hydrogen fuel

[nj swb]

Just googled some more stuff - make up your own minds, but the OEMs know about it and extension of the lean burn limit then subtracting fuel away to take advantage of the new condition is where your 30% (and more) savings comes from.

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/11/hydrogenenhance.html

and

http://georgepehli.googlepages.com/HEC_Presentation.pdf

That's nice. But it has nothing to do with on-board generation of hydrogen from water. And both links are discussing the use of a plasma reactor, not an electolysis system. The output of the plasma reactor system is reported to be 21% H2, 22%CO, 6% HC, Nitrogen and water vapors. What does that have to do with HHO gas?

However if you don't make any changes to the fuel delivery to take advantage of the new combustion conditions, any fuel savings will be minimal at best.

Agreed.

All of my cars run aftermarket fuel compters where fuel delivery can be altered with a flick of the laptop and a look at the wideband O2 readout, so once I get a hydrogen system I am happy with, I'm sure I will see this 30% saving the engineers are talking about in my spark ignition engines, just as I saw a similar saving with the diesel and the LPG.

It certainly sounds like you're serious about this, and I wish you the best of luck. However, addition of HHO gas is not comparable to LPG over diesel - which I thought we had already discussed.

I am interested in your experience with the LPG over diesel - I've not seen published results quoting such significant improvements. What were your before and after figures?

[Ben D]

I am interested in your experience with the LPG over diesel - I've not seen published results quoting such significant improvements. What were your before and after figures?

2002 DID, before 800-830 km from a full tank (usually 76 L -78L of diesel per refill), now 1000-1100 km per tank of diesel, with use of around 20 L of gas per tank of diesel. With the EFI system I have full control of gas flow and can bump it up at cruise and in the mid range to maximise fuel economy and back it off a bit at full throttle to avoid detonation. I could probably substitute more gas but am happy with it as it is. I'm home now (from overseas) so can post a pic of the simple gas EFI system I made up, using the LINK electrosystems computer and a couple of old injectors from my race car.

The thing with the hydrogen is its the H @*$#@*$#@*$#@*$#cule that is what you want in the combustion chamber - how you manufacture the H is, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant (to me anyway), as long as you get enough of it in there in some sort of controlled fashion.

[Ben D]

I guess the forum doesn't like the word @*$#@*$#@*$#@*$#cule, maybe mol-e-cule ?

[bakerboy]

@*$#@*$#@*$#@*$#cule

hahahaha yeah it doesnt like mol - e - cule thats just stupid i thought u guys were havin a spaz attack when it came to writing it

[Rocketsurgery]

how you manufacture the H is, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant (to me anyway), as long as you get enough of it in there in some sort of controlled fashion.

It requires huge amounts of electrical energy to create meaningful amounts of HHO more than your alternator is capable of generating. - this energy is obtained by heavily loading your alternator - how can you say that this extra drag is irrelevant?

Its pointless making comparisons with the LPG over diesel injection system, as the LPG is fed to the engine is external to the system (as in wasn't generated using power taken from your engine). Perhaps if you created a system to produce, compress and store the H2 at home to refuel your vehicle, you may have better success.

The problem as mentioned elsewhere is that the average 4 cylinder engine sucks 2000l of air per minute, the average HHO cell produces half to 1 litre per minute of HHO gas - exactly how is adding such a minute amount of HHo going to make a difference? A 3.2 litre diesel with a turbo added would probably consume 3000l per minute of air, if that cell is making .5 litres per minute of HHO just what effect is adding 1/6000th of the volume of HHO? Add to that you have added weight to the vehicle, and imposed a drag on the alternator, two things that will decrease your economy. Incidentally, without a bubbler as a flash arrester beware blowing something up if you get a short in the engine bay.

It's not all hokum though, there are university studies that show adding say 80l per minute to an engine from a large hydrogen cylinder will give about a 15% decrease in the amount of diesel used, but bear in mind the amount of gas per minute AND the fact that it came from a cylinder. To get an electrolyser to produce 80l of H2 would mean generating 120l of HHO (remember 2 x H + 1 x O in H20). If the small electrolysis unit used to get 1 l per minute draws 5 amps, then we are going to need 5 x 120 or 600Amps. So add another 5 alternators to your engine and load them all up - explain to me how that's not going to weigh a bit, generate substantial amounts of heat and cause you to burn more fuel? The 15% is going to rapidly disappear. Incidentally if we assume that an alternator is only around 50% efficient, then the engine is supplying 1200A worth of energy - or in other terms 1200a x 12v = 14,400w or 14.4kw syphoned from your engine. Its not all bad though, if you turn off the HHO unit, imagine how many sets of spotties you could run with that many alternators :-)

[Ben D]

ben d i would like to see some pics of this not that i am a doubting thomas but i have been interest in this for some time .
thanks richard

I attach a pic of my homemade LPG gas injection system as promised. Hopefully it appears somewhere here. The two bosch injectors are controlled by a LINK electrosystems G2 computer, with the regulator set at 15 psi differential and the gas from the injectors introduced just before the plenum. It all works very well with full control of the gas and absolutely no reliability problems at all.

