistent scams: The HHO/Electrolysis/Brown's Gas/Oxyhydrogen Generator scam. It's not your fault because you don't have 9 years of history around me, but I've made it my personal mission to tell the truth about this scam. As an engineer with a 40 year career, I've done the math, debunked the urban legend, refused for a time to allow any discussion about it on trailvoy back in the days when we had gullible and deluded members actually believing the lies.

We also had to fight the delusional folks who SWORE that tornado swirly disks, throttle body spacers, fuel line magnets, hair dryer superchargers, and enzyme pellets in the gas tank had any positive effect. They're all hokum. The lies sucker in the thinly educated who hear the buzzwords and don't do the math.

You can guess I feel very strongly about this, but I'm going to do something extraordinary here and not lock the thread. We have fewer members than trailvoy, and I bet most of them are the high end of the bell curve who figured out how and why we started this site.

Anybody who wants to have a discussion about any of these fuel-saving add-ons - just post up a claim and a link to where it's made, and let us comment on it. We'll keep the discussion at a technical level, not resort to ad hominem attacks, and hopefully educate everybody.
 

dla442

Member
Mar 31, 2012
249
grand rapids, mi
Hokus pokus...then why isn't the market flooded with this renewable cheap alternative....I say blah to the hydrogen voltage water bugs bunny theory. I think my plutonium p-238 space modulator gets me great mileage on the TB. If man found away to make all women to say yes honey then they all would be doing it!
 
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IllogicTC

Member
Dec 30, 2013
3,452
If it could be believed that doing something like this would be a great accessory to a gas-burning car (rather than wholly supplanting the gas-driven drivetrain like hydrogen cell cars), automakers would be hopping all over this as the EPA's standards for mileage and emissions are constantly increased. The most recent round of standards passed sound crazy now but we'll see what marvels or garbage comes of it when the deadline gets closer.

I don't think an increase of MPG like the claimed 5 MPG would happen, using the vehicle's own power to make it.

Hydrogen is an energy carrier, NOT AN ENERGY SOURCE. The hydrogen itself does not produce the energy, it releases the energy put to it. That's why so many methods of production involve electrolysis, you're putting energy to it to get hydrogen out which is carrying at least some part of that energy. Think of it like this: if solar power is an energy source, it's like a power generator. If hydrogen is an energy carrier, it's like a capacitor. A capacitor produces no energy, however it can save energy put to it by an energy source. For the nitpickers, gasoline is also actually an energy carrier.

If we're putting x amount of energy into the can to get hydrogen, we'll get x - y energy out of the can. This is the law of conservation of energy. So we're burning gasoline to release the energy stored. This is then put to work at up to 40% or so efficiency in a Prius. Now our Prius has to use some of the power produced to turn the alternator, which also has a rated efficiency which is probably in the 80-90s for percentage. Now that alternator's output is partially being used in an electrolysis machine to produce the hydrogen. All along the way the law of conservation is at work, so if we put say 600 watts in the can, we won't be getting a perfect 600-watt equivalent of energy-holding hydrogen out.

So we're using over a half kilowatt of the power produced by the engine (burning gas) to get less than what we put in back out. Even if there were somehow an increase in mileage, there'd be a decrease in overall power. Engines work in terms of volume, not mass. While a mole of hydrogen can contain much more energy than a mole of gasoline, we're not measuring engines by how much mass they pull in but by how much volume they pull and the resultant energy output. A gallon of gasoline contains over 125,000 BTUs of energy, and a gallon of liquid hydrogen (and this is LIQUID hydrogen, not the less-dense gaseous form yielded from the homebrew $20 eBay kit) has a bit over 34 1/2 thousand BTUs of energy.
 

IllogicTC

Member
Dec 30, 2013
3,452
BlazingTrails said:
You guys can believe it or not believe it....but I know someone who has a car running totally on hho.

Here is an example

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjqkHhWUKOU&feature=youtube_gdata_player

All the other stuff you mentioned above, tornado intakes, throttle body spacers, etc, those are all total BS. Also I feel one of the biggest scam markets is spark plugs.
I can believe that. I just don't buy the "adding a little bit of hydrogen to your intake air gets you 5MPG!" the op was saying some dudes told him.

The $20 Chinese eBay kits where everything is left the same in terms of how the car runs, it just puts some juice to their little doohicky and a minimal amount of hydrogen gas comes out and heads to the cylinders along with the usual air and gas mix. These kits are no more than little tanks with some electrical hookups you mount in the engine bay, nowhere near the high-class (and likely a LOT more costly than the CCC $20 eBay special) shown in the video.
 

