Monday, April 28, 2008

Alpha Post: You're gonna do WHAT?!

As the title of this blog hints, I will begin tinkering this week with the virtues of on-board generated HHO to increase the fuel efficiency of my 1988 3.5L V8 fuel injected gas guzzlin' Range Rover. The premise is simple enough if I break it down.

First I will pull electricity from the battery and use it to perform electrolysis on a small amount of water which is kept in the engine bay. This energy is supplied by the alternator, supplied by the engine, and is therefore parasitic. It drains horsepower and therefore fuel economy from the system. The HHO will be generated parasitically from this energy. This means that I'm not actually getting any new energy from the Hydrogen or Oxygen gas. In fact, I'm LOSING energy making the gas because there is resistance and friction in the electrical and mechanical components of the engine and the alternator and the battery. So, WHY BOTHER? I'm glad you asked.

When I invest the energy into making HHO and incorporate that HHO into the air/fuel mix inside the engine, the HHO burns so hot that it radically changes the amount of gasoline fuel that ACTUALLY gets burned. A normal combustion engine is terribly inefficient. A turbine gas engine is reasonably good at what it does, but the standard naturally aspirated piston engine is just TERRIBLE at what it does from an efficiency perspective. All that changes when you bring hydrogen gas into the equation. Hydrogen burns at a very high temperature, unlike regular low-octane fuel. When hydrogen burns with the fuel/air mix, it burns at such a high temperature that it burns almost all of the gasoline which has been injected into the cylinder area. Essentially, the amount of energy that I have to spend to make hydrogen gas is LESS than the energy that I gain from the dramatic increase in the way the gasoline burns.

I've found multiple guys on youtube and .com companies who have done this and are either sharing by public domain or selling for profit their techniques and designs. The premise is simple enough, but the execution has more potential kinks and bottlenecks than you'd initially think. Already in my entry level foray of research, I've found a few major design branches for the gas generating apparatus. I'll have to pick one eventually and run with it, I suppose. I'm a big fan of this guy, Zero, who has a youtube channel: ZeroFossilFuel

Trying to wade in and just watch these things could be a bit intimidating or just boring if you're not into it... I've watched almost all of them, though. I'm hooked, and this guy is my hero. He's clearly a nerd and a geek of an elite order. I highly recommend watching his stuff if you plan on trying it out. I, myself, will also try to catalog my own process such that anyone with as little know-how as me will be able to follow alongside my blunderings and solutions and do at least as much as I have.

For now, I'll stick to the guts of the mechanical obstacles and the ultimate vision: make an on-board electrolysis machine increase the efficiency of my Rover. Later, we'll get into the implications, motivations for pioneering and advocating this technology, and the vision for helping others with the application (if it works, obviously).

Feel free to post questions, comments, encouragements, insights, and even doubts if you wish. I'd like this website to facilitate some real dialogs about the on-board HHO injection process as well as the alternative fuel issue in general.

Wish me luck!

Joshua P. Suich

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