The problem with most of the hydrogen systems I have seen is that you can't control the output very well as you can't get enough gas pressure to control it with an injector (though I may be wrong). The volumes produced by most HHO systems are low, but their main benefits are seen when the motor is throttled, such as at idle and cruise, when the airflow is comparatively small. So clearly the simple HHO hydrogen systems are better suited to a petrol application, simply because the diesel applications have no throttle plates to control airflow through the engine. This is why I'll trial a HHO system firstly on a spark ignition engine, where I'm sure I will see some significant benefits at idle and cruise.

Clearly with a diesel application the gaseous hydrogen fuel will also work along the lines of an LPG system, but the problem with a diesel is firstly manufacturing enough hydrogen then secondly controlling its delivery to avoid detonation.

Personally I am careful in stating that something simply "can't work" when there is quite a bit of evidence to suggest that the theory is sound and that under some operation conditions the desired results should be able to be obtained by a well designed and tuned HHO system, especially on an engine burning gasoline. While I do not yet have any emperical evidence or data myself, there are too many people out there who have tried it and got some positive results, many using very crude techniques, to simply write it off without giving it a go.

[Rocketsurgery]

I attach a pic of my homemade LPG gas injection system as promised. Hopefully it appears somewhere here. The two bosch injectors are controlled by a LINK electrosystems G2 computer, with the regulator set at 15 psi differential and the gas from the injectors introduced just before the plenum. It all works very well with full control of the gas and absolutely no reliability problems at all.

The problem with most of the hydrogen systems I have seen is that you can't control the output very well as you can't get enough gas pressure to control it with an injector (though I may be wrong). The volumes produced by most HHO systems are low, but their main benefits are seen when the motor is throttled, such as at idle and cruise, when the airflow is comparatively small. So clearly the simple HHO hydrogen systems are better suited to a petrol application, simply because the diesel applications have no throttle plates to control airflow through the engine. This is why I'll trial a HHO system firstly on a spark ignition engine, where I'm sure I will see some significant benefits at idle and cruise.

Clearly with a diesel application the gaseous hydrogen fuel will also work along the lines of an LPG system, but the problem with a diesel is firstly manufacturing enough hydrogen then secondly controlling its delivery to avoid detonation.

Personally I am careful in stating that something simply "can't work" when there is quite a bit of evidence to suggest that the theory is sound and that under some operation conditions the desired results should be able to be obtained by a well designed and tuned HHO system, especially on an engine burning gasoline. While I do not yet have any emperical evidence or data myself, there are too many people out there who have tried it and got some positive results, many using very crude techniques, to simply write it off without giving it a go.

OK, give it a shot - let us know how you go.

[swordfishBob]

What people on both sides of these arguments often forget is that efficiency-improvement devices at best would overcome an existing inefficiency, and the gain can only be expected to approach an ideal engine.

Engines that shut down some cylinders when under light load are saving a little on engine internal overheads - makes no difference towing a caravan but much better when just poking along through town in no particular hurry.

Hyclones are about improving intake airflow (they do this a bit, but not as well as most turbos) and mixing (to improve rate of combustion and completeness of combustion). Hence they make the biggest difference on naturally aspirated diesels and non-injected engines. They do also affect the spin-up of turbos, though tuning the turbo would have a similar effect.

Converting water into hydrogen gas and oxygen gas (2x H2O -> 2x H2 + 1x O2) by electrolysis doesn't magically make fuel - the energy retrieved from it cannot be more than the energy required in the electrolysis, less some for various losses. (Fundamental physics). What it might achieve though is faster combustion.
Adding LPG to Diesel is also largely aimed at faster combustion, though also reduces the average cost (esp tax component) of fuel used.

So how much difference can you expect from faster combustion? It depends how slow it is already. A diesel engine at low-ish revs is pretty efficient, if it's just fast enough to use the turbo. The nature of diesel combustion is suited to relatively slow operation. As the revs increase, the stroke occurs more quickly, and has progressed further before combustion completes. Mixing some other gas will help it flash, giving maximum pressure for a greater % of the stroke.
ie I would expect an LPG system to make more difference in a Diesel at high revs than at low revs. I suspect a Hydrogen system could be similar, as long as you have means of properly managing the injection (both H2 and O2 would be gases at operating temperature).

