Painless experiment in HHO

[Painless]

Firstly to your questions:

The air stone is an aquarium air stone. Basically, you pump air through it and it makes hundreds of tiny bubbles instead of a huge one. The air stone is immeresed in my bubbler and its tube connected to the outside air via the breather barb. Basically, when vacuum hits the bubbler, air is pulled in through the breather barb to the airstone resulting in wet air.
Yes, I was already getting 19 mpg.

The check valvl is between the HHO generator and the bubbler, its purpose being to stop cooling sucking the bubblers contents into the generator.

Now for the update, I believe my two questions have been answered:

1) To stop the vacuum breathing through the resonater, install a one way valve before the resonator so that hho can be pulled into it but nothing out.

2) My amps went down because of a wiring issue with my cell. I was just outside in the dark with a lantern, going over the changes with my wife when she saw an orange glow from the top of the cell when the light wasn't on it. On looking closer, there was an orange electrical flame / spark at the connection of one of my grounds. Looks like I might have my answer, not to mention discovering a fire hazard. Ill be taking my cell out tomorrow to work on this issue.

I also went ahead and removed the throttle body connection and ran the hho hose to just the vacuum, I also installed a ball valve (fawcet) in the line so I can control the vacuum.

[HHOhoper]

Beautiful. That answered my questions and makes a lot more sense.

Is there any reason you decided to go 100% vacuum (aside from just seeing if it works better)?

Can you explain how the ball-valve controls the vacuum? Do you just partially open it or something?

What was causing the glow on your ground? Was the wire just too small?

As always, thanks for the great info!

[Painless]

As for the 100% vacuum, yup, just to see.

I just pulled my cell out, the wire is 10 gauge but it looks like it shorted across a couple of plates. The wire and heat shrink is burnt to a crisp. Ill do a post mortem tomorrow top confirm.

All I did with the ball valve is use it to control the amount of vacuum. I found a sweet spot where it seemed to take from the airstone and not too much from the reservoir.

[daddymikey1975]

Painless, I'm a bit of an idiot, and pardon my ignorance, but on your truck, what is that resonator for that's attached to your throttle body??

I wonder if by the very nature of that dang thing if that's part of the cause of your lack of mileage improvement where you're piping that stuff in. (hope that makes sense)

I guess if i understood why dodge put that there, it might make more sense to me and my idea might seem dumb.. LOL.. seems as if the path of greatest suction (inside the resonator) is direct to the throttle body from the big gaping hole (plenum attach point) .. now common sense tells me that the whole resonator 'may' be under a bit of vacuum, and if you're pumping INTO this thing, the motor SHOULD get some of it, but still, i wonder if that, by it's nature and construction, is what you're fighting against... I mean, if you could get HHO into your motor and trip the CEL then you know you're doing something.....although you'd then have a different problem to contend with...

still... (sorry for thread jacking)... I wonder if you just got a cold air intake of some kind that eliminates that stinkin resonator, them plumbed in your HHO if you'd see some difference...

just thinking out loud.. you've got a GREAT setup... seems fishy that you're not seeing anything from all this...

oh well... hope i helped

[HHOhoper]

... I wonder if you just got a cold air intake of some kind that eliminates that stinkin resonator, them plumbed in your HHO if you'd see some difference...

I'd be curious to know if that made a difference. I have a cold air on my car, but I also have a supercharger, so it's not really a good comparison. Trying to go through the manifold with a supercharger is going to complicate matters.

[Painless]

Painless, I'm a bit of an idiot, and pardon my ignorance, but on your truck, what is that resonator for that's attached to your throttle body??

I wonder if by the very nature of that dang thing if that's part of the cause of your lack of mileage improvement where you're piping that stuff in. (hope that makes sense)

I guess if i understood why dodge put that there, it might make more sense to me and my idea might seem dumb.. LOL.. seems as if the path of greatest suction (inside the resonator) is direct to the throttle body from the big gaping hole (plenum attach point) .. now common sense tells me that the whole resonator 'may' be under a bit of vacuum, and if you're pumping INTO this thing, the motor SHOULD get some of it, but still, i wonder if that, by it's nature and construction, is what you're fighting against... I mean, if you could get HHO into your motor and trip the CEL then you know you're doing something.....although you'd then have a different problem to contend with...

still... (sorry for thread jacking)... I wonder if you just got a cold air intake of some kind that eliminates that stinkin resonator, them plumbed in your HHO if you'd see some difference...

just thinking out loud.. you've got a GREAT setup... seems fishy that you're not seeing anything from all this...

oh well... hope i helped

As far as I can see, the resonator just seems to quieten down the air movement. Without the resonator in place, the sucking from the throttle body is very loud. My HHO line enters the side of the resonator, but had a further line inside to deliver the HHO about half an inch from the throttle body.

