Every crisis can also be viewed an opportunity, or so it seems. As many motorists are having trouble making ends meet with rising fuel (and food) prices, various websites are popping up (usually with affiliate schemes) that make tempting promises such as:
- “…use water as fuel and laugh at rising gas costs…”
- “double your mileage”
- “…cooler running engine…”
- “no knocking”
- “one quart of water provides over 1800 gallons of HHO gas which can literally last for months”
You will find numerous websites if you google for “water fuel car” or similar terms. Mostly the websites that make these claims sell e-books and other kits with instructions on building your own hydrogen generator from glass jars, electrodes and tubes to hook up to your existing engine.
Such kits draw power from your car’s electrical system (the battery and the generator charging it) to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gas, which is then fed into the air intake of the engine, so the hydrogen-oxygen mixture will be burnt along the air/gasoline mixture in the car’s combustion chambers. How well can such a system really work?
If a a “water-engine” as described above were to produce extra power beyond the power obtained from burning gasoline it would violate fundamental laws of physics. The First Law of Thermodynamics states that no energy is ever lost or gained, it just changes form, such as chemical energy to heat when you burn wood or heat to mechanical energy in a steam engine. An engine that uses only liquid water to produce water vapour (i.e. water plus heat) in its exhaust while providing mechanical energy violates this law of energy balance. It outputs energy with no energy going it. It would be a perpetual motion engine, which is physically impossible.
The sad fact is, people who buy these systems usually have a very rudimentary understanding of science. They take these unverified claims at face value, or are at least prepared to give them the benefit of doubt and spend money on testing unverified claims.
The “water-fuelled car” in detail
To split water (H2O) into its constituent elements hydrogen and oxygen takes electric energy. While the engine is running that energy will come from a generator driven by the engine via a belt. Just like running with your headlights on or your radio blaring will cause your engine to work a bit harder and burn more fuel, so will an electrolytic “hydrogen generator” take its toll on your gas tank.
Assuming an efficient setup, about 50-70% of the electrical energy provided will end up as chemical energy in the explosive hydrogen-oxygen mixture fed back into the engine, the rest will just warm up the water. A gasoline engine manages to convert up to 20% of the chemical energy contained in its fuel into mechanical energy, which is then available for driving the wheels or a generator. That generator converts maybe 90% of its mechanical input into electrical power. Altogether this means that burning the hydrogen returns only around 1/10 of the power originally invested into generating the hydrogen from water. It’s like you just burnt 10 litres (or gallons) of fuel in order to avoid burning one litre (or gallon).
What this of course means is that a “water-powered car” actually burns more gasoline and gets worse mileage than an unmodified car. However, the output of the “hydrogen generator” is so small and its practical negative effect on fuel mileage is so minor, you are unlikely to actually notice that, even if you accurately measure fuel economy. For example, a setup that draws 3 amperes of current from your generator (as claimed in one of the websites we’ve studied) will only use 1/20 of one horsepower (3 A x 12 V = 36 W = 0.036 kW = 0.050 hp). The difference in fuel usage is smaller than the difference between say driving with a full or a half empty fuel tank, which also changes fuel economy as a heavier car takes more power to accelerate.
The advertised fact that the “water-powered car” uses so little water (“one quart lasts for months”) is actually a give-away that the system is a hoax. If you produced hydrogen at home from tap water and a solar panel on your roof and stored it in a pressurized tank in your car to run it on only hydrogen, you would find that the amount of water used to make the hydrogen is still in the same order of magnitude as the amount of gasoline used, maybe something like a third by volume (I’d have to look up the exact numbers on relative energy content of hydrogen and hydrocarbons). In a water car that uses virtually no water (no matter where the electricty to make the hydrogen came from) the hydrogen can not be making any significant contribution to running it because there’s too little of it!
Less pinking / knocking?