Extractors are about losing less energy trying to push the exhaust gases out of the engine. Again, that's a bigger deal at high revs.

Anything that increases the maximum torque or power means you can spend more time in higher gears (Head shave?). Many people would just adjust their driving to use the extra power, and thereby just use more fuel. People who frequently drive up long hills, particularly while towing, would get the most benefit from increased power through staying in top gear.

A Prius does well by only running the engine within a range where it's fairly efficient, and storing energy for use when you need extra power and when taking off (the engine would be less efficient if used from lower revs.) It still doesn't achieve the magic of giving you more kinetic energy than the chemical energy you pour into it - just reduces some of the losses.

If all else is equal, ie vehicle mass, body shape, gear ratios.. an already-efficient engine has less to gain than a poor one. I don't expect a gadget or modification to improve my 2.2L Camry's consumption much at all, as it only uses ~8L/100km already. If I had a Prius, I'd expect even less improvement, except from plugging in the batteries to charge at home (which is cheating :-)
Certain Fords - I suspect you could do almost anything to them to get better economy.

[bakerboy]

Hyclones are about improving intake airflow (they do this a bit, but not as well as most turbos) and mixing (to improve rate of combustion and completeness of combustion). Hence they make the biggest difference on naturally aspirated diesels and non-injected engines. They do also affect the spin-up of turbos, though tuning the turbo would have a similar effect.

thankyou for ur joke, it made my day hahahahahahah

[swordfishBob]

I assume you've tested them in all kinds of vehicles, or you're an ex-spurt in fluid dynamics..

[bakerboy]

ask yourself this question, would air flow better through an unrestricted pipe? or one with a hunk of metal in the middle?

as for an ex-spurt (nice attempt at a pun, pity it failed) at fluid dynamics, i am not, however i am mates with a chemical engineer who has only been in the game for 30 odd yrs and knows a thing or 2 bout fluid movement

[chrisb]

the average 4 cylinder engine sucks 2000l of air per minute, the average HHO cell produces half to 1 litre per minute of HHO gas

but air != fuel, my car doesnt suck 2000l of fuel/min

my car uses about 12l of fuel /100km
its 50km to the city that takes me 45min
so i use 6l of fuel in 45minutes
so my average 6cyl car uses 0.13l/min of fuel

i'm still skeptical that it works too, id like to see proof

[Photocaro]

It's interesting to hear people's opinions on this. Someone close to me(very clever man) has been trialling different types of HHO generators in his patrol for a couple of years. Starting with wet cell types and then dry cell types (which are far better). He has seen some awesome increases in mileage, but only before the computer realises that it's oxygen levels are too high for the fuel it's putting in, so it dumps even more in making the fuel consumption worse! He is however only using the standard ecu with standard mapping which is the problem.

His normal fuel consumption is 4.9km/l of fuel which is terrible. On one run he got about 8.4km/l which is a massive increase, but this was only for about 100km before the computer figured out something was going on and started running very rich.(Usual improvements before the computer kicked in was averaging 7.5km/l) This dropped the fuel consumption down to 4km/l. He has tried those jaycar kits to change the oxygen sensor and the MAP sensor while at the same time logging this on his laptop to see what is going on but these do not work either. Computer drinks more fuel!

I told him to get the ecu retuned with the HHO running to make the most of it, but being on a limited income, its a bit hard for him. Other benefits are a smoother running engine and it also has more power (this is from his bum dyno and not official tests). He said it towed his caravan up hills alot better!

As far as extra current goes from the alternator, this thing is only pulling between 3A and 5A (depending on electrolyte mix) so that is hardly going to affect your alternator or batteries. As far as my calculations are that is about the same as your H4 headlights pull!

Does anyone know if you can tweak your ecu settings yourself on a pajero? I want to try this thing on my car because I believe after seeing these results that there is no reason why you couldnt double your fuel mileage on a country run when tuned correctly for it.

I'm interested to see if one of those jaycar kits will work in reducing fuel consumption (without the HHO) on my Pajero as well. If people have had positive results with them I would like to hear from you and also what your tuning was. It would also be interesting to see if you could use the same kit to get the HHO to work efficiently as well!

Any thoughts or ideas?

[bakerboy]

He has seen some awesome increases in mileage, but only before the computer realises that it's oxygen levels are too high

so pretty much instantly yeah? as its fuel injected it makes calculations constantly so would it not even make a difference?

[Photocaro]

Well you would think so, but it doesnt happen that way. He wouldnt have been able to get the good results he did (for a short time) if the computer readjusted itself immediately.