911RN

I have recently discovered the hydrogen generator kits that place hydrogen vapors into the intake air to increase power and gas milage significantly. One example of this kit is found at http://www.hydrogen-fuel.ca/. Although the design has been around since the fourties and many have even made a home made version with little skill involved; Im concerned this might harm my engine, any suggestions, stories, or experiences. I have e-mailed the above listed company regarding its use on the rotary engine i will post what they have to say when i hear back from them.

rotarygod

There have already been several threads about this. so far is seems to be vaporware. Everyone always knows a friend who knows a person, who yada yada yada. You get the idea. No one has heard from an actual person who has had results with it. It's so simple to replicate what these online websites are doing. It's junior high science. Anyone can build it from random things around the house. If it worked so well, everyone would be using it. I have personally played with it for fun but no positive results ever came from it. Yes it makes gas. It's terribly inefficient at doing it though. While theoretically possible to run an engine on the gas it makes, there isn't enough of it to do it and it would take far more power input than you'd get out of it.

There are only a couple of real world ways to save fuel. Drive slower or drive less. Otherwise it's drive a more fuel efficient car.

Outkast187

It would work if you could make massive amounts of it, but is it worth a couple bucks to drive around inside a hydrogen bomb?

Conundrum

iTrader: (1)

You do know that is not how Hydrogen bomb works right?

EdwardsB

well you already drive around in a gasoline bomb...but yeah dont waste you time with it.

EdwardsB

i think a lot of people think that, the bad part about hydrogen is that you cannot directly see the fire.

It's just like a nuclear power plant cannot blow up like a nuclear bomb.

911RN

Yeah i see what you are saying. But from i have researched this kit is not intended to run the car off hydrogen vapors alone or to replace normal intake air, it's purpose is to supplement the air going into the engine so that when the gas and air are mixed the hydrogen allows the gas to combust more completely so that less is wasted and kicked out the exhaust. This theory is similar to how nitrous works but with a constant flow and less harmful to the engine, and im sure less powerful. I have been able to talk to a couple people at work who are currently ordering/trying the kit one their cars, so i hope to hear after awhile how well it works from some one who's actually trying it. Thanks for the replys ill post more info as i get it. I just feel that although this theory has been around for some time the issue of promoting a cleaner environment and gas prices is an emerging problem that is of higher concern that it use to be, thus increasing awareness about alternative fuels and fuel supplements.

csl

If the forum allow, sure I'll post the pics that how a person die when the tank exploded. Happen in Malaysia.

Spin9k

Good luck and let us know how your friends' kits works.

On the other hand, perhaps some basic chemistry lessons concerning the combustion process are in order and would help you understand / conceptualize what you are talking about. Hydrogen in a combustion chamber is absolutely not similar to nitrious in a combustion chamber. One is a fuel - the other supplies oxygen and cools the charge. Reference http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question259.htm

BaronVonBigmeat

I have a couple books/video by this guy:

http://www.knowledgepublications.com...etail_page.htm

He's a hydrogen advocate, but he was surprisingly honest about what you can and can't do with hydrogen.

Yes, H2 improves combustion characteristics. The flame speed is 10x that of gasoline. Which would certainly be interesting for an engine with such elongated combustion chambers. H2 supplementation was used to extend the altitude of the U2's that flew over Russia to 100k feet, above Russian rockets of the day (the U2 that was shot down had taken off with a H2 tank that was half empty, thus the engine stalled at high altitude and he had to land)

There's just one problem. According to him, you'll want to have 5%~7% of your mixture as hydrogen to get a noticeable effect. Too little and you won't notice a difference, too much and you start losing power.

Anyways, while he does support H2 supplementation as a means of making a CNG-converted car (or other alt-fuels) run even cleaner and more efficiently, he totally disagrees with onboard electrolyzers. And he back it up with calculations. Whatever fuel savings you'd see, they'd be negated by the extra drag of the alternator. Even using wildly optimistic assumptions--NASA quality electrolyzers and alternators--the numbers just don't work out.

Cliffs Notes Version:

* On-board electrolyzers are not a good idea ever;
* Even if they were, you'd still need a way to adjust fuel and spark;
* On-board H2 from a tank only makes sense if gas is like, $10/gallon or more;
* H2 makes the most sense when it's premixed into CNG in small doses ("Hythane"). Especially since your converted car already has a high pressure tank on board.

911RN

I know, i was referring to how it is taken in. I know they have completely different characteristics and functions. Thank you though

911RN

If you research the kit you will notice that it allows for fine tunig of the amperage to produce the right amout of vapors for a particular engine. Also the kit on the web site listed above, in the first post, pulls less amps than most other kits out there keeping the amperage draw within limits of the stock alternator (15-20 amps). It even comes with an ammeter to allow monitoring of amps being used and allows for fine tuning.

PhillipM

It will always take more power to split the hydrogen from the water than you will ever get from burning it, always.

Ergo, your fuel consumption will go up, it's bull.

swiftnet

Hydrogen as a fuel source will only work when we can model a system similar to a plant. It is called biophotolysis. Creating hydrogen by driving the system with electricity or petrol is inefficient.

maxxdamigz

iTrader: (1)

^^ NOTE THIS ^^

If this is like the other kits I have read, it takes h2o and splits it to H2 and O2 where it will be recombined in the combustion process. So, your beginning and end products are H2O. If you end at the same state you began, your net power production is 0 under ideal effeciencies. Given the inefficient processes involved, you actually have a net loss of power. Making fuel and then burning it will not conserve fuel.