I don’t know how many of the people who sell these useless plans are simply ignorant about science and how many are fully aware they’re scamming people. In any case, their other claims are equally baseless as their claims about improved fuel economy. Hydrogen has a higher energy content but also much lower octane rating than gasoline because it burns faster, more violently. This means your engine is more likely to start knocking or “pinking” than when run on gasoline (or gasoline / ethanol mixtures), not less. This is a problem that BMW had a hard time dealing with when they converted the engine of a 7-series saloon car to run on hydrogen. In practice this problem doesn’t matter in a “water car” because those “hydrogen generators” output so little hydrogen that it makes almost no difference to the engine, unlike real hydrogen cars with hydride or high pressure hydrogen tanks.
Cooler running engine?
Also, a hydrogen / oxygen mixture does not burn “cooler” than a gasoline / air mixture. Ask the space shuttle designers: The only reason the space shuttle’s hydrogen-oxygen engine doesn’t melt itself is because it’s cooled with liquid hydrogen (at -253 C / -423 F). Hydrogen / oxygen flames burn so hot they can be used for cutting steel like butter. First, hydrogen release more energy per unit of weight than does gasoline. Secondly, while the oxygen used for burning gasoline in a car engine is diluted with nitrogen (which makes up 80% of the air we breathe), the ogygen / hydrogen mix from the generator has not been diluted with anything inert, which is another reason why it burns so hot.
The vater vapour in the “water car” exhaust has no cooling effect whatsoever, because it’s not derived from liquid water, hence there’s no cooling effect from evaporation heat. Again, in the “water car” setup it makes no difference because there’s too little hydrogen involved.
Summary
In reality a “water as fuel” car is a placebo. Technically it doesn’t make any noticable difference to the amount of gasoline you use per kilometre or mile, but it may change the way you think about driving. If you do see any drop in fuel usage, it may be simply that you’re thinking more about fuel usage because of the investment you’ve just made and now drive less aggressively than before and that can indeed result in a modest reduction. Beyond that, any claimed changes are either due to wishful thinking, a vivid imagination or a cruel hoax to deceive unsuspecting customers.
The only way you’ll really see a 50% drop in your monthly fuel bill is if you basically cut your driving in half or if you change to a significantly different kind of car, such as from a bulky V6 to an economical Toyota Prius.
The number one factor that affects fuel economy around town is weight: A lighter car uses less fuel. Don’t get a more powerful engine than you really need. A more efficient setup, such as a hybrid or a new clean diesel can make a big difference too. Use public transport, ride a bicycle or walk wherever you can. It’s good for your health too 🙂
UPDATE: Here is a good page that explains in more detail why the claims for “HHO” don’t add up (use Ctrl+A to mark the text as it’s difficult to read as dark text on dark background).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGaesE0kUDw&feature=related
Joe,
You claim that most people that use these devices have a rudimentary understanding of science. Your main point of argument is that the laws of thermodynamics say such results with this device are impossible. However, I disagree with your opinion and would even suggest that you don’t have a complete understanding of the science behind the operation of such a device as do many antagonists, who only base their arguments solely off the laws of thermodynamics.
The truth is that hydrogen, with its unique and inherent characteristics, changes the combustion parameters which can lead to improved fuel economy if this balance is right–you can debate this balance but not the truth behind the science. Hydrogen addition to gasoline SI engines has been studied extensively in may scholarly peer-reviewed journals and the results have shown that hydrogen addition reduces the specific fuel consumption of a vehicle relative to a gasoline alone. Hydrogen is very diffusive and has a very high flame velocity; upon the spark ignition, this leads to a more complete burn of the gasoline within the cylinder. This makes sense because it is known that a substantial amount of gasoline does not get combusted in an SI engine and remains chemically unchanged until it enters the catalytic converter.
