Run your car on Water?

[Skarch]

I'm interested, and if this had been a few months ago, I wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger, but with the loss of our passat, I don't have a vehicle that I can spare if this ends up jacking it up.

http://water4gas.com

[Davandy]

I saw that add a couple of weeks ago. I'm still wondering if it's a scam or not? It's to good too be true and you know what they say about things like that.

[MWright936]

Yeah, I am EXTREMELY skeptical about that whole thing. It sounds awesome in theory, but the chemistry part of it doesn't make any sense to me. I wouldn't spend the money on those books until I heard from a credible source that it actually works! If someone happens to try it out, let us know how/if it works!!!

[Pete95Sierra]

yea no way im tryin that. its not worth the risk to me

[tbplus10]

Heres what Wikipedia has to say about Hydrogen:

Hydrogen gas is highly flammable and will burn at concentrations of 4% or more H2 in air.[9] The enthalpy of combustion for hydrogen is −286 kJ/mol;[10] it burns according to the following balanced equation.

2 H2(g) + O2(g) → 2 H2O(l) + 572 kJ (286 kJ/mol)[11]
When mixed with oxygen across a wide range of proportions, hydrogen explodes upon ignition. Hydrogen burns violently in air. It ignites automatically at a temperature of 560 °C.[12] Pure hydrogen-oxygen flames burn in the ultraviolet color range and are nearly invisible to the naked eye, as illustrated by the faintness of flame from the main Space Shuttle engines (as opposed to the easily visible flames from the SRBs). Thus it is difficult to visually detect if a hydrogen leak is burning. The explosion of the Hindenburg airship was an infamous case of hydrogen combustion (pictured); the cause is debated, but combustible materials in the ship's skin were responsible for the coloring of the flames.[13] Another characteristic of hydrogen fires is that the flames tend to ascend rapidly with the gas in air, as illustrated by the Hindenburg flames, causing less damage than hydrocarbon fires. Two-thirds of the Hindenburg passengers survived the fire, and many of the deaths which occurred were from falling or from diesel fuel burns.[14]

H2 reacts directly with other oxidizing elements. A violent and spontaneous reaction can occur at room temperature with chlorine and fluorine, forming the corresponding hydrogen halides: hydrogen chloride and hydrogen fluoride.[15]

In the 70's you could buy atomizer/injection kits to shoot water into your intake (a mist), what this does is increase the compression on your engine slightly and help cool the exhaust. This method is still used on some High Performance Diesel engines, especially when using Propane, Nitros, or after turning up the fuel control real high. Water injection tends to be a little safer due to the fact that your not routing lines containing volatile gases through the engine compartment.

[Steve]

I think we'll be seeing more of these types of projects roll out with $4 and $5 gasoline.

[mvoss2576]

Wasn't this already disproved on Mythbusters?

[Skarch]

A little update:

Mythbusters failed because they tried to run the car ENTIRELY on the hydrogen cells, which would require way to large a water source to be effective. I did some research, and found a few guys who are running the systems. A guy in my VW forum is running it on his 1.8T, and has seen an increase from 28 to 33 MPG over the first month of running it. A guy running a F350 Powerstroke is claiming 35MPG on the highway in his. I haven't found anyone who has had problems with the system, although there were a few that said they really didn't notice a difference and took the system off. I think I will probably try it out on the Battle Wagon and see what happens. I will keep you guys updated.

[99Sub4x4]

Yeah, I saw that mythbusters. and the Hydrogen water cell was generating zero gas, nothing. There were no bubbles. So then they added hydrogen from a compressed gas bottle and the car ran, but when the guy gave it some throttle it backfired through the intake. Keep in mind it was carburated too.

People doing this HHO experiment will never realize the full potential of it, unless they buy a programmer, like one made by Jet. Then you can reprogram the fuel curves and timing. Possibly add a water mist too to slow down and cool the hydrogen burn, because it does burn hotter and faster than gasoline... I've built the electrolysis cell and using tap water with no catalyst (KOH, NAOH) hooking it straight up to a battery, it took a good 50Amps and filled a balloon in a few minutes, which I lit up just to see the effect. And oh yeah, it was hydrogen! Sounded like a shotgun going off. Needless to say I am far from hooking it up to an engine. I am at the point of building a PWM circuit to pulse the HHO electrode and limit the current so I can hook it up to a car. Then I have to spend the $500 to get the JET DST programmer.

If any of you guys have tried this I highly recommend putting it in this forum. I'll keep you guys updated as well. If you are interested in the topic, I highly recommend looking through youtube on the subject of HHO. There are lots of people experimenting with this idea. Like I said most that I have seeen are only realizing a 5mpg increase because they are onlytinkering with the oxygen sensor. Good luck fellow tech's!