Put it this way - take everything in your house and move it to your front lawn. Then move it all back. The net change is 0 but you're still tired as hell, no? It would be interesting to see if someone could infact produce a short term gas savings (at the expense of battery life).

BaronVonBigmeat

Yeah, but in all fairness, that's not the argument that any of the onboard electrolysis guys are making. That would obviously violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

What they're talking about is, adding small amounts of H2 to the mixture in order to improve combustion characteristics. Gasoline has a relatively narrow band it likes to run in, when you're talking about fuel : air ratios. Not so with H2. You can run it ridiculously lean and it will still ignite reliably.

Thus, the example of the U2 spy plane using small amounts of it, at high altitudes. The air is thin, combustion is spotty, and stalls are frequent without it.

It's like adding kindling to a fire. The kindling isn't adding significant amounts of energy, it's helping the fire get started quick and reliably. Just a little H2, and you can run lean, you can retard your timing, etc.

But there again, you can tell something is amiss. None of these companies include a means of adjusting fuel or spark. They just sell universal kits, with no mention of the rather critical step of adjusting your car's ECU. And they don't have specific data for specific models. And their kits cannot produce enough H2 to boost the mixture to 5%. Not without adding alternators, which add drag, which kills the MPG gains you got. Again, according to the guy in my link, who is an engineering professor iirc.

Supplementing H2 only begins to make a little bit of sense if the H2 is manufactured outside of the car, with a high pressure tank you refill weekly.

fwo

i absolutely have to start selling these kits.

PhillipM

Which will kill the catalytic converters on all cars bar those already fitted with lean burn systems - which can operate at 18:1 anyway, and you can only run that lean under very low load conditions.

It's ebay electric superchargers all over again.

tajabaho1

one of the hydrogen RE rx8 in Thailand caught fire and blew up on the motorshow test, I think they have it on the internet.........gotta find the picture

Socket7

If car companies could increase the efficiency of their vehicles by 10mpg or more just by adding a water filled tube with 2 metal plates inside of it, Don't you think it would be in use by every single car company in the world?

Don't be stupid.

911RN

True, but i recently found out in researching the kit that the original patent for the kit is owned by the Chevron gas co. and that they are not releasing it. Wonder why? Could it be that this might actually work and that they are afraid that it might drive down gas sales? Thanks for the posts every one, although they all are not in ageement with me i still appreciate the constructive criticism, keep it up Have a good weekend

Spin9k

If there's a patent, then whether of not Chevron 'owns' it, you should be able to read it and decide for yourself about it and understand how it works, and as long as you don't sell it, build one for testing. Patents are public.

911RN

Yeah I know. My friend is currently testing a home made kit on his friends mustang and he will keep me informed on what the results are. They are monitoring MPG changes mostly, but i will let everyone know when i get some info. So far he's been using the kit for awhile but i want long term use information on it. This company that i found sells a nice kit that looks better than the do-it-yourself kit which is based out of canada (does that have n e thing to do with the patent chevron has?). If n e one finds any facts about similar kits or knows n e one with first hand info, let me know. I will post more when i have information worth while.

Socket7

First off, I'd like you to post the actual patent. The united states patent office has a website, and it does have a search engine, so get cracking.

Secondly, a patent is not a monopoly. Even if Cheveron DOES have such a patent, it does not prevent anyone from designing, implementing, and even patenting, a hydrogen generation system of their own. Knowing this, I think that the reason that Cheveron isn't using the patent is because it doesn't work. Furthermore, if it did work, I think that every car manufacturer in the world would be extremely interested in any device that could dramatically increase gas mileage without sacrificing power.

911RN

I agree, but you can't tell me that there are not many things that would make life easier that have not been mass produced for what ever reason. But on a side note I received an e-mail back from the above mentioned web site regarding use of the generator kit in rotary engines. Im sure there will be many opinonated posts in lue of this post but here it is....

Our units work with all internal combustion engines, and therefore will work with your rotary engine since it is a type of internal combustion engine. The unit that would be best for your vehicle would be the AL-20, which is best suited for engines that hold up to 2.0L. For further information on this unit, you can check out the product page at the following website:
http://www.savefuel.ca/hydrogen/smal...id=carproducts
I personally don't know of any research that has been done on other vehicles with rotary engines but since it is a type of internal combustion engine, the unit should work the same as it does on all other vehicles with internal combustion engines. You can check out previous customers opinions about our units on the testimonial page of our website:
http://www.savefuel.ca/hydrogen/test...php?id=reviews
With use of our generators, you do not have to worry about any damage to the engine or surrounding parts in your vehicle. There is no water that will enter your engine to cause corrosion. Only hydrogen and oxygen gases are forced through into the engine's air intake.
Regular gasoline leaves behind carbon buildup in your engine, which decreases the power of the engine, causing the engine to generate less horsepower and torque. Higher-octane fuels help burn off some of this carbon residue. When you use a supplemental hydrogen generator, you not only increase combustion efficiency, but also raise the octane level of your fuel. A higher octane level means that the engine burns more cleanly.