Yesterday, I put up a question here about improving fuel mileage on one of these big old clunkers. I got a few responses that I almost just passed over at first, thinking they were just BS, snake oil type things. They were about a DIY hydrogen fuel cell that could supposedly double a cars gas mileage. I was desperate enough that I decided to at least look into the links that got posted for a second, just to prove to myself that there was nothing worth pursuing there. Was I wrong.........

I'd encourage all of you to go to water4gas.com and download a couple of his books (free, and just to skim). I did, and stayed up reading them half of last night, and this stuff is for real..... A few guys said that this project deserved a thread if I was really going to look into it, and so here it is! The quest for 20 mpg??? Let's find out!

 

So, today, day 1:

I am almost broke, and I can barely pay for gas enough to get to the odd jobs that I've managed to drum up. I'm currently getting around 8mpg. After reading for hours about home built hydrogen generation units, I decided I needed to at least look into the idea enough to satisfy my curiosity.

I went into my garage, and set up the simplest proof of concept type of thing I could dream up. I used 2 pieces of 16 gauge copper house wire about 8 inches long, poked them through the lid of a disposable qt sized tupperware container, filled it with water, and a little sprinkle of baking soda, hooked each wire to a terminal of my battery, and waited for results.....

I didn't have to wait long. The second I made contact with the second battery lead, completing the circuit (through the water), the negative wire in the water came alive. The positive response was just a little bit less pronounced, but in under a second, it too was covered with little gas bubbles, and both began pouring their products up to the surface of the water.

Now, I did this experiment in middle school science, the fact that with even a tiny bit of electricity, you can split water into hydrogen and oxygen, is no big secret. But, I now know that it indeed works on a car battery (I was assuming, but it's the first step).

I let the generator sit and do it's thing for about 10 minutes, popped off the lid, passed the torch over it, and low and behold, just for a split second, the gas burned. SUCCESS! In a very veeeery preliminary kind of way at least.....

I noticed immediately though why everyone on the internet says to use stainless steel wire, as opposed to the much more readily available copper. After just a couple of those 5 or 10 minute runs, my water was dark green. The negative copper electrode corrodes FAST.

I got on the internet, and unfortunately couldn't find a single place that sold the wire I needed locally, but I called up McMaster steel (a recommended wire source from the water4gas book) and ordered a 1/4 pound roll of 316L stainless steel .032" wire for 15$, and the woman on the phone told me it should be here within one day!

That's as far as I've gotten for the day. Whenever I get the wire, I'm going to make a very simple jar with that, see if I can run it for longer, and see what I can get for gas. Then I'll move forward from there with different coil designs and all of that.

This is extremely exciting! I'll keep you guys posted. This could let us make all these trucks a much more viable option for the road!

AleX

 

subscribed!! you definately have my curiousity up.

 

Subscribed! I'm really looking forward to how this turns out.

Regarding your low fuel mileage though, it still should be getting more than 8mpg. I don't remember exactly what all you've covered so far but it would seem a little more tuning as a gas engine is in order before you throw on your hydro cell. I mean I get around 10mpg with mine, so something is out of whack.

 

Nah I know, I'm going to post up my final fuel mileage BEFORE using any hydrogen once I have everything ironed out. I thought I did, but about an hour ago I cranked my idle mixture screws all the way in, just out of curiosity, and it still ran..... So something is for sure off. I'm leaving that to another thread though.

 

Vehicles can indeed run on hydrogen. Quite easily in fact. Producing hydrogen is childs play, but producing ENOUGH hydrogen and delivering it correctly is not.

Producing enough hydrogen through this method seems unlikely. Imagine you are running 2500 RPM. That is about 42 RPS with 2 pistons firing on each rotation. So you think it produces enough hydrogen PER SECOND to produce 84 power strokes?

Producing enough power (more than a car battery) would create diminishing returns. Basically, you would spend more gas to create enough hydrogen. Thus the general problem with hydrogen. This is why it has to be produced with renewable energy sources like wind, water or solar power to be a viable energy source.

If your source has solved this problem, he should be up for the Nobel Prize.

 

No I'm well aware of that, but my goal here (and what this guy claims to have done) is just to supplement gasoline with hydrogen, not replace it, or even match it, by any means.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not sure of the science behind it, or even exactly how it is accomplished, but there are a BUNCH of people out there who claim to be able to cut their gasoline consumption in half, with the addition of a little hydrogen. An amount that is quite feasible to generate in an underhood, alternator powered system.

I've heard people say that it allows the gas to be burned more efficiently, and that the hydrogen actually serves as a full on secondary fuel, in and of itself. I'm not sure which of those is true, if either, but it's exactly what I'm trying to find out.

I am also not sure how gas is saved on a vacuum driven carb, the change in the volume of gas taken in with the addition of the hydrogen is extremely minimal, so in my mind, you would have to lean the carb way back, aaand add hydrogen, to make up for the much smaller amount of fuel (people say it allows you to run a MUCH leaner gasoline-air mixture), but all of this is exactly what I'm hoping to find out.

I'm not selling this as anything more than an extremely interesting experiment yet, believe me, I'm very skeptical myself. BUT, there are a tantalizing number of supposed success stories out there, and I don't think that there could be nothing to them all.

But we will see. I started this thread so I could present the results true and plain. I would be overjoyed if this really worked, and disappointed if it didn't, but either way, it will be the truth.

 

omg i need this if it works haha

 

It does sounds interesting, keep us updated.

 

I've watched a ton of the videos posted on this, and I've read plenty of articles, pro and con. I started out pretty skeptical myself, but there are too many people claiming success with this who have no monetary interest in it, that I've become pretty certain there is something to it.

Nothercrash, one thing to remember is, when you split the water molecules, 1/3 of what you get is oxygen. Don't forget to figure that into your fuel mix.

You've got my attention. I'll be keeping a close eye on this. We had a discussion on this topic recently on another forum I frequent, but as far as I know it was only hypothetical; nobody was actually going to test the process.

Oh...subscribed...

 

TX, what are some of the cons you've heard about? I honestly haven't been able to find any, but I'd love to know at least what to watch for before I start sending anything through my engine....

 

Could this work with a dedicated LPG system? Im definately interested.

 

You mean propane? I'm not sure. As I think about it, it definitely wouldn't be as simple. The HHO is drawn in by the engines vacuum ONLY, and that's why it's so cheap and easy. Propane is pressurized at least up to the carb...thing.... I think?

 

NC, the pros and cons I'm talking about were about whether this would work at all or not. Most people seem to think there is no way it would work. They say it would violate the laws of physics. I personally don't know one way or another, but I am very curious to see what results you get. Like I said, this is something I've been thinking about trying, but I've got too many things going on right now to get to it.

 

People that seem to have nothing to gain on the internet generally have more to gain than you think. They may not be selling anything, but they are looking to generate traffic. Traffic = $$$

I have looked into this myself. This has been around for years. Ask yourself this; if this really works, why arent more people doing it in "real life"? Not in internet land where fat kids pose as Navy SEALS and it seems 100's have done this with great results. How many people have REALLY done this in their garage? This information is all over the place, so the oil company conspiracy theory doesnt exactly hold water. If there were an oil company conspiracy, it would probably be trying to keep this going so we all chase our tails instead of solving the problem. Here is a good article:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/alternative-fuel/gas-mileage/4310717