The more I'm reading, the more I'm convinced that HHOhoper and I are simply battling a very stubborn ECU. I've plumbed my HHO line into just the vacuum for now and am going to see what that yields.

By the way, on the subject of cold air intakes, I've read that they are great for performance but bad for MPG.

[Painless]

Hmm, just been going through my service manual again and it looks like what I thought was the PCV line is actually the EGR system. The PCV goes from the oil filler tube to the air cleaner housing, so wouldn't have been a very good vacuum source anyhow.

Still would like to know more about the hose that connects to the throttle body just above the throttle position sensor.

[Painless]

Why did you stop useing vinegar?
Russ

Sorry alpha, didn't see your post earlier.

I stopped using vinegar when I discovered that my check valve wasn't 100% reliable and allowing vinegar into my reservoir, where it neutralised my KOH.

I've since found that distilled water works just as well.

[daddymikey1975]

Hmm, just been going through my service manual again and it looks like what I thought was the PCV line is actually the EGR system. The PCV goes from the oil filler tube to the air cleaner housing, so wouldn't have been a very good vacuum source anyhow.

Still would like to know more about the hose that connects to the throttle body just above the throttle position sensor.

I was thinking last night about the PCV thing.. if we tie in there, it doesnt give us manifold vacuum.. it's merely where the crankcase ventilates back into the air stream before the throttle body (most cars) I think you're in the right spot at your brake booster to get manifold vacuum.. Also good idea on the ball valve to control how much vacuum you're applying to the gen.

Now that i understand the resonator, and how you had the line right in front of the throttle body, the cold air intake idea doesn't make sense (for you to use) I understand that cold air intakes are primarily for performance (which is bad for MPG) but i figured if the resonator was fighting you, then the cold air intake would be a sure fire way to get HHO in the direct stream...

ah well... you just need a bigger hammer to tackle the ECU

[Painless]

I was thinking last night about the PCV thing.. if we tie in there, it doesnt give us manifold vacuum.. it's merely where the crankcase ventilates back into the air stream before the throttle body (most cars) I think you're in the right spot at your brake booster to get manifold vacuum.. Also good idea on the ball valve to control how much vacuum you're applying to the gen.

Now that i understand the resonator, and how you had the line right in front of the throttle body, the cold air intake idea doesn't make sense (for you to use) I understand that cold air intakes are primarily for performance (which is bad for MPG) but i figured if the resonator was fighting you, then the cold air intake would be a sure fire way to get HHO in the direct stream...

ah well... you just need a bigger hammer to tackle the ECU

I agree about the resonator, a straight pipe from the filter to the throttle body would definitely be beneficial. I'm beginning to wonder if the resonator itself is also bad for MPG, with the air flowing into a huge box and tumbling around before being sucked into the throttle body. That cannot be good! If I can find the right piece of hose I'll definitely replace it.

I think my vacuum point is good, but I am also thinking that my water vapour may be going through the brake booster first which I'm not sure I would want. Additionally, the brake booster connects a lot further back towards the manifold and I'm thinking that another vacuum source closer to the butterfly would be a good thing. There is a hose going in at that point which I want to check out.

On a side note, I repaired my cell this morning (couldn't sleep, story of my life!), seems one of the negative wires had gotten so close to a neighbouring plate that a spark was continually jumping the gap (what are the odds of that at 12v?). The whole wire was burnt to a crisp and I had to clean up the whole area.

I've also been thinking further about the problem of the vacuum favouring my electrolyte reservoir over the breather barb and air stone. I'm thinking that I may need to put a vapouriser into the path between the bubbler and the vacuum. Basically, the vacuum will go to the lid of the vapouriser which will be about half full of distilled water. The air stone will be moved inside here and connected up to a hose that runs over to the HHO output on the bubbler. Inside my cleansing bubbler I will remove the tubing from the breather barb so that it literally just gives a hole to the outside air above the water and connect the other side of the vacuum to the barb.

This way, the air will be circulated basically: Vacuum from brake booster -> Breather barb on bubbler -> HHO line -> Vapouriser air stone -> Vacuum input to engine. I got this idea from bigapples thread on vapourisers. The way I see it, it should pull the reservoir out of the loop as a vacuum source as well as closing up the vacuum system into a circulating loop with no outside air source (through my HHO system anyway).

Any thoughts?