RUN YOUR CAR ON WATER--- snake oil or deliverance?

[Dave Kay]

RUN YOUR CAR ON WATER?!! Anybody else heard of this? I've been doing some reading on these so-called HHO gas conversions for cars/trucks and it seems plausable to me but where's the catch? The claim is it will increase gas milage but what is the downside--- if any?

The story goes that you still must run on gasoline but the HHO (hydrogen or Brown's gas) created by a simple process supplements and supposedly increases the efficiancy of the fuel burn. The investment in equipment to perform this feat is also (supposedly) found at your local harware store and can be done for less than $100 bucks.

see this link http://ezinearticles.com/?How-Does-a-Water-Powered-Car-Work---If-it-Works-at-All&id=1244412

I've searched this forum for anything on the subject and got no results, so if I'm posting something here that's already been debunked (and/or beaten to death) please feel free to trash this... (cringe)

[Stewart G Griffin]

i don't know about any of that above stuff, but what will work is water injection.  Which is probably different from the "hho thing."

i'm probably not going to do it, because my daily driver gets, like, 27mpg and the price of gas has not yet reached frightening levels but basically water injection entails raising the compression of the engine and when water is injected(usually from the air intake) as a mist, this cools the combustion chamber and let's you run regular gasoline----while getting the benefits of more power and mileage from the higher compression.

i'll try to find some links to articles.

[chevyh20]

hi,
i'm a new member too. you can see my blazer project in member rides. I chose my user name ( chevyh2o) because i want to use my blazer to experiment with the technology. I have done a lot of reading about it, but no experimenting yet. it seems a simple one to start with for a car is called the smack booster. you can look it up on google. This one the developer claims will boost you gas milage by 20% on average.
there are other designs that are simple and more complex. I think the downside at this stage the results vary depending on how well you do in implementing it. and the technology is in early stages, the process seems to be ahead of the science. So the optimal setup is still unknown. Some developers have gotten their car to run on water alone. The Potential is incredible. Of course big corporations are not going to help us become independent. This is a grass roots effort i find really exciting. It would be cool if we helped raise some awareness. Hope to talk soon on this subject , maybe some of use will start experimenting and sharing. My blazer is a little ways away though from helping us.

[VileZambonie]

As far as reforming water into hydrogen and oxygen – it takes slightly more energy to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen than you can get back in the combustion of hydrogen and oxygen. What method do you plan to use to gainfully run your truck on water?  Unfortunately most newspaper reporters and magazine editors were asleep during high school chemistry – so every couple of years some con artist gets his face on the news with a car he designed to run on water....

[Mr Diesel]

I experimented with this concept (hydro cannister) a few years ago and couldn't get it to work. Funny you should bring this topic up, because just yesterday I went out and bought the supplies to try again, this time armed with more information and new ideas.

Companies such as these...

http://www.driveonwater.com/

http://www.hydro4000.com/install.htm

...all sell the same basic product, with only very small differences in construction and operation. For example, some use mineral water while others advocate anything from baking soda to battery acid as an additive to the water used for making Hydrogen. I would NOT waste my money on their products though, because you can MAKE one of these hydro canisters for about $20 with parts from Home Depot!

This website breaks it down exactly how to make the canister:
http://www.angelfire.com/ak5/energy21/hydroboost.htm

Like I said, I just bought the parts yesterday to make another canister and try this thing again. Over the next few weeks I will be trying it out on my 1987 Camaro.

There is a lot of debate about how and why this thing could even work. There are some pretty convincing arguments for "Brown's gas", but I haven't found any conclusive evidence anywhere yet. I believe the thing can work, but there are potentially a lot of factors involved in the actual process (different gas types, where product is introduced to engine, fuel injection or carb, etc).

If you want some more information email me and I'll give you more detail on what I have tried.

[dumbucket1]

We dont need anymore polluted water 

[werewolfx13]

This post got me thinking, and since I work at a hardware store and managed to buy all the supplies for less than $12 (minus the battery acid) with my employee discount, I thought I'd try it..I got it all set up today, and so far, it appears to make a VERY large difference..I can't give any real numbers yet, but I drove around town for about 20 miles with it on, and out to a friends house and back, and the needle never moved off 1/4 of a tank..shut it off and drove around about 10 miles and it dropped to 1/8 (like normal, the needle takes FOREVER to drop off of absolutely full, but once it hits the F mark, it falls like a rock), so I turned the electrolysis system back on and ran a few more errands (10 miles maybe) and the needle never moved..I'll be driving around a bit at this point, and then I'll fill up and try to get some real numbers.

The disadvantage I see, and probably why its not a widely marketable system, is you have to change the electrodes and electrolyte regularly, like every two fill-ups if you use galvanized bolts, maybe every 4 fill ups if you make lead rods.. I've used something similar to this to remove rust from motorcycle parts (namely gas tanks) with a great deal of success, except I was using muratic acid or lye, depending on what I could get in a large enough supply regularly without having the sheriff dropping by to check on what I was doing...

IF the system ends up making a really noticeable difference in mileage, I'll probably integrate it into my truck in a rather clean way..Seeing as how I can replace the electrodes (galvanized bolts and tin can lids) for less than $2, and I'm only using 1 teaspoon of new battery acid per ~1.5 liters of water (the acid cost me $12 for a 6 QUART container) I'd say the time spent would be worthwhile..I may make up another lid so I can just swap in a new one then rebuild the old one in my spare time each time it needs replacing.

[Stewart G Griffin]

2) Why doesn't anyone try running on steam power?