I do think that many private individuals and companies who are selling the device on the internet are only trying to make a quick buck, but like I said earlier, the idea can work if the balance is right. Moreover, I have witnessed many people who claim positive results with device don’t actually understand why it works–this is probably the fundamental reason for the large debate on the internet and various forums. I was one of these individuals who gave my own erroneous theories initially as to why the device worked. I continued to research the applicable science beyond the laws of thermodynamics and now I know how the device can work. See the link for a detailed forum discussion on this topic–it contains a lot of my previous misconceptions but also a lot of scientifically valid arguments that can support the beneficial operation of the device (you can’t access the images of graphs and data from peer-reviewed unless you are a member of the forum).
Sorry, here is the link:
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=240385
buffordboy23, now the arguments are getting recycled. Your argument has already been brought up and the answer is that current engines only leave about 1% of the fuel unburned. Are you saying that burning an extra 1% is going to increase mileage by 50% or more?
To everyone else (especially people who have done this and claimed results). The real problem is that too many nonscientists are testing these devices and have no clue how to do a real scientific experiment. None of your tests are blinded, are they? You probably don’t even know what that means? How can I trust that you aren’t driving differently to get better results after installing one of these systems?
Bob,
I need to see a reputable a source on your 1% claim. If what you claim is correct, then burning this extra gasoline would only result in a small increase in the total energy from combustion. Assuming that a car uses about 1.5 grams of gasoline per second (a good approximation), then burning this extra 1% (o.015 grams) only results in a net increase of energy not more than “700 joules per second” based off of the combustion energy of gasoline per kilogram of stoichiometric mixture (2.79 MJ)–see post #59 on the forum link that I provided for more detail.
If you do your research you will see that the specific fuel consumption of a gasoline SI engine can be improved dramatically with small amounts of hydrogen (not necessarily from electrolysis devices) on the order of 0-10% mass fraction of gasoline. These results are supported by many different scientists, who publish in peer-refereed journals. So, based on your 1% figure from earlier, you are saying that their results are fabricated–you can see some actual sources and actual graphical data on my posted forum discussion link. This is not likely with the large volume of papers on the topic. Are you sure that your not quoting the percentage that leaves the tailpipe? The catalytic converter does alter a substantial portion of unburned hydrocarbon molecules that weren’t combusted.
Moreover, the arguments posted on this page about the flammability limits of hydrogen in an SI engine isn’t valid either. It’s too simplistic–the 4-75% flammability limits are under standard conditions, which is certainly not the case inside an engine. Pressure and temperature affect and can change the range of the flammability limit. In addition, as the gasoline and air inside the engine undergoes combustion the ratio of the substances will change so quickly in a short interval of time that hydrogen could be combusted as a secondary reaction, even under standard conditions–the minimum ignition energy of hydrogen is only 0.02 mJ. Moreover, if we assume that the already stated arguments in regard to the flammability limits were true, then this would also imply that the published research results are fabricated.
I recommend that you read carefully posts #38 and higher to see the real viability of such a device. I even provide data from scholarly articles, so that you can determine this for yourself with any particular set of car data and specifications.
Sure, you don’t have to trust me. I don’t blame you since it such a hot topic. Instead, place your trust in the numbers, scientific logic, and experimental data which show that such ideas are plausible. Your degrading remark that I don’t what a blind test is shows to me that you never referred to my posts on the provided forum link–there I have provided a detailed scientific analysis regarding some key aspects of this problem. Your current hastiness and clenching grasp onto simplistic arguments is preventing you (and many others) from exploring the deeper aspects of the problem which show that the idea is plausible. Feel free to respond however you wish, for my purpose on this forum is completed.
No, the amount that leaves the tail pipe is in parts per million (ever had an emissions test?). I’ll find some sources for you.
I guess I have one more post.
Bob,
If you do find this source, you still have to compete with the fact that a whole range of scientific literature supports improved specific fuel consumption when small amounts of hydrogen are added to gasoline. So if you do find the source, all this means is that I am wrong about questioning the 1% figure. The scientist’s results are still valid despite the efforts of your search.
Here is something else to think about. In general, the combustion of hydrogen with gasoline tends to decrease the burn duration of the already present gasoline within the engine cylinder; the result is an improvement of the engine’s thermal efficiency and its capacity to do work–again, backed by research. Your 1% unburned gasoline statistic cannot refute this.
