Painless experiment in HHO

[HHOhoper]

I found a sweet spot where it seemed to take from the airstone and not too much from the reservoir.

Hey Russ, just to clarify, did you mean that you found a sweet spot in terms of how far to open your valve, or where to place the valve in the line?

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

Also, there's something else I wanted to bring up. Manifold vacuum is greatest when the car is idling, right? The more your press on the gas, the more the pressure equalizes. Is that a correct understanding? I'm sure that going through the manifiold will still be better in principle, but I wonder if there's a way to make it so that the more gas you put down, the more HHO goes in. Maybe that's just having your cake and eating it too.

I'm really starting to have mixed feelings with my car because of the supercharger. If I pin it, then it's going to be pushing the HHO back to my cell!

[Painless]

Hey Russ, just to clarify, did you mean that you found a sweet spot in terms of how far to open your valve, or where to place the valve in the line?

I found a sweet spot in terms of how far to open the valve.

Also, there's something else I wanted to bring up. Manifold vacuum is greatest when the car is idling, right? The more your press on the gas, the more the pressure equalizes. Is that a correct understanding? I'm sure that going through the manifiold will still be better in principle, but I wonder if there's a way to make it so that the more gas you put down, the more HHO goes in. Maybe that's just having your cake and eating it too.

That's correct, basically, it's a fight between the throttle body butterfly and the vacuum, when the throttle is wide open all the air rushes through that way. I've noticed though that vacuum, at least on my truck, is still strong up to 3-4,000 rpm. Anyway, it's economy we're going for here and that, at least, makes me less concerned about WOT.

I'm really starting to have mixed feelings with my car because of the supercharger. If I pin it, then it's going to be pushing the HHO back to my cell!

I don't think that would happen, at worst, with the HHO going into your vacuum, the HHO just won't flow because it cannot overcome the inrush of air at wide throttle settings. I think that vacuum might be a good option for a supercharger, at least worth a try.

Anyway, I just came in from working in the rain (yuck!) I put my cell back in and wired my system up to just vacuum and kept it in the loop so that the HHO system was linked into the vacuum loop rather than being T'd off of it. This didn't work too well, my seperate vapouriser was near enough imploded and when I used the ball valve to lower the vacuum, the engine didn't like it.

I think I'm going to use the same setup but back to the T off of the vacuum and leave the breather barb in the bubbler open to the air. Hopefully, the vacuum will ensure that the HHO goes to the engine and not out the breather. A one way valve will ensure this.

[Jaxom]

Painless....I just looked at your pics from yesterday. When you T'd the vac at the brake booster to both your genny and the intake resonator, you basically just created a large vacuum leak (that's what your hissing noise was.) I never really saw the point in using a dual delivery setup like this (to both the resonator and manifold) because of the nature of engine vacuum. The air cleaner can't suck harder than the manifold, unless you're using forced induction.

The hose above your TPS is the EVAP vac source. It basically applies a slight vacuum to the fuel tank so the PCM can check for leaks that would allow fuel vapor to escape into the atmosphere. It may have full engine vacuum or "ported" vacuum (only present when the throttle is partially open.) I think this would be a very good injection point for HHO, certainly better than the brake booster vacuum (which pulls from the rear of the intake and will mainly feed HHO to the rear cylinders.) Try feeding your HHO through your bubbler and the airstone setup, then to a T into that line.

Hoper....if you're running a supercharger you do NOT want to plumb your genny straight to the intake manifold. When boost kicks in the supercharger will force air back through the plumbing and pressurize your electrolyzer. That could get real ugly real quick. Plumb your HHO to the air cleaner or the inlet to the supercharger so you don't blow hoses off or worse.

[HHOhoper]

Painless....I just looked at your pics from yesterday. When you T'd the vac at the brake booster to both your genny and the intake resonator, you basically just created a large vacuum leak (that's what your hissing noise was.) I never really saw the point in using a dual delivery setup like this (to both the resonator and manifold) because of the nature of engine vacuum. The air cleaner can't suck harder than the manifold, unless you're using forced induction.

The hose above your TPS is the EVAP vac source. It basically applies a slight vacuum to the fuel tank so the PCM can check for leaks that would allow fuel vapor to escape into the atmosphere. It may have full engine vacuum or "ported" vacuum (only present when the throttle is partially open.) I think this would be a very good injection point for HHO, certainly better than the brake booster vacuum (which pulls from the rear of the intake and will mainly feed HHO to the rear cylinders.) Try feeding your HHO through your bubbler and the airstone setup, then to a T into that line.

Hoper....if you're running a supercharger you do NOT want to plumb your genny straight to the intake manifold. When boost kicks in the supercharger will force air back through the plumbing and pressurize your electrolyzer. That could get real ugly real quick. Plumb your HHO to the air cleaner or the inlet to the supercharger so you don't blow hoses off or worse.

