HHO gas as a fuel supplement

[busfreak_71]

[wcdennis]

[inspector58]

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Loud pipes save lives!

[OilNBolts]

I'm naturally skeptical of this sort of thing, but a local shop owner, a top-notch driveability tech that I've known for years, has just started installing the "dutchman" system. A fair bit of post-installation tuning of their system is required, and the vehicle needs to be healthy and in proper tune to begin with.

When I saw this guy on Tuesday, he had just returned from a post-installation test drive on a Suzuki somethingoranother; .88 gallons of fuel burned in 54.6 miles. Same gas pump, filled full to auto shutoff.

I don't doubt that it works. My question is, will it continue to do so into the future. Is the system stable? Will there be unforeseen secondary consequences such as throttle body or intake system corrosion, shortened valve life, or exhaust system troubles? If the system is compromised and a large volume of hydrogen gas is allowed to collect somewhere...

We all remember (indirectly) the Hindenburg. Of course, any Vanagon owner is aware that gasoline is also flammable.
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Current fleet: Vanagons, two '88 GLs and an 89 Bluestar. Beetles, '63, '64, '72 convertible. Plus, four Subarus and three Prius. Too many cars.

[inspector58]

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Loud pipes save lives!

[OilNBolts]

Yea, I read that somewhere. Cotton fabric coated with a mixture of nitrate dope and aluminum powder. An engineer from Morton-Thiocol (sp?) said that if took that stuff and rolled it up really tight and slid that into an aluminum tube, you'd have a pretty good approximation of the fuel source of a Space Shuttle solid rocket booster. Don't try this at home.
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Current fleet: Vanagons, two '88 GLs and an 89 Bluestar. Beetles, '63, '64, '72 convertible. Plus, four Subarus and three Prius. Too many cars.

[Wildthings]

[inspector58]

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Loud pipes save lives!

[sugarloaf]

not saying I've bought into HHO yet, but its nice to see someone making a go at proving its viability


http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9960833-54.html

[Wildthings]

[amattos5519]

i got a 15% increase on my 1984 toyota pickup drawing 10 amps on 12 volts

[AMERI-SWISS]

[amattos5519]

my only question with addind one to my van i if the ecu will adjust properly or if i need to adjust the mixture manually. other than that i have all the parts ready to go

[inspector58]

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Loud pipes save lives!

[amattos5519]

that is true but could the ecu sense a leaner mixture and richen it, because hydrogen burnoff is water vapor. that was a concern on a 4runner that we had

[tencentlife]

It might, and that's one of the potential problems that can prevent you getting a real mpg improvement when adding HHO or other modifications.

First of all, if you make mixture adjustments with a working lambda system (o2 sensor feedback), they have no effect on idle and normal running; only on warmup and WOT. So that's the problem, the system does self-adjust, and it will keep trying to settle in at a 14.7:1 AFR.

Normally, the AFM, along with Temp1 (intake air) only determines mixture until the ECU sees the coolant temp threshhold met (Temp2 signal), then it looks at the o2 signal and lets lambda keep tuning to 14.7 all the time, except at WOT when it once again runs open loop and high-load mixture is determined by the AFM load signal along with Temp2.

14.7 is not the best mixture for the engine, it's the best mixture for the catalytic convertor. It's important to keep that in mind.

The premise seems to be that with a working HHO generator feeding the intake the engine can make the same power with less fuel at a given load. But in order to get that benefit, rather than simply more power, perhaps, under heavy engine load, you do have to tweak the FI to run leaner at cruise.

There's more than one way to do it.

One way is to run open-loop, and use the AFM only to determine mixture. I'm running nowadays with no lambda loop, o2 sensor removed, no cat, and I have adjusted my AFM to give about 18:1 AFR at idle, 16-16.5 at cruise, and 12-12.5 at full load. The full load mixture is progressive; it varies with the actual load, settling back into the cruise AFR as load decreases and the rpms increase to my desired speed.

I do almost entirely highway driving, and this has resulted in about 10% increase in cruising fuel efficiency at my usual speed of 75-80mph, from 18 to 20mpg. At lower speeds we see as high as 24.

This is only possible by careful trial and error adjusting of the AFM internals (the CO screw has little effect except at idle), and road-testing using a wide-band o2 monitor to get real-time mixture readings. The same thing could be done with an HHO gen working, adjusting for a lean idle and cruise mixture after accounting for the effects the HHO has on combustion.

Another, simpler way, requiring less in the way of FI modification and not needing a WBo2 monitor, is to build one of these:

http://better-mileage.com/memberadx.html

This little electronic device artificially indexes the lambda controller portion of the ECU to a lower voltage. Instead of trying to average at 0.5V from the sensor, the device receives the o2 signal and applies a programmable offset so the ECU tries instead to average around 0.1V, because when sensor output is 0.1V the ECU is being fed 0.5V instead. Due to the very non-linear output of a narrow-band o2 sensor, making the ECU seek to a 0.1V signal only results in a very small mileage increase, maybe 1mpg or 5% according to the article. What it mainly does is prevent the ECU from responding to any alterations in combustion eficiency by actually running richer, which under some circumstances it is likely to do. But it should be a simple, cheap, and easy to install for the backyard mechanic. We have the parts to build a couple of these, but my electronics expert friend is out of town and has the parts, so we haven't tested these as of yet.

(Also, please read the article and study the o2 output graph before commenting on this, because most of you will be surprised at how you have misunderstood the nature of the NBo2 signal. You cannot tune mixture to a NBo2 signal with a VOM with any practical accuracy.)

(Also, for the skeptics who see a scam everywhere, note that the site I linked to offers the schematics and detailed instructions online, for free, and charges very small fees for preassembled controllers. He is also not promoting HHO, but water or water vapor injection. So he may be wrong, try it for yourself and see, but he at least believes enough in what he's doing to simply disseminate the info without trying to get rich by it.)
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Experience is kryptonite to doctrine.

[amattos5519]

what happens if a device is hooked up with no ecu mods?

[inspector58]

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[gears]

Great thread! The pooled knowledge in our little VW Van forum never ceases to amaze me.

Someone in the thread mentioned the Hydrogen gas welder (pour in water and plug it into the wall socket) ... I coincidentally was part of a NZ company in the mid '80s in which one of the principals of our company developed the circuitry for this welder (after our group had disbanded). The efficiency level of this circuitry was so highly coveted by the company that he then worked for AND the NZ government, that to this day he's the only guy who has ever been charged under an obscure NZ industrial espionage law when he tried to export this technology to Korea. That's a long off topic story, but ...

... Just about a year ago, I picked up the newspaper and read a lengthy article about another fellow who had developed a very similar circuitry package for the automobile industry, doing exactly what the Inspector's gadget does, but in a very efficient manner. I'm surprised that no one else remembers reading this article. If I recall correctly, net gains were in the range of about 10-15% ... a figure so significant, that expectations were that the U.S. automakers would HAVE to buy into this technology eventually to attain the fuel efficiency imposed upon them some time in the future ... even though it meant a hefty increase in automobile sticker price (about $2K ?).

Just my .02 cents worth pointing out how significant a 10-15% gain really is ...

[tencentlife]