Your better off trying to refute my other arguments on the provided forum link.
Parts per million is a dimensionless quantity, just like percent. Quantities can be discussed in a variety of ways to persuade readers to believe one thing or another. If I tell someone that I put 12 liters of hydrogen gas into my car engine every hour, they may think this is a large quantity, yet in actuality, it is about 1 gram. However, and for comparison, a car typically uses 1.5 grams of gasoline per second.
Keep in mind that to reach 1%, you need 1000ppm.
“there should be relatively little HC and CO in the exhaust for the converter to burn (a few tenths of a percent CO and less than 150 ppm of HC when the engine is warm).” http://www.aa1car.com/library/converter.htm
Emissions LIMITS in Colorado for pre1970 cars (which don’t have catalytic converters):
1970 and older CO:5.5ppm, HC:1000ppm
So even in older cars, 1% hydrocarbon emissions is considered the LIMIT.
http://www.aircarecolorado.com/passenge.htm
Bob,
I see that I was wrong to question you on the 1% claim. I should have had my facts straight earlier.
However, you can’t just overturn the results of numerous scientific studies which show that small mass fractions of hydrogen improve the specific fuel consumption of an SI engine. The addition of hydrogen increases the flame velocity of the spark ignition (I know, already stated), which tends to make the gasoline/air mixture burn quicker; this means greater thermal efficiency and more capacity for the engine to do work per same amount of gasoline.
buffordboy23,
in the thread whose link you posted you calculated that to get 1% hydrogen by weight to gasoline would take 9 kW of electric power for hydrolysis. That’s about an order of magnitude more than the 1 kW (70 A at 14 V) your average alternator provides.
This raises the question how you are going to achieve better efficiencies through a faster burn with the tiny amounts of hydrogen that *can* be produced with the advertised equipment.
Also, your own figures on the efficiency of producing hydrogen using engine power are somewhat optimistic. 60-80% efficiency on electrolysis is unrealistic, when even the best large-scale industrial equipment only manages 55%. I think you’re unlikely to get 50% in a car. Also, the efficiency of the engine + generator is likely to be less than 30% as gasoline engines typically manage no better than 25% and typical car alternators are 50-60% efficient, resulting in a combined efficiency of 12-15% instead of 30.
Overall this means that probably only 6-7% of the energy from gasoline burnt to drive a generator end up being available as hydrogen again. The other 93-94% is a net loss that you would have to make up for in improved efficiency simply to break even again, let alone to improve mileage.
Joew,
I thank you for reviewing my work.
Your right to question my assumed efficiencies. I actually used values given in scientific scholarly articles (this doesn’t mean that they are correct). Anybody can input their own expected efficiency values into the data and scientific arguments on posts #48, 59, and 65 to draw their own conclusions.
My analysis showed the upper ceiling of what was theoretically possible based on the car specifications; I really do not believe that it is possible to obtain a 1% hydrogen relative mass ratio. Since the actual energy needed to produce 1 gram of hydrogen is about 5 times greater (using my efficiency values) than the theoretical value, we would see a larger and larger energy loss with more and more hydrogen production. I posted a new analysis on the thread which explains why this is true. However, if you infer values for hydrogen mass ratios less than 1% from the data already provided on the graph, it is possible to see energy gains, and thus fuel conservation–of course, this should be your judgment, not mine.