BlazingTrails

Member
Apr 27, 2014
19,409
No the kits that are add on don't have any benefits, the pull as much power as they produce. However if you go all in and build a big system you can replace gasoline altogether. I have been checking into it, I an concerned about the blow by into the oil. Because once hho burns it turns back into water. So I am concerned about the negative effect it will have on the exhaust system and some sensors. If I had an older Honda or something I would totally do it tho. Just not to my baby. (tb)
 

Sparky

Member
Dec 4, 2011
12,927
Interesting point on the blow by. A few years ago I was doing a lot of reading, video watching, and some math on the who hydrogen stuff. I didn't consider blow-by at the time. I could see how that could be a major issue getting water in the oil :undecided: (this is all assuming the whole thing works as suggested). Any ICE that is a hydrogen-based would probably need some sort of oil/water separation system in that case... Or maybe, a hydrogen-fuel motor would be a totally different design altogether. Hmm.

Alternative or supplemental fuels have always intrigued me, not because I'm a tree hugger (lol I have a SUV and a cammed Camaro) but because I expect that petroleum-based fuel probably won't last forever, and burning things cleaner is always a good thing. Contrary to some people's beliefs, there is a happy medium between the tire burners and the eco-kooks :laugh:
 

BlazingTrails

Member
Apr 27, 2014
19,409
I agree with you. I think if I had and older Honda accord like 95, the f22 engines have a low 8.5:1 compression ratio, I think total seal rings and a stainless steel header would do the trick. It is a very small amount of water. But I am familiar with chrome and hondata so I'm sure I could get it going. In fact that is a plan once I get another house. (tail end of divorce) but you can drive something like 5k miles on a gallon of distilled water! Pulling approx 80 amps of power. It is similar to converting to propane, the gas flow thru the fuel rail and injectors. You have to modify the fuel system to deactivate the regulator and line from the tank. With a really nice setup like the one I have designed, a flip of a switch thru a relay control board would go between hho and gasoline. Also the "octane" is very comparable to mid grade gasoline. That will be my dd when I get it done..
 

The_Roadie

Lifetime VIP Donor
Member
Nov 19, 2011
9,957
Portland, OR
Got links to anything but the video? Name? URLs? Specs of their system?

I haven't listed to all the audio, but what I saw had 50-70 Amps on the ammeter, and I thought the voltage was 5V. At the most, I'm thinking he's drawing 500 Watts from the alternator (or battery, pre-start). Since that's less than the 750 Watts that equal 1 HP, so there's clearly another source of energy driving the truck. They're hiding it from the camera.

His mention in the beginning of 55 Liters/minute gas flow rate is unsupported by thermodynamics (500W will produce something like 1/2 liter/minute? I haven't done this math recently) , but it's also not enough to feed the engine. Let's say it's a 5 Liter engine, idle speed is 600 RPM. Ten revs per second. In a 4 stroke engine, you have an intake stroke every other rev, so five intakes per second. Five times five liters is 25 liters needed every second, or 60 times that in a minute, or 1500 liters of fuel/air mixture. Since HHO is 2 to 1 hydrogen to oxygen, and assuming (for an approximation) that the volume of hydrogen needed is twice the volume of oxygen, that means you need 1000 liters PER MINUTE of hydrogen production out of the gadget.

Ummmm, that didn't happen. And that was just for IDLE, not 2000-3000 RPM running down the road.

Besides, the fundamental flaw is you cannot get MORE energy out of the gasses when they recombine than you put in using electricity to tear them apart.

For more reading:
http://www.aardvark.co.nz/hho_scam.shtml
 

BlazingTrails

Member
Apr 27, 2014
19,409
Your replacing the fuel, not the total volume of air the engine flows roadie. When I have a chance I will put together some of the info I have and post it here. It is very much possible. I personally know someone doing it right now. And like I said I built a torch just to check it out. The hho would flow thru the injectors. Just like doing a propane conversion....
 

The_Roadie

Lifetime VIP Donor
Member
Nov 19, 2011
9,957
Portland, OR
I understand you need less energy flowing in, and the energy in 1000 liters a minute of hydrogen is huge.

But you still need let's say 10 horsepower of energy to get the truck moving from a dead stop. 10 HP = 7500 Watts of electricity equivalent. At 12V, that's 625 Amps. If you send 625 Amps at 12V through a 100% efficient electrolysis machine, you get 10 HP worth of energy out of the gasses it can generate.

