HHO: Is it alchemy? Or will it improve gas mileage on a ’99 4.0 SOHC Explorer?

[r37ribution]

Instead of comming up with a way to monitor throttle position for the volume of gas being added to the intake, would monitoring the volume of air be a better idea? It could work in much the same way as the MAF.

Or even use the mas air readings and/or throttle position to adjust a valve on a small brown gas reservoir. With a reservoir, you could also monitor the pressure and increase/decrease current based on brown gas fuel level and the engines volume of ambient air consumption/throttle position. If the reservoir runs out revert back to the stock fuel/air ratio so as not to burn up the engine.

You could also have a turbo timer and extra dedicated batteries which run for a period of time after you leave the vehicle so as to recharge your reservoir for the next drive. Thus making the volume of brown gas greater and having a better impact on gas milage, tuned correctly of course.

Add a high amp alternator to the mix with a PWM and your all set for tons of HHO fuel.

 

[Josh]

OK sorry I got a little excited.

I never said because my buddy is getting 50mpg that it was absolutely safe to use. I was simply stating the results and arguing the point wheather it was possible or not. I do admit he has jumped in feet first. right now he is watching his temps and will be pulling his plugs to check for damage. I have even thought about an EGT gauge to keep an eye on exhaust temps.

When you lean out the mix, you are supposed to be supplimenting with the hydroxy. As I was discussing with my buddy, he said he actualy lost mileage when he leaned it out to much. I plan to use a volt meter to measure the signal from the O2 sensor before the generator to get a baseline measurement to work from. I do not plan to just throw it in.

As for the auto makers, well that is a whole other thread. Call me paranoid or what ever, but I believe that most auto makers are milking it out. The technology is there to make cars get a lot better gas mileage yet where are they? Another example is the computer industry. What if you were bored with your P3 750 and intel said hey we just made a dual core processor. Hey guess what they just lost hundreds of millions in profits from all the in between models. Some one explain why we are only seeing small gains in mileage from the automakers? 20 years ago there were cars getting almost as much mileage as some hybrids today. Volkswagen diesels have been right up there since the 80s with 45 miles to the gallon. My friends VW gulf gets 56MPG. Why is VW the only auto maker putting out those cars? I heard a story that VW is cutting back on the diesels. So tell me what that does to the price of thier current models? $$$$$ Makes sense to me. Remeber, the auto makers are not our friends. They are doing what it takes to get into your back pocket.

I am happy to share my plans with evrybody. I plan a build diary soon. With the temps hanging in the 90s and the smoke from the wildfires in the Dismal swamp, I have'nt gotten outside to work on it. I had to work on my F250 Sunday morning and it was so humid outside that my glasses would try and fog up! I was outside for an hour when that happened so you cant blame it on coming out of the AC. WTF! I hate Virginia. OK I'm done.

 

[rocket 5979]

I'd rather meter a very small amount of NOs into the intake... it'd do the same thing...

Injecting hydrogen or injecting nitrous is two worlds apart. They are not even in the same family. While nitrous is an oxidizer hydrogen is a flammable fuel. They are totally separate sides of the combustion triangle. While they each do their own part to assist in combustion they do it in different ways and thus cannot be compared for fuel economy. Injecting nitrous would do nothing for fuel economy because the more of it you inject the more fuel you would need. Hydrogen is a fuel so the more hydro the inject the less gasoline you will have to inject.

Gasoline = 14.7 : 1 stoich
Hydrogen = 34 : 1 stoich

Now that I am curious I will have to think how I would go about tuning something like this if I were doing it...



EDIT: Holy crap, I didn't realize that this thread was already 9 pages long! Whoops very late post... Sorry.

 

[CDW6212R]

Hello Robert, welcome and interject, plus where have you been?

Psst, has anyone noticed that there is some oxygen in this concept, actually one molecule for every two of hydrogen? This is a bit more complicated than some suggest.

With the small volume being produced by any device, it is not likely for any metering to be needed for the H or O gases. The only big issue should be the engine fuel tune, and creating enough HHO to be useful.

 

[Jakee]

Injecting hydrogen or injecting nitrous is two worlds apart. They are not even in the same family. While nitrous is an oxidizer hydrogen is a flammable fuel. They are totally separate sides of the combustion triangle. While they each do their own part to assist in combustion they do it in different ways and thus cannot be compared for fuel economy. Injecting nitrous would do nothing for fuel economy because the more of it you inject the more fuel you would need. Hydrogen is a fuel so the more hydro the inject the less gasoline you will have to inject.

Gasoline = 14.7 : 1 stoich
Hydrogen = 34 : 1 stoich

Now that I am curious I will have to think how I would go about tuning something like this if I were doing it...