Personally, I believe that the device does work, but in a manner different than what the marketers of these devices claim–note that I never bought anything from any of these companies but learned everything on my own for free. I really expect that 10-15 grams of hydrogen production is possible per hour (about a 0.2-0.3% mass fraction); supposedly they claim 2 grams. I think that people and companies are trying to make a quick buck off of the idea with some advertising schemes–for example, one-quart of water lasts months–to hide the real truth behind the maintenance requirements and durability of the devices. I found that one-quart of water can get used up in a couple of hours. The device that I use needs maintenance on a daily basis and appears not to be very durable due to the breakdown of the electrodes. What consumer wants a product like this? Platinum electrodes don’t come cheap either.
buffordboy23, I’ll help you out a bit. The only thing left is the possibility that it somehow improves the efficiency of the Carnot cycle. You should study up there and see if you can find a loophole in Carnot’s theorem that would allow for such a thing. I’m 99.9% certain there is nothing there to discover, but that is pretty much the only rock left unturned here (unless you want to claim that cold fusion is occuring under your hood). 🙂
Bob,
You make a good point but research does show that hydrogen addition to gasoline improves the thermal efficiency. For example, from the following citation
Y. Hacohen and E. Sher. FUEL CONSUMPTION AND EMISSION OF SI ENGINE FUELED
WITH H2-ENRICHED GASOLINE. Proceedings of the 24th IECEC, Arlington, VA, USA, 1989
it reads verbatim on page 2485 the following:
“The burning velocity of a hydrogen enriched gasoline is higher than that of gasoline/air mixture and, therefore, the actual indicator diagram approaches closer to the ideal Otto cycle diagram and a higher thermodynamic efficiency is achieved.”
I provide a few graphs from journal articles on my forum link which show the improved the specific fuel consumption with hydrogen addition, which is a direct result of increased thermal efficiency. Originally, I had a personal bias because I believe that the device can work, but I try my best in my more recent posts to give info that is unbiased so that uninformed readers can judge the quality of the product for themselves rather than relying on overly-simplified scientific arguments from antagonists and blind-faith testimonials/personal theories from proponents.
If you are interested, send me an email and I will send you some data and graphs from various journals regarding any of your specific questions, so that I don’t consume this whole forum with a large number of posts.
These are good points, but here is an alternative and more enlightening way of looking at this scenario.
Comments previously mentioned by Joew,
“How much HHO gas is actually mixed into the air intake? One kg = one litre of water (roughly a quart) produces about 2300 litres of H2/O2-mixture. A 2 litre engine running at 2000 rpm breathes in 2 x 2000 x 60 = 240,000 litres of air per hour. The FAQ of water4gas.com claims 2700 miles per gallon of water, that’s about 700 miles per litre and probably 15 or more operating hours. What we get then is 160 litres of HHO per operating hour, which is only 1/1500 or 0.067% of the air intake of the engine. Note that mixtures of less than 4% hydrogen in air (1/25) won’t even burn. It is hard to believe then that 60 times less hydrogen will have a significant impact on the combustion of the gasoline/air mixture.”
“This raises the question how you are going to achieve better efficiencies through a faster burn with the tiny amounts of hydrogen that *can* be produced with the advertised equipment.”
I already discussed how flammability limits are affected by temperature and pressure. Let’s assume that we can produce 2 grams of hydrogen like these kits supposedly say. Therefore, every second we are putting about 5.6 x 10^-4 grams of hydrogen into the engine. Let’s also assume that 1.25 grams of gasoline (a good assumption) are used every second by the engine when the car is running at 60 mph and getting 30 mpg.
The number of diatomic hydrogen molecules that we are putting into the engine each second is given by
(5.6 x 10^-4 grams hydrogen) * [(6 x 10^23 molecules) / (2 grams diatomic hydrogen per mole)] = 1.7 x 10^20 molecules diatomic hydrogen
For gasoline (iso-octane C8H18 has 114 g per mole), the number of molecules is
(1.25 grams gasoline) * [(6 x 10^23 molecules) / (114 grams gasoline per mole)] = 6.6 x 10^21 molecules gasoline.
The ratio of hydrogen molecules to gasoline molecules is
(1.7 x 10^20 molecules diatomic hydrogen) / (6.6 x 10^21 molecules gasoline) = 2.5%
So for every 100 gasoline molecules, 2.5 hydrogen molecules are present. Hydrogen is extremely dispersive so there should be no mixing issues. This is likely to have an effect but you can judge for yourself–the laminar flame velocity of hydrogen is 1.9 m/s while gasoline is 0.4 m/s. If we assume a 10 to 15 gram hydrogen production, which I think is possible with the most efficient setup then the hydrogen/gasoline molecule ratios are 12.5% and 18.75%, respectively.
