In some car magazine a few weeks back (that actually featured BJ servicing) there was a article about a gizmo called 'waterboost' but there are many names for it like Hydogen fuel system and so on..

The science is; its a cylinder full of water with some electrolytes (I think) that sperate the water into oxygen and hydrogen gas, which is then pumped into your air box. The oxygen ensures that all the fuel is burnt in the cyclinder and the hydrogen gives it a better bang, lessening the need for fuel and thusly saving mpg.. save me babbling on, here's the link:

www.waterboost.co.uk

Although this kit is £500 you can buy them cheaper on ebay or even make them yourself..

Anyone tried one? looks like it does actually work..


Squidy

water wont split.. isnt that cold fusion????

[quote="lewp91"]water wont split.. isnt that cold fusion????[/quote]

oh dear, not to hot on chemistry? water will split ... into two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen, hence H2O

as for the running your car on it. i'm pretty sure its not possible else we'd be using it now!

[b]IF[/b] it did split - it's possible to do, but on the scale to make a difference i'm dubious

then the afm and other sensors would detect more o2 coming in - they'd then just fire more juice into the mix - otherwise it would run lean

so i cant see if saving any fuel at all

I've been researching these kits since last year. One of my cousins is running a few cells on an old diesel 4x4 and swears by it. I was going to build one to test but the more I researched it became obvious that these kits work better on older engines. As Matt says you have to fiddle with the o2 sensors on our cars because extra oxygen is produced in the reaction which is picked up by the o2 sensors and the ecu tries to correct by overfueling so any gains you might make are lost again straight away. There are devices available to "adjust" the signals from the o2 sensors but that's not something I wanted to experiment with.
A carbed BG would probably be perfect for this as the engine could be mechanically tuned rather than trying to fool the ecu's on newer cars.
Google water4gas for some more info

There's lots of youtube video's on it too, i.e. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMp_etrNnwQ

They are also used in welders.. search for brown's gas (pun not intended!)

There's two sides to every story, but it all seems to point to it actually working. The main thing I've heard is you need a lot of amps to get the reaction going and maintained which means your battery is being drained and your alternator is working hard to keep it charged..so you could end up with shortnening the alt's lifespan. There are gizmo's you can use to adjust your o2 sensor, think its called EFIE adjuster..

I'm very tempted to get a kit and see if it makes a difference, dont think I'd go the DIY route incase I blow myself up, lol

There are dual systems available from an ebay seller in canada that work either from the car's electrical system or can be setup to run completely as a chemical reaction but I think it doesn't have the ease of use of the system coming on when the engine is running, you have to start the reaction before you start your trip.
The reason I didn't fancy setting up the efie adjusters is that you are effectively leaning out the air fuel mix and you have no real way of gauging how much gas is being produced/used. You could end up running far too lean and damaging the engine. That and I'd need two of them, one for each bank

im sure ford tried this out and even made a few mini buses with it in and they were poop. low power for the size and spec of the engines.

Just doing a bit of research on this and it IS possible as a chap in the US has increased his MPG from 38 to 60 just by putting a HHO unit into his air system just before the MAF and modifying the sensors to put less fuel into the injectors but running the car just the same on the highways.

I'm going to try and DIY a system to see if I can get it working and drawing about the same as a good HI-Fi

Hmmm, might be worth a try in the RX7...no O2 sensors to worry about, good old carb

if we doubled the mpg...I might hit double figures

There's one guy who fitted a couple of generators to an old truck and turned his 15 mpg into 28 mog overnight

Chuck in baking powder and get more gas. In a nutshell use more energy in fuel creating o-hh than you get from using it in cylinders for improved combustion . Real gains only if energy for electrolysis from regeneration out of braking (or coasting) or using solar cell, wind etc. Do not dispute improved efficiency of having hydrogen to burn with the hydrocarbons but "The energy density per unit volume of both liquid hydrogen and compressed hydrogen gas at any practicable pressure is significantly less than that of traditional fuel sources" ( www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen#Combustion ) points to these not being that significant.

Interesting work in Japan on using metal hydrides as retro-fit for any combustion engine. Spent batteries but perhaps CaH if can be produced at reasonable energy cost (was used to inflate weather balloons so is produced and available).


Water and baking powder are not cheaper than mineral hydrocarbons for the energy that is obtainable BUT ethanol , methanol, butanol , propanol can be made out home and these can also figure in a basic fuel cell or be combusted. The problem is the volumes required when alternatives to oil based fuels progress beyond diy tinkering. The inventor of the diesel engine had nothing until somebody tinkered with it to run on a waste product (just happened to be from oil refining) that's over a century ago and the truth persists in that given existing understanding vehicles propelled by fuel they carry need oil.

With that limited understanding (gravity and magnetism yet to be replicated by mankind ) and the "technology investment " in modern combustion engines diesel-electrics make sense. Making a hho cell is fun our engineering firm made one and he reckons diesels run smoother but the most fun is in launching pop bottles with it!

see www.magpie.coop for some wild electric vehicles

[quote="Watdaf!"]Water and baking powder are not cheaper than mineral hydrocarbons for the energy that is obtainable BUT ethanol , methanol, butanol , propanol can be made out home and these can also figure in a basic fuel cell or be combusted.[/quote]

You are asuming the useage of the water and baking soda is quite high when actually it's not, the video I watched the chap said he only topped up his 1 litre HHO chambers once a month to keep it full, so 1/4 litre a month for an extra 25%-50% MPG... sound like a definite plus to me!

True you only really benefit at crusing speeds but any benefit is good in my book, the ONLY drawback I see from this technology is the lack of power however in a fuel efficient driving style power isn't necessary.

Water and baking powder might make using petrol/diesel cheaper. My point was they are not alternatives to existing liquid fuels. Perhaps the bit of hydrogen is "enginopathy" and it needs to be researched properly to prove more fuel is saved than is used in producing the o-hh as a contained unit for a combustion engined vehicle.

Worth looking at water vapour mpg gains. Did Land-Rover have such a thing way way back.

Watched another video the other night where a guy un the USA built a small particle accelerator to create a substance called Hudrolite (I think) which is a rare metal compound that can absorb huge amouts of Hydrogen, fitted 4 tanks of this hydrogen rich stuff to a car and now runs it without any gasoline on just pure Hydrogen, he gets the power for his particle accelerator from wind and solar energy so it's completly free once you have the equipment. He actually quoted the costs as being not that high, he said "for the budget the US pays to keep the troups in the middle east for one day we could produce enough Hydrogen power for everyone".

I'm trying to find the video again so I can link it here for you to see but it's eluding me

FOUND IT!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfBdPKxk35k

This looks extremely difficult but it has possibilities, the bit I quoted above is near the very end of the clip but I urge you to watch it all

Yup that is a metal hydride not hho generator.

I know but it's cool none the less

[quote="cyberpaddy66"]Watched another video the other night where a guy un the USA built a small particle accelerator to create a substance called Hudrolite (I think) which is a rare metal compound that can absorb huge amouts of Hydrogen, fitted 4 tanks of this hydrogen rich stuff to a car and now runs it without any gasoline on just pure Hydrogen, he gets the power for his particle accelerator from wind and solar energy so it's completly free once you have the equipment. [/quote]

sounds like he's building the USS Enterprise