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Old topic I know, but interesting one. I'm no chemistry major or anything, but a buddy of mine and the family he lives with are currently researching blueprints and going to design their own unit in a compact size.
The way he was explaining it to me is there is a small tank (about 1 gallon or so) or water mounted either in your engine bay if you have room, backseat, whatever with an electrolysis unit hooked up in some fashion (he was kind of vague on that part) where you actually use the process of electrolysis to break apart the molecules (as stated above). Yes I can see it taking an incredible amount of power/energy to do do, so he was talking about hooking the unit itself up to a separate second battery so there would be no draw on the electronics of the car to do the process. From that unit, you would take a stainless steel braided line and run to a port somewhere on your intake. The ideal place for that would be where our stock EGR pipe goes on the backside (for those who have it removed...if you don't, some drilling required) so that you hook up the line in a similar fashion to nitrous.
Now through that lines is where the hydrogen GAS atoms are run, thus "dumping" hydrogen (a highly combustible gas) into your intake to aid combustion. Now in order to receive the mpg increase, obviously fuel curve mapping is needed, through a stand alone FMS (for example megasquirt or other of your choosing) where you would lean out your fuel maps in order to compensate for the added hydrogen, thus using LESS fuel to get the same amount if not more thorough combustion which as we all know, using less fuel = more miles per gallon of gasoline. The setup if done right would run on all hydrogen and no gasoline, 75% hydrogen/25%gasoline or whatever ratio you choose to use. Keep in mind the less amount of gasoline you can use to provide the same combustion through alternative means, the higher your miles per gallon of GASOLINE (not miles per gallon of H2) will be. In addition, this unit can take any form of water and pull hydrogen out of it. Whether it be, distilled water, well water, lake water, river water (not advised in high population areas) or shockingly...even your own piss (yes i know it sounds fucked up, but can be used). Anything other than tap water or distilled water will require the use of some kind of filter upon pouring the fluid into your tank/resevoir (coffee filters will do just fine, or you can go the extra mile and get scientific filter paper...) He also said 1 gallon of water can produce 80 or so gallons of hydrogen GAS, which without further research I can't guarantee accuracy of that statement. Also in order for this to work properly without error you need to have stainless steel exhaust and the alluminium head will work as well. The logic behind this is the rise in EGTs after combustion of hydrogen gas. Just any metal will not withstand the heat. Ceramic, Alumimum, Cast Iron, Stainless Steel, Galvanized steel are all appropriate metals to use as well as any others that you can discover. Other than that, the only mod you need is the unit and an FMS like I said above. Obviously this is a rough sketch of what the unit is doing, but it can give a good idea to those who are willing to try it out. Look it up but don't read too far into it, talk to the guys that have done it, see what they noticed...do what have you. But by all means don't start slamming things into the ground saying they aren't possible without first trying. Nothing aftermarket is going to be a PERFECT fit (some modification may be required), unless you pay the BIG BUCKS for it anyhow...
A friend of his is currently running it on his 60's model mustang with a hydrogen "booster" (dumbed down name for the electrolysis unit) and has stated he noticed a significant mpg increase, a cleaner combustion as well as more amount of/more consistent power (not much but a little bit). Another friend is currently working on designing his old bronco II to run COMPLETELY on water/hydrogen through the same process as above.
AS for the "why didn't manufacturers use this before..." question, the answer is sort of simple. Scientific advances have come a LONG way in the last decade as well as the rising oil prices, people are looking for alternate means of fuel. E85, electric cars, hybrid vehicles, hypermiling (which is a joke...doesn't it take more fuel to start the car all the time rather than just run it? within reason of course). Who said anything about this unit being used except recently? There may have been people who tried it here and there who had bugs, so in the manufacturer's eyes, they don't want to spend the money to implement all these systems and not have them work perfect right out of the gate. It's just like the internet. Who would of dreamed of being able to post on a board like this with people all over the globe before all the technological advances in the last decade? Right now, hydrogen "boosters" are a fad, they may/may not catch on and at that time if they do, the manufacturers will see this taking place and they may implement these systems in a few select models. Who would of thought of running a car by electric power only before the last decade...same principle. You guys can sit here and degrade this all you want but let me throw one more example that is a little more relevant to our community. How many people "back in the day" said that you could NEVER by ANY stretch of the imagination turbocharge the 420a? Now look, advances made it possible and it's now widely used. Right? No documentation blatantly said "oh it's possible..." it took experimentation and guess what..IT WORKED or all your turbo 420a's would be still NA. What I'm getting at is you will NEVER get anywhere on this topic unless you experiment just as JustOne did. For those who say it isn't possible or he is full of shit...I challenge you to give it a shot and see if you can get it to work. People have already, my buddy's friend, and JustOne to name a couple. Never hurts to try...refer to the turbo example. -Ben Black 1999 RS
Basic mods and a South Bend OFE-SS Clutch ~150bhp.....for now!
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