Torches are trivial. Horsepower is not. Your acquaintance is hiding the true source of energy.
 

BlazingTrails

Member
Apr 27, 2014
19,409
This may be one of those situations where you are getting caught up on the math. I helped this guy build the system and I know for a fact how much power it pulls and what it produces. What other source of energy could he possibly have? All it takes is electricity. There is an extra deep cycle battery for start up because it take about 2 min for the pressure to be high enough to start. Then it would be running on 14.4 volts which mathematically reduces the amperage a good bit.

For example:

500 Watts / 12 volts = 41.666.. Amps

500 Watts / 14.4 volts = 34.722... Amps

Try to think about how much gasoline flows thru the injector, it is almost the same amount of hho
 

Chris JW

Original poster
Member
May 13, 2014
57
Wow , really wasn’t expecting this from my comment , just things like tried it and "its junk"
Like i said its been a few years and i never tried it just on the premise if something seems too good to be true it almost always is,

but maybe ill try building a hydrogen torch assembly to get rid of some stumps i have
got plans for that torch Blazing ?
 

The_Roadie

Lifetime VIP Donor
Member
Nov 19, 2011
9,957
Portland, OR
BlazingTrails said:
This may be one of those situations where you are getting caught up on the math....
Try to think about how much gasoline flows thru the injector, it is almost the same amount of hho
Math is the universal language of proof. There is nothing else.

Let's go back to the energy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_gallon_equivalent

One gallon of gasoline has the same energy as 33.41 kW/hours of electricity, or 357 cubic feet of Hydrogen (at 1 Atm pressure).

367 cubic feet = 10,000 liters. Too much to store except compressed.

So a 500 Watt electrolysis system, even at 100% efficiency, would require 66.82 hours to generate the amount of energy in one gallon of gasoline. Also neglecting thermodynamic losses, which would make electrolysis look even less efficient than this. A truck that gets 20 miles per gallon of gasoline would require at least 66 hours of electrolysis to move 20 miles, or an average velocity of 1/3 MPH.

The proof is on his and your side now. How many liters per minute of hydrogen does his system generate? How much energy is there in that amount of hydrogen? Where does the energy come from to electrolyze that amount of hydrogen? Is there a compressed hydrogen tank in the system, or is it all generated just before use?
 
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dla442

Member
Mar 31, 2012
249
grand rapids, mi
Automakers have made hydro cars but the problem is mass producing it and the only benefit is zero emissions...the costs of making the car and the fuel is not marketable.....yet.
 

Texan

Member
Jan 14, 2014
622
I assume that you are referring to fuel cell automobiles, which are really electric cars.
 

RayVoy

Member
Nov 20, 2011
939
I agree with the Roadie, it's impossible to not get caught up in the math. You are debating his numbers relating to fuel flow; a topic which we can not see; how about debating the size of the fuel tank(s) required to hold the fuel?

To replace gasoline, you need to find an equivalent energy source. Work is work, and if you expect to move the vehicle a given distance you need energy. Let's use the standard US gal as a reference.

There are some pretty reliable numbers on the internet; roaming around, I discovered a table that provides the equivalent energy of a gallon of gasoline. To produce the same energy from hydrogen, you require 357 cu ft at a pressure of one atmosphere. An 8 ft pickup bed only holds around 75 cu ft. You would need a tank 4 to 5 times the size of a pickup bed to move the vehicle 18 miles (the distance you could travel with a gallon of gasoline).

Yeah, I know you are replacing the hydrogen as you are consuming it. How much water would you require?

Well, 1 cubic foot of water will produce 1.4 cubic feet of hydrogen (at one atmosphere). There are approx 7.5 gallons of water in a cubic foot of water; so, you need 7.5 gallons of water to create 1.4 cubic feet of hydrogen. To drive 18 miles (equivalent distance of one gallon of gasoline), you would need almost 2,000 gallons of water.

I'm probably caught up in the math as well; but all I saw was a mason jar, maybe 2 gallons.

Sorry, BS
 

DocBrown

Member
Dec 8, 2011
501
dla442 said:
No..cars that operate on hydrogen.
BMW and GM have been playing with this technology. Its also been demostrated with ICE in forklifts.
 

