Newbie Dissertation Idea

[Not4spd]

My friends father(engineer) proved this technology works. He went from 13mpg to 24mpg in his 97 Suburban. All without the use of O2 spacers, tuning, need for a EFFIE unit, or any cleaning of the product itself. It's very impressive and will change the way people view HHO for practical use. He has no plans to market the product or patent his design for that matter. I hope to change that when I speak with him personally. Lucky for me he will be allowing me access to his design plans etc. This will help speed up the process of me acquiring data on performance gains of HHO use in a supercharged application.

Anyways, I am really excited and cant wait to begin my data.

Good luck with your research and with the knowledge that is here you won't be mislead. Whatever information/results you find I hope it betters the community and helps to reduce the false beliefs people have.

[Ford Capri]

Thanks again, still have that ounce of skepticism, but can only hope the results are there.
People talk of their increase in MPG's, surely there must be increases in torque and power as well? If so can it be tuned to provide more torque and power and less focus on the MPG side of things?

I would like to investigate this as a potential use in motorsport, especially if there can be a torque, power and MPG increase and lower emissions all in one modification.

I want to do 3 dyno tests when it is built,

as standard (no HHO)
with the HHO on,
with the HHO on and EFIE (if needed)

Thanks

[myoldyourgold]

You have barley scratched the surface. By injecting HHO you have changed the thermodynamics of the engine and will need to study the exhaust, cooling, and any pollution control systems just to name a few. I hope you know what you are getting into. I will just start you on your way. Most stock exhaust systems are made to hold heat, increase back pressure all to help burn unburnt fuel by keeping its temperature up so the catalytic converter can do its job. With HHO you have burned the excess unburnt fuel, if things were done right, and this now becomes a problem. Solution is an after market tube type header system and a better flowing exhaust. Most cooling systems are not ideal and need to be worked on even without HHO. On diesel I recommend drilling 1 to 2 1/8" holes in the thermostat to increase the flow, it does very little to change operating temperature, but does increase flow. Most diesels have a higher flow rate to begin with than gas engines but needs more. Since your are doing this for a dissertation it is going to require you do some studying in these two areas and others also. This will also help you understand what is necessary to get every bet of horsepower out of every bit of HHO and fuel. Cam/valve timing and overlap are critical and are a trade off when it comes to HP, fuel economy and torque but with HHO things do not follow the same rules in this area. You might be looking at to broad of a subject and might want to consider narrowing it down because of time and money. Just my opinion.

[Ford Capri]

That response is spot on what I was after, I will merely be doing a study into the possibility of this working for a motorsport vehicle, and proving it by building a test rig on a vehicle (ie a rubbish diesel van) to show that the technology does work, and with extensive research and knowledge (like it takes to build a real motorsport vehicle) this can be acheived with potentially good results. Due to this technology still not fully understood by the masses (and me at the moment ) I will not be building this motorsport vehicle but merely putting this technology forward to show that it can be used to lower emissions, increase torque and MPG (just think how useful this could be in an endurance race and how much of an edge this could give you if you had a reliable set up.)

I will also be doing all kinds of 'before and after' testing on running temperatures and performance etc. I will do them together by switching the system on and off as some people have reported the vehicle running better after running hydrogen through it and turning it off, hopefully this will also eliminate other variables like atmospheric temp and pressure etc.

Hope this clears it up a bit on what I am trying to acheive, if i achieve any results from my test rig it will validate my hypothesis on this being viable technology for a motorsport application.

Thanks for the advice and information.

[myoldyourgold]

Ford Sir, Just one more thing. Depending on the ECU in the diesel you choose, turning it on and off could possibility disrupt its possible adaptive learning capabilities. On the better ECU's they have the capability of learning and do this by being switched on and run for awhile and then ignition turned off and started again. Only after a number of cycles like this does it finally get to some position hopefully one that you want. It could take a few tanks of fuel. You will confuse it if you change things like turning off the reactor or change things before it completes its cycles. You could get it in such a position that is goes to a rich protective table and throws a code. You need to first understand the ECU of the car you are going to use. If it has no O2 sensor then there should not be a problem. You will still need to learn how the ECU works though. Maybe an older diesel Mercedes would be easier because no ECU to worry about, yet that is kind of out dated and might not be practical in your case.

[BioFarmer93]

Hello Ford,
I kept quiet to see which direction this was going to take, so I'll offer a couple of things now that may make your objective a bit less (or more) difficult to achieve. The first would be, Keep It Simple. Use an older non-electronic or ECU managed vehicle. And, to balance the simplicity out, you HAVE to use an on-board electrolyzer. Why, you ask? Well, because to properly evaluate the efficiency, you have to bear in mind that people do not want to drive around with compressed H2 and O2 cylinders in their automobiles (usually). So, you must include in your calculations the the load that is placed on the engine by the alternator, since electrolyzers will in all likelihood be the method by which the gas is provided to other vehicles. Right...?

[myoldyourgold]

Bio and Ford I most apologize I forgot that this was a bottled situation. I agree with Bio 100%. All my comments were related to a reactor being powered by the vehicle. This is really where the controversy is anyway. Showing how it is possible to get a gain using the power of the vehicle is really what you want to do. Doing it with bottled stuff is not much different than nitrous oxide or what ever it is. My mind is a little slow at the moment.

[Ford Capri]

No worries! Probably my fault for not being clear on what I was trying to achieve.
This was my plan, I was hoping a mid 90's diesel van would be the easiest thing to start on as you don't need to worry about ignition timing, relatively low tech to fight with and within my budget. I was going to have an on board water electrolyser and test it to see what effects it has upon the vehicle, rolling roads, emissions, temp tests of exhaust and cooling etc. From this I would compile if it was viable for race use and if so, what would potentially need doing to optimise it for race use.

Plus if you say that switching the HHO system on and off will disrupt the ECU's learning patterns or activate a limp mode or a default setting then I will steer clear of that and do before HHO and with HHO.