Well, you are looking at molar ratios, but consider that the energy from gasoline combustion comes from oxidizing each of the eight carbons in octanes which involves replacing all the hydrogens with oxygens and breaking the carbon-carbon bonds as well. All told, in one molecule of octanes has 25 bonds that each release energy during oxydation. Meanwhile, H2 only has one bond, so while you might have a 2.5% molar ratio of hydrogen gas to octanes, you only have about 0.1% ratio relative to oxydizable bonds.
Also, nothing that we’ve said would disagree with the idea that adding hydrogen to gasoline would make the engine run more thermodynamically efficient. The reality is that hydrogen DOES burn more efficiently than gasoline, so it would only go to reason that adding hydrogen to your intake would increase efficiency over gasoline alone. It would also DECREASE efficiency over hydrogen alone. What we don’t accept is that you can have a net gain in power by transferring gasoline power into hydrogen power via electrolysis – the efficiency losses are too great.
Your discussion regarding the oxidation of gasoline molecules makes good sense. I am not a chemistry expert, but I would expect there to be a plethora of branching reactions during this oxidation process. Is it possible that the hydrogen oxidation could be more kinetically/thermodynamically favored than the gasoline oxidation reactions despite the 0.1% ratio that you referenced?
I appreciate your agreement that hydrogen addition to gasoline can improve the thermal efficiency of the SI engine. However, I don’t understand how you can simply say that the idea can’t work based on the total efficiency losses in the system. This is a really complex system and I think actual experimental data is necessary to make your argument irrefutable. This data would need to look at the overall general effect of hydrogen addition over a variety of engine conditions (rpms, torques, loads, etc.). Moreover, these results are likely to vary across all manufacturers because of unique engine designs, various differences in electrical components such as the alternator, and etc. I was able to obtain some graphical data from peer-reviewed journal articles that tend support beneficial operation of the device–it may not be over the whole range of engine conditions and may not be as glamorous as 60% improvement in fuel economy, but small windows appear to exist. Of course, the question is then focused on the assumed efficiency values in my analysis of the author’s data, but any reader can assume their own efficiencies to draw their own conclusion.
the water for gas or water for car is nothing more than a scam. check out their return policy and clickbank. if you want to lose money all you have to do is make a purchase
buffordboy23,
I checked out the graph from the study in the International Journal of Hydrogen energy posted on the physics forum.
S.O Bade Shrestha, G.A. Karim. Hydrogen as an additive to methane for spark ignition engine applications. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 24 (1999), 577-586.
What it shows is that at almost any fuel / air mixture ratio tested, power output increased by less than the estimated energy cost of producing hydrogen from water, i.e. adding hydrogen would result in a net loss of energy in most cases.
The only exception was the curve for “equivalence ratio 0.60” and even there any net gain would disappear if the energy consumption for electrolysis was doubled. If this was the study that assumed an engine+generator efficiency of 30% and an electrolysis efficiency of 70% then a doubling of the energy cost estimate would be necessary.
Even without that, the fact that the measured power increase with the addition of hydrogen was smallest in the least lean fuel mixtures tested was interesting, because spark ignition engines with three-way catalysts tend to *avoid* running lean, with the exception of the latest direct injection engines.
Joew,
I agree with your analysis of this journal article data displayed on that posting. The was the first of three sets of data from journal articles that I presented. At the time of that posting, this was the only research that I was able to find in the scientific literature, and although its focus was on methane-fueled engines, I thought the author’s exploration of on-board electrolysis for hydrogen production was enlightening and may spark thoughts regarding its application to gasoline-fueled engines from forum-readers more knowledgeable on the topic than I.