Jaxom,

Boy am I glad you jumped in here! I was on my lunch and had this idea. What if on my car I did a system like Painless had (dual delivery), plumbing into the air box AND the manifold? I could put a checkvalve in the manifold line so that when boost is applied, it would cut off the line to the manifold and go solely to the air box. Then when vacuum is present, I could have a check valve that closes off to the air box (it's actually a cold air) so the engine doesn't think there's a vacuum leak. What do you think?

Also, what do you think about Painless' idea with the ball valve to restrict vacuum pressure on the generator? If it was only open enough to allow a slight vacuum on the system, would that work fine?
I'm having difficulty between knowing where the line is between being able to balance the vacuum pressure to where you need it and actually creating a vacuum leak.

Thanks for your input!

[Painless]

Thanks for your input, Jaxom. I was out replumbing everything and followed that vacuum line above the TPS and noted it lead to a plastic cylinder with what looked like sensor attachments. This must be the vacuum detector you were talking about. I'm going to pop back outside in a minute and move over to a T off that line.

What you were saying about the brake booster favouring the back cylinders explains the rough idle my truck has when using that.

Thanks again! Great to have the ASE input.

Hhohoper, looks like you don't have much choice but to stick to where it is on the grandam, but you can always try out the vacuum on you jeep.

Russ.

[HHOhoper]

Amen, Painless. An experienced mechanic is of utmost value here!

Did you see my idea (others may have tried it already) about the checkvalves on the dual delivery? What is it that you think will make that not work?

I'm really excited to see how these changes work on your truck, Russ.


Here's some illustrations as to how I think the supercharged manifold route would work:

[Jaxom]

The check valves would work to prevent backpressure in the genny, you'll just need a good quality check valve on the manifold side to stand up to the boost pressure. If the car is stock it won't exceed about 8psi but if you "play" with the car I'm sure you've upped the boost by now.

The ball valve is not going to actually regulate the amount of vacuum applied to the genny, just how FAST it is applied. You're limiting the rate of airflow but not the change in pressure over time. If you were to set it up so that the ball valve controls flow, and another valve allows a slight amount of outside air into the genny, then you could control the vacuum level, but at the cost of creating what amounts to a vacuum leak through the HHO system.

All in all it's just much simpler to deliver into the air cleaner. Until someone proves that vacuum in the genny increases production efficiency, I'll stick with that.

[HHOhoper]

I've come inches to getting a smaller pulley several times but all I've really done is the cold air and an exhaust.

You confirmed my thoughts about the ball valve with the vacuum. Is there an actual solution that you can think of to regulate the amount of the vacuum? I think that is the final obstacle to get over before I actually go out and put this all in.

I agree with you that the air cleaner is a MUCH easier route. From what I've read the manifold does yield higher results, it's just a hassle to perfect. On my dad's Suburban, we were getting 1-2 MPG better through the manifold with the exact same set-up, but because of convenience he went through the air cleaner.

I believe on my jackpot post, daddymikey put some links to another HHO site where a gentleman goes quite in-depth about the benefits of the manifold insertion and his own experiences with it. He seems pretty religious about it.

I'm personally convinced that manifold routes can work better, I just want to see if it will work with my application and if it will be worth it.

[Painless]

To be clear about my reasons for trying the vacuum route:

I have read quite a few posts on other forums that have stated that better improvements in mpg have been achieved via vacuum. I'm not interested in increasing production, in fact, I've done all I can to stop the vacuum pulling on the generator reservoir.

I've been very confused by my vehicles total blindness to HHO. I've proven recently that the small gains I thought I was seeing were not due to HHO.

By 'blindness' I mean to complete lack of a reaction, even an unwanted one, I would welcome anything to show my truck saying "ok, I see the HHO", even if it was a drop in mileage. With the reaction, or more lack of, I am seeing I can conclude that one of the following must be true:

1) My ECU is so smart that it is countering the HHO with precise enough fuel adjustments to keep gasoline consumption EXACTLY the same and not show any increase or decrease in power.
2) The HHO is not getting into the combustion chambers.

I am having a hard time swallowing reason 1. This leaves reason 2, its possible that I'm not producing enough HHO at a high enough pressure to get into the throttle body or my positioning right next to the butterfly idle bypass is having some undesired effect.

My resonator box might be part of the probem, I can visualise air coming through the filter, hitting the tube in a nice flow then hitting the huge resonator boxes open space with the throttle body sucking at right angles too it and resulting in a tumbling disordered air stream. Perhaps even dragging the HHO around with it.
I noted the other day when I removed my resonator box and held a tube up to the throttle body that I could feel no appresiable suction on the other end of the tube, even when I rammed the end right into the idle bypass or stuck it up against the top of the butterfly and opened up the throttle.

Well, I think I'm beginning top ramble here, but I at least wanted to share what's going through my head and allow others to second guess my thought processes.

[HHOhoper]

I'm right with you on that, Russ. Exact same story with my Jeep. The car has at least shown a little improvement, but my Jeep won't budge. I really think the vacuum route is very worth seeing if it works.

After reading Jaxom's post about the vacuum control, ball valve and leak, do you have ANY ideas as to how the vacuum could actually be controlled? I'm stumped.