Sparky

Member
Dec 4, 2011
12,927
Just curious since we have some math whizzes in here (I'm not bad at math, but getting all the details figured out gets me stuck sometimes) - how does a hybrid boost mpg? You're burning gas, to charge a battery (losses there), to then run electric motors. How does that boost efficiency?
 

Mark20

Member
Dec 6, 2011
1,630
If anyone does try disassociating water into hydrogen and oxygen without a means of keeping them separate remember you have a very flammable mixture there. A spark could prove disasterous.
 

blazinlow89

Member
Jan 25, 2012
2,088
dla442 said:
No..cars that operate on hydrogen.

They use compressed hydrogen, rather than manufacturing it on the go. Being compressed you can store enough in a vehicle to actually be useful. IIRC CA had some hydrogen refueling stations when the idea was first being pushed around, it is viable, but costly.

Sparky said:
Just curious since we have some math whizzes in here (I'm not bad at math, but getting all the details figured out gets me stuck sometimes) - how does a hybrid boost mpg? You're burning gas, to charge a battery (losses there), to then run electric motors. How does that boost efficiency?
A hybrid uses the electric motor at low speeds (under 35-40mph), then the gas engine for faster acceleration or faster constant speed. They benefit in the city, however they can struggle with only highway use. Forgot to also add that the vehicles generally recharge through the engine, as well as regenerative braking through the electric engine (think of it kind of like downshifting a stick, the electric engine acts a generator during this procedure which puts power back into the battery bank). The Volt is an entirely different animal.

Top Gear did a segment on it, they compared a Prius to a BMW M3. They ran the Prius full throttle around the tack and the BMW just had to keep up. The BMW got better gas mileage than the Prius.

In HS we had to build an electric car for our engineering class, we had a single 12v battery and a 1hp engine. It ended up being more of a truck, however it attained a top speed of about 35 mph, and went over an hour or so on the battery. We talked to the teacher and he allowed us to run a proof of concept idea. We ran an alternator to the rear axle (solid shaft with a gear), made a pulley to fit the axle, and mounted the alternator to the frame. It kept the battery fairly well charged for a good distance. We had to stop after 4 hours, cannot remember the voltage we ended with now, but it greatly lengthened the life of the battery.

http://www.bbcamerica.com/top-gear/videos/thirsty-prius/
 
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Chris JW

Original poster
Member
May 13, 2014
57
Heard a new one today (or read it) , People are actually putting acetone in their fuel tanks. Anyone seen anyone do that?
How long before they wrecked their engine?
 

Hypnotoad

Member
Dec 5, 2011
1,584
I have a friend that was doing it years ago. Never wrecked his motor. The motor was in great shape and he never killed it. He claimed it kept everything clean. I have serious doubts about the effectiveness.
 

Chris JW

Original poster
Member
May 13, 2014
57
Wikipedia says you can mix it with ATF or brake fluid and use it as a penetrating oil, Think I will try that instead of putting it in my tank.
 

Hatchet

Member
Nov 21, 2011
2,405
blazinlow89 said:
In HS we had to build an electric car for our engineering class, we had a single 12v battery and a 1hp engine. It ended up being more of a truck, however it attained a top speed of about 35 mph, and went over an hour or so on the battery. We talked to the teacher and he allowed us to run a proof of concept idea. We ran an alternator to the rear axle (solid shaft with a gear), made a pulley to fit the axle, and mounted the alternator to the frame. It kept the battery fairly well charged for a good distance. We had to stop after 4 hours, cannot remember the voltage we ended with now, but it greatly lengthened the life of the battery.

http://www.bbcamerica.com/top-gear/videos/thirsty-prius/
Did something similar except i used a remote control car, and an appropriate sized alternator.
 

Chris JW

Original poster
Member
May 13, 2014
57
Wonder if that would work on my girls barbie jeep? My guess is the gearing needed to spin it fast enough would defeat the purpose
 

meerschm

Member
Aug 26, 2012
1,079
Sparky said:
Just curious since we have some math whizzes in here (I'm not bad at math, but getting all the details figured out gets me stuck sometimes) - how does a hybrid boost mpg? You're burning gas, to charge a battery (losses there), to then run electric motors. How does that boost efficiency?
The hybrid includes regenerative braking, capturing some of the energy instead of making heat with the brakes.

the battery also smooths out the loads, so you can get better acceleration with reduced combustion engine power, which means smaller motor, smaller car, ......

you would not get the same benefit from just adding the hybrid parts without changing the rest of the design. a hybrid Yukon did not turn it into a Prius.
 

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