This is the article from which I base all of my assumed efficiencies–the authors’ never stated why they chose the values that they did nor offered any indication of their accuracy compared to actual efficiencies of operational car components. Perhaps as you suggested earlier, their values are optimistic. From my own searching on the internet, I have found the possible efficiency ranges that follow:
SI engine: 20-30% (can go up by as much as 10% depending on the amount of added hydrogen)
alternators: 50-90%
electrolysis: 40-80%
The other two articles are more relevant since they pertain to SI engines fueled with gasoline. The second article’s important data and experimental setup can be found on post #’s 48 and 63, and for the third article, post #65.
This is dumb everyone is just repeating older threads. I have a question for anyone, this might help clear the air a little. What does a faster flame speed do in an engine?
Here’s more references
http://www.rockettbrand.com/technicals/documents/TechBulletins/FlameSpeedOctaneAndHpRelationships.pdf
to get an understanding maybe the car educated people that think Hydrogen is a fraud may want to learn more before they open their yap.
Ignorance breeds ignorance.
buffordboy23,
the reason you can’t produce H2 with gasoline energy and obtain a more efficient engine is this: if you expend 1btu of gasoline power to hydrolyze water, the MOST you can get assuming 100% efficiency all around, is 1btu of hydrogen gas. The problem is, even though hydrogen is more efficient than gasoline, it isn’t 100%. Even if it was, the most it could do would be to replace the lost power used to electrolyze the water in the first place. That is the problem. The gasoline used to power the alternator which created the hydrogen was only 25% efficient to begin with, so the 75% that was lost the thermal energy can’t be recovered – it’s gone. Only the 25% that wasn’t lost was actually used to create hydrogen, so really for 1btu of gasoline used to make hydrogen, even if the alternator and electrolysis were 100%, the most H2 you could get would be 0.25btu.
Bob,
This idea is wrong though. This is the same argument that most scientific-minded people use to attempt to “debunk” the electrolysis device: if it takes “x” units of energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, then the most energy we can ever get back from their combustion is “x” units; but since the system has numerous efficiency losses we actually get less energy back, and thus use more fuel by having the device attached.
If this argument waw true and so simple, it makes no sense for academic scientists to spend taxpayer dollars to study the viability of such a system. See the following link:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V3F-40BPTC6-8&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=1351dd7f0100355b58fadef2ac1f20c1
In this study, the primary fuel is methane but the application of the electrolysis device would still suffer from the same constraints as for a gasoline engine. The author states in his abstract that their are narrow window ranges at which the device is beneficial.
As a last point, researchers are currently looking for alternative ways to produce hydrogen on-board. These alternative ways must also wrestle with the inherent efficiency losses of the SI engine. See this link about plasma fuel reformers:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/11/hydrogenenhance.html
I used to be an academic scientist – for a lot of academic scientists, testing outrageous claims IS the point. They work very cheaply and it is figured that SOMEONE has to do it, so that is often what they do. Industrial scientists certainly aren’t going to waste their time with stuff like that. As far as the paper you posted, you did see this line in the summary, right?
“This would render the whole concept of in situ hydrogen production through water electrolysis uneconomical in conjunction with engine operation”
And like I said before, I don’t doubt that adding hydrogen to the fuel mixture increases the thermodynamic efficiency of the engine. Look at it this way. Let’s say you were a foreman of a construction team and you have 9 workers underneath you. Each worker can perform X units of work per hour so that all together they perform 9X units/hour. You find a new worker who is capable of performing 3X units/hour all by himself. If you add him, you could have 10 workers perform 12X units/hour, or a 20% increase in productivity. This part of the equation I agree on. But 1. it sounds like you are saying 9X + 3X might be greater than 12X? 2. We don’t have an external hydrogen tank here – you have to trade your current workers to get the more efficient worker, so now assuming everything is 100% efficient in the trade off, you need to get rid of 3 of your old workers to get the new worker, so the net result is 0. Also, because the efficiency of the trade is poor, you will end up trading of all 9 of your old workers for just 1 new worker and now you will only be able to get 1/3 of the work done that you did before.