[werewolfx13]

...steam engines take a VERY long time to heat up enough to be driveable, and you still need a fuel source to heat the boiler..why add an extra step? You could burn shelled corn, coal, or wood as alternative fuels I suppose, but talk about a *lot* of trouble, plus you'd lose all benefit because you'd have to carry one of those fuels with you, which adds up to significant extra weight..Propane, Methane, Natural Gas, etc could all be burned in an internal combustion engine in some way, shape or form, so adding the boiler and steam engine is just an extra step..

[grayharville]

This is a very interesting topic, and I am anxious to see how your experiment comes out, werewolf, I might even believe it if I saw some mileage numbers! 

[Dave Kay]

This post got me thinking, and since I work at a hardware store and managed to buy all the supplies for less than $12 (minus the battery acid) with my employee discount, I thought I'd try it..I got it all set up today, and so far, it appears to make a VERY large difference..I can't give any real numbers yet, but I drove around town for about 20 miles with it on, and out to a friends house and back, and the needle never moved off 1/4 of a tank..shut it off and drove around about 10 miles and it dropped to 1/8 (like normal, the needle takes FOREVER to drop off of absolutely full, but once it hits the F mark, it falls like a rock), so I turned the electrolysis system back on and ran a few more errands (10 miles maybe) and the needle never moved..I'll be driving around a bit at this point, and then I'll fill up and try to get some real numbers.

The disadvantage I see, and probably why its not a widely marketable system, is you have to change the electrodes and electrolyte regularly, like every two fill-ups if you use galvanized bolts, maybe every 4 fill ups if you make lead rods.. I've used something similar to this to remove rust from motorcycle parts (namely gas tanks) with a great deal of success, except I was using muratic acid or lye, depending on what I could get in a large enough supply regularly without having the sheriff dropping by to check on what I was doing...

IF the system ends up making a really noticeable difference in mileage, I'll probably integrate it into my truck in a rather clean way..Seeing as how I can replace the electrodes (galvanized bolts and tin can lids) for less than $2, and I'm only using 1 teaspoon of new battery acid per ~1.5 liters of water (the acid cost me $12 for a 6 QUART container) I'd say the time spent would be worthwhile..I may make up another lid so I can just swap in a new one then rebuild the old one in my spare time each time it needs replacing.

GREAT! This is what I'm looking for--- guys who've tried it or guys who know people who actually have hands-on experience with this or just anyone's input! In fact, I'm going to give this a little more time and find myself a system that I can implement on my Ol' '77 and maybe we can compare notes--- what can it hurt? I'm willing to throw a few bucks at this concept and see if it can't be useful at least to some degree. One thing I've read is that this system is NOT for fuel injected gas engines ONLY carbs, but supposedly it will work with diesals... kinda' contradictory huh? But think about it; the entire U.S. is TOTALLY dependant on overseas petrol products and the government doesn't have any viable solutions other than waiting several more years until the market is such that we can all "Go Green" and drive around in Honda-Toyota-Nissan-Hyundai Electric-Gasoline Powered Puddle-Jumpers that will cost you $25K OR MORE... nope, aint ready to give up my Big GMC just yet... I'm talking about pry it from my cold dead hands now! lol

C'mon guys, everybody weigh in on this thing and let's either debunk it or...?

[VileZambonie]

The energy necessary to separate 2H2O into 2H2 + O2 is theoretically equal to that produced by burning those elements. It doesn't work, this has been an ongoing load of crap for many years. notice that all of these articles and adds you read are followed by a link that accepts paypal to rope all the suckers into buying a water garbage can for their car? Perhaps one day there will be an efficient method of extracting hydrogen and oxygen and an engine that can produce a useful amount of work utilizing it but for now, don't expect any amazing results from your science expiriment.

External combustion engines were used once upon a time and soon realized it was not practical in an automobile. Yes they use steam but still require a lot of fuel!

[werewolfx13]

Good results thus far: My usual in-town mileage per tank is ~140 miles by the odometer til I'm sucking fumes..I'm at 124 miles and still over 3/4 of a tank, and I've NOT changed my driving habits at all, I'm not afraid of my throttle one bit....I talked to a regular customer Saturday when I was helping him find some parts for his kitchen faucet, and hes been using the same setup for 3 months and is averaging 40 mpg city with a 1996 jeep Cherokee 4 door 4.0 liter..

Its looking like it'll require more frequent electrode changes/modifications than planned, the bolts are in good shape yet, but the tin discs are like wet paper..

My tank holds about 1.25-1.5 liters of water, the next run will be with distilled water instead of filtered tap water..

I don't see why you would have any problem incorporating it into a fuel injected vehicle..pump the gases into the intake on the engine side of the MAF (if equipped)..

After I run a few tanks of fuel through, I'll come up with average MPGs..I've been experimenting with the electrolyte mixture some with this one, I tried tap water, filtered tap water, vinegar, hydrogen peroxide..Filtered water and battery acid have been the most effective by far.

The concept isn't exactly "running on hydrogen", but rather using small amounts of hydrogen as a catalyst for the fuel burn, much the same way diesels can use propane to improve the burn of their fuel..the hydrogen in this system is produced (separated) similarly to that of an old battery as its being overcharged..batteries release small amounts of hydrogen gas, but as they're being charged beyond their capacity, the volume of that gas produced increases substantially..same principal, different execution..

[864x4]

Do you have any pictures of your set up. If you do it would be intresting to look at it.

Thanks

[werewolfx13]

I'll see if I can take some today when I'm out getting a new water pump..mine's squalling when the a/c is on or when the alt is loaded down (like when I left my headlights on for 3.5 hours the other night ), and it gets worse the tighter you get the belts.