EDIT: Holy crap, I didn't realize that this thread was already 9 pages long! Whoops very late post... Sorry.

I’d say use a little math to figure out the new stoich. If we know how many parts of gas vs. hydrogen, then we can formulate this to a new base stoich to start from. Then test and see what happens. This is something I was trying to explain on page 9 or so.

If it were me, I'd start with 16.1 and go up in small increments.


I'm almost half tempted to get one of these and start tuning.

 

[rocket 5979]

I’d say use a little math to figure out the new stoich. If we know how many parts of gas vs. hydrogen, then we can formulate this to a new base stoich to start from. Then test and see what happens. This is something I was trying to explain on page 9 or so.

If it were me, I'd start with 16.1 and go up in small increments.


I'm almost half tempted to get one of these and start tuning.

Exactly! For some reason there are some people that are forgetting that while the hydrogen being produced here is in gaseous form it still is a fuel rather than an oxidizer and thus when injected the AFR's will drift richer if there is no compensation. That is exactly why when Al tried his HHO setup that one time his AFR's drifted about .1-.2 richer.

I just wanted to make this well understood for some people in here because if you try to think about hydrogen acting in the capacity that oxygen does then you will be completely backwards when it comes to the results you expect to see from it versus the results that happen.

Remember people Hydrogen is a FUEL. Oxygen is an OXIDIZER. Two VERY VERY VERY different things; especially when it comes to this specific discussion of attaining more fuel efficiency.

Jake, your proportioning idea is exactly what I was thinking of too. Figure that ratio of additional hydrogen going into the engine compared to the gasoline going in there. Then take this ratio and factor your gasoline stoich by it and you will find about what stoich AFR you should be shooting for when injecting HHO.

 

[CDW6212R]

That's where Joe's comparison of a drop of water in a bucket etc. comes in. Adding a negligible amount of a 34:1 fuel to a 99.9999% volume of 14.7:1 fuel will require very nearly the same 14.7:1 ratio of gasoline A/F.

The change will be very minor, the trick will be to find the leanest point that will run well with the HHO added, while still running okay if the HHO gas is stopped.

 

[Jakee]

I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking this way! And it's good to agree.


I've heard of people pushing the limit without HHO and running the 16:1 stoich point so that's sort of safe. I'm thinking there has to be more Hydrogen present some how some way. Then get the new stoich up in the 20's and you'll see big increases. I just haven't studied this enough to know better.

 

[CDW6212R]

I believe that the greatest potential savings will be at any time the engine is under 1000rpm. At idle and very light cruise rpm's the HHO may make a big difference. That is also the time that less damage can occur from being abnormally lean. Not messing with high rpm tuning will do no harm then.

 

[Josh]

Doesnt hydrogen have roughly 3 times more energy than gasoline? You guys keep focusing on hydrogen alone. There are other things involved. Supposedly, a PWM is supposed to help with gas production as well. The enhancer I built will be able to turn off or back to stock with the flick of a switch. There are DIY kits out there that you can make warning circuits based on voltage. You could make one to warn you if the sensor dips below or above a cirtain range.

 

[Josh]

I believe that the greatest potential savings will be at any time the engine is under 1000rpm. At idle and very light cruise rpm's the HHO may make a big difference. That is also the time that less damage can occur from being abnormally lean. Not messing with high rpm tuning will do no harm then.

I don't see how those gains would even be worth the trouble of the install.

 

[CDW6212R]

My point is just that as the rpm's go up, the effectiveness of the added fuel lessens directly. That hydrogen and oxygen are both ideal fuel for combustion does help. At least this concept isn't dealing with any other useless elements. 100% of the resulting HHO is helpful.

 

[rocket 5979]

That's where Joe's comparison of a drop of water in a bucket etc. comes in. Adding a negligible amount of a 34:1 fuel to a 99.9999% volume of 14.7:1 fuel will require very nearly the same 14.7:1 ratio of gasoline A/F.

The change will be very minor, the trick will be to find the leanest point that will run well with the HHO added, while still running okay if the HHO gas is stopped.

Don, if I am reading your post correctly then you are backwards in your statement. It is 14.7 parts of air to one part fuel (gasoline) ratio. So the ratio would be much more comparable between the HHO when compared to the gasoline consumption.

Since you are more or less comparing a gaseous fuel (Hydrogen) and liquid fuel (gasoline) you will have to convert both to the same type of units before being able to find a ratio of consumption difference between them. That would mean that either weight or volume would have to be used as a common denominator between the two different fuels. I am betting that it will be easiest to calculate by volume rather then weight due to a few things. I suppose that hydrogen flow meter would be a HUGE aide in finding exactly how much is being produced and thus consumed by the engine. Then just reverse the math back from there.

