I have been looking on the web trying to find ways to improve my gas mileage. I’m lloking for ways that can help reduce our dependance on foreign oil. I ran accross several adds suggesting running your car on water and gas. See this url: http://eas…kevinkanny for example. They make all kinds of claims including substantial gas mileage improvements. Obviously, they have nothing negative to say about do this. My questions are: are any of these claims vaild? What are the downside issues of this conversion? Does anyone make kits?
Thanks,
Bob
Chances are any such claims are bogus. If there were any truth to it, one or more major manufacturers would have bought the rights to it already. Consider: The guy selling this crap will make a decent amount of cash on the few things he sells to unsuspecting (or stupid) customers, but he’d make millions from selling it to a major manufacturer. The fact he hasn’t indicates it’s a load of bull crap with some corn in it.
By the way, Popular Mechanics did a thing a couple years ago seeing if a number of so-called mileage improvers worked. They found that at best it made no difference (aside from a slightly lighter wallet); at worst they caused the test vehicle to burst into flames.
By the way, I love this quote from the above website:
“We have developed devices that use a little electricity out of your car’s battery, to separate water into a gas called HHO (2 Hydrogen + 1 Oxygen). HHO, also called Brown’s Gas or Hydroxy, burns beautifully and provides TONS of energy - while the end product is just WATER! Mobile Magazine says HHO provides the atomic power of Hydrogen, while maintaining the chemical stability of water.”
So, he claims he’ll turn water into “HHO” Now, we all know the proper way to express chemicals, right? It’s properly known as H2O. Now, what’s water’s chemical notation? H2O! It seems this f***head is saying he’ll turn water into water, and make more energy. Anyone who buys into, or buys this ‘product,’ is just as much as f***head as he is.
Actually, come to think of it, he’s kinda bright to do this… make money off of people’s stupidity and ignorance (and gullibility.)
It’s a good thing you asked here first, Bob. Too many people just go and buy this s*** without using that big thing on their shoulders (or ‘brain’ for any f***heads reading this.)
And I apologize for the cursing… but it best expresses my feelings in this matter.
Most of the so-called wonder solutions are bogus. As a chemist and car enthusiast, I can assure you that the laws of energy are always at work. The claims of hydrogen fuel that burn to give off harmless water are very true. What they don’t tell you is that, there is no free hydrogen floating around for us to capture. It is all bonded into water, fossil fuels and other such chemical compounds. In order to isolate and use hydrogen as a fuel (and it’s a good one) requires us to rip apart strong chemical bonds, isolate the hydrogen and allow it to give off energy in the form of heat to power our engines when it re-combines with oxygen. The real question is, how much energy does it take to rip hydrogen atoms from, say a water molecule? And then how much energy is given off when it re-combines with oxygen? The obvious answer is that it takes (including efficiency losses that are inevitable) more energy to MAKE hydrogen available than hydrogen releases when re-combining.
So where do we get the energy to make hydrogen available? Aside from direct solar power or nuclear power, all other forms of power are derived from solar energy (that includes water, sun, fossil fuels, etc.) If you buy hydrogen, someone has to provide power in the form of electricity (called electrolysis or electrically splitting) to split water molecules apart. Electricity comes from waterfalls, coal or nuclear power. There isn’t enough power in a car battery to create hydrogen sufficient to run a car. If you tried, where does the power come from to recharge the car battery? If there is sufficient power in the burning of the liberated hydrogen to run the car AND re-charge the battery, we have a net gain in energy that is even better than a perpetual motion machine. Send me the plans.
So he’s trying to get Katrina cars back into service? Those cars have had tons of water ran through their engines
Well that is an old one. It was around when I was a kid and I am now 60 years old. It worked then, but it only added to the mileage under certain rare situations and tended to cause far more problems than it cured. It is no way will double the mileage as it claims and did you read the run-a-round they gave on the voiding of existing warranties. They were careful not to really answer the question, only do some misdirection in hopes the reader would be confused.
In short Don’t do it.
In small amounts through a venturi it might work like nitrous oxide to cool the incoming fuel. I wouldn’t use too much water, though. Since it is already oxidized (the hydrogen) there is no energy liberated through the oxidation process, which is what goes on in your engine. I don’t know how you oxidize HHO to another stable compound, so the claim on the web site that you can oxidize water is unbelievable.
There is a good way to get great gas mileage. That little Toyota Yaris with the two doors and small size sure looks like one way to do it. Manual transmission and zero extras and you will likely get around 40 MPG. It’s a lot smaller than the four door for those who are willing to do the actual sacrificing. 38 psi in the tires will get better gas mileage but you won’t have the best braking so don’t play in traffic. I used to get great mileage but it was in an 87 Plymouth Horizon or 83 Corolla. They aren’t luxury cars but the seats in the Horizon were OK. They both got 42 MPG highway. Normal air pressure in tires too.
A variant of the old bubbler. You can inject water for improve results. The ideal amount is about 60% of gas. A lot of water to haul around and all the usual water problems. This makes hydrogen and oxygen, which does burn. A quart of water would be about the same as a quart of fuel. That won’t take you far and you have to provide the energy to make it.
WW II planes used water injection to cool the mixture and address detonation . . don’t know how it affected the MPG on a Corsair or B-17 . . . sounds doubtful that you can get energy from water . . . but remember what Jed Clampett said about the front pasture . . . ca’t grow nothin’ on it 'cause of all that black tarry stuff in it. Rocketman
Pure BS!
I remember seeing water injection kits in advertisements in magazines back in the 1950’s. As I remember, there was a special model of the 1962 Oldmobile F-85 called the Cutlass that did inject water or a water/alcohol mixture into the carburetor. This car had a supercharger and the water injection was used to keep pre-ignition to a minimum. It didn’t have anything to do with raising the gasoline mileage. The system must not have worked out very well, because it was only offered for one or two years in the early 1960’s.
back in the 70 some people put water injection into there cars to get more power. how it worked is water is injected in to the a carb spacer and it is then mix with gas and put into the Cylinder which when the water got hot it exspaned “steam” and push the piston down. makeing more power.