 

[Jakee]

I'm not sure if I'm doing this correctly so please let me know what you come up with.

If you use 1 % of Hydrogen and 99 % gasoline, your new stoich would be 14.8346
If you use 2 % of Hydrogen and 98 % gasoline, your new stoich would be 15.0292
If you use 3 % of Hydrogen and 97 % gasoline, your new stoich would be 15.2238

So for every % of Hydrogen you add, you're increasing the stoich by 0.1946 and this should be based on volume.

If this is correct then we can then start to add the ENERGY to the formula. I looked this value up and came up with "45 megajoules per kilogram (MJ/kg)."

I then searched for Hydrogen and came up with this. "The advantage is that it stores approximately 2.6 times the energy per unit mass as gasoline, and the disadvantage is that it needs about 4 times the volume for a given amount of energy. A 15 gallon automobile gasoline tank contains 90 pounds of gasoline. The corresponding hydrogen tank would be 60 gallons, but the hydrogen would weigh only 34 pounds."

I’m not sure what to make of this and I didn’t verify the resources. What I’m trying to answer for myself is how much hydrogen would be needed to increase gas mileage by 10%? By 20%?

Please forgive me if this has been covered.

 

[Josh]

Has anybody ever looked at a Scan Gauge II? For you OBD II guys this thing will monitor dam near everything. Check out the X gauge capabilities this thing has. It can monitor dam near any sensor on the motor. I just got mine yesturday and I am still figuring it out. For all it does its worth the 160 and it reads and clears codes.

http://www.scangauge.com/support/pdfs/XGAUGE.pdf

 

[rocket 5979]

I'm not sure if I'm doing this correctly so please let me know what you come up with.

If you use 1 % of Hydrogen and 99 % gasoline, your new stoich would be 14.8346
If you use 2 % of Hydrogen and 98 % gasoline, your new stoich would be 15.0292
If you use 3 % of Hydrogen and 97 % gasoline, your new stoich would be 15.2238

So for every % of Hydrogen you add, you're increasing the stoich by 0.1946 and this should be based on volume.

Jakee are you using:

34-14.7 = A

A / 100 = B

A= Total Stoich difference
B= Stoich diff per percent diff...

If that is the case then my math comes up very close to yours but slighly different.


Increase of .193 AFR would equal 1% additional Hydrogen and 1% less gasoline in proportion. So by my calcs adding 1% Hydrogen would increase stoich requirement to 14.893.

Our numbers are close enough that we may just be using slightly different stoich starting points for gasoline which is where the deviation between our numbers is occurring.






I just thought of something... Since we know what amount of additional Hydrogen needs to be present to see a given change in AFR then if you are commanding a 14.7 AFR at idle on a normally tuned vehicle you can figure how much hydrogen is present by how much AFR is changed... So since Al was seeing about a .2 richer AFR, which is real close to 1% additional Hydrogen being present. Then his new required stoich AFR with that additional hydrogen should be roughly 14.893 (aka 14.9). Obviously this does not take into account the extra oxygen molecules that are displacing the hydrogen that are both coming from the HHO device but it will get you to a pretty solid point when it comes to tuning closed loop AFR's for this.

To figure even more accurately you will need to find the standard deviation between READ AFR and the "AFR" you will base your Stoich calcs on. In the case of what the PCM sees through the stocker O2 sensors that will be read AFR because of the additional O molecules coming from the HHO device that are displacing the H molecules. The proportional mass difference between H and O is 12.599% if my calculations are correct. That will give us the the proportion of what percentage of the additional mass coming from the HHO device is pure H and what percentage is O2.

 

[rocket 5979]

Has anybody ever looked at a Scan Gauge II? For you OBD II guys this thing will monitor dam near everything. Check out the X gauge capabilities this thing has. It can monitor dam near any sensor on the motor. I just got mine yesturday and I am still figuring it out. For all it does its worth the 160 and it reads and clears codes.

http://www.scangauge.com/support/pdfs/XGAUGE.pdf

The Xcal2, X3, and Livewire tuning devices have the same capability for reading those parameters too. Al uses the X2 if I am not mistaken so he is covered when it comes to logging all the PID's for his vehicle.

 

[Josh]

The Xcal2, X3, and Livewire tuning devices have the same capability for reading those parameters too. Al uses the X2 if I am not mistaken so he is covered when it comes to logging all the PID's for his vehicle.

Mine was 160 not 400:

 

[Jakee]

Yeah, that's about what I did but more in a "redneck" way.

I think you're right about the deviation but I think he needs adaptive off to get the full story. He's got to get those previously learned values out of the equation, correct?

 

[Jakee]

Is it me or is something wrong with this thread? What I mean is it keeps refreshing for some reason?