Bob,
Nice analogy. I was actually toying around with a similar one.
Bob said:
“…it sounds like you are saying 9X + 3X might be greater than 12X?”
That is exactly what I am saying. Now I must explain why I am not a crackpot and why energy conservation laws are not violated with this description.
Bob said:
“you need to get rid of 3 of your old workers to get the new worker, so the net result is 0.”
Your suggesting that the trade-off between the gasoline used to produce the hydrogen is an even one-to-one trade, ignoring the efficiencies of course; three 1X workers = one 3X worker. Rather, your analogy should be something like three 1X workers = one 5X worker. Here’s why:
When hydrogen is added to the gasoline it increases the efficiency of the combustion for the reasons mentioned in previous posts–basically, we are harnessing a greater percentage of the potential chemical energy stored within gasoline to do work in running our car. So another way of modifying your analogy is by saying that the “hydrogen” worker is a *motivator*; instead of the average joe worker producing 1X units/hour, now they may produce 1.5X units/hour. As long as this change in total units/hour among all workers is greater than the units needed to overcome the efficiency losses and to create the “hydrogen” worker, then it makes sense to have this “hydrogen” worker around.
This modified analogy explains why the citation that I recently posted shows that the electrolysis device can be beneficial over some window ranges of varying engine conditions. However, you are right that the abstract says the idea is uneconomical.
There are two main issues here: (1) Can the device be beneficial and improve fuel economy?, and (2) is the marketing of the product a scam?
My answers follow:
(1) yes, it appears possible but only under very limited driving conditions and it could also depend on the overall efficiencies and specifications of car components associated with the device. If you don’t drive consistently within this subset of driving conditions (low-load, steady cruising speed) do not even consider using the device. Why is this? The ratio of hydrogen relative to gasoline is greatest during these conditions, so the device can pay for itself and be beneficial to fuel economy.
Here is a link to my Windows Live space page (http://cid-810ca62460f8699f.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Public), which shows experimental procedures and graphical data from the two research articles to support this claim:
Y. Hacohen and E. Sher. FUEL CONSUMPTION AND EMISSION OF SI ENGINE FUELED WITH H2-ENRICHED GASOLINE. Proceedings of the 24th IECEC, Arlington, VA, USA, 1989
Maher Abdul-Resul Sadiq Al-Baghdadi. Performance study of a four-stroke spark ignition engine working with both of hydrogen and ethyl alcohol as supplementary fuel. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 25 (2000) 1005-1009.
(2) yes, the marketing of the product uses scam tactics–however, as noted previously this does not mean that the device is completely useless. These people want your money just like any other business, but they withhold important information that consumers should understand before making a purchase. I have not seen any marketers tell potential consumers, “Hey, this device isn’t right for you if you drive in stop-and-go city traffic all the time.”, or “This gadget needs a lot of maintenance; you may have to refill water and add electrolyte everyday, reconnect and disconnect it from your battery during every usage, and probably replace the electrodes on a frequent basis.”
Sorry joew for the large number of posts, but I want to get the real side of this issue to the masses.
Well, you can make the claim that the 3X worker motivates the other 1X workers to work at 1.5X (ie, an increase in the efficiency of the Carnot cycle), but you can’t get 5X H2 energy out of 3X gasoline energy. If you want 5btu H2 gas, you need to put in at least 5btu (assuming 100% efficient electrolysis) into the the water to get it. That is simple chemistry (and physics). If H2 + 1/2O2 -> H2O releases X energy, then going from H2O -> H2 + 1/2O2 will require X energy.
That was where I was saying you lose the most efficiency in this process, is the fact that gasoline burns so inefficiently in the first place. Just to get the 5 btu gasoline energy just to spin the alternator, you need to burn 20btu worth of gasoline because 15btu is lost to heat in the exhaust.
Your right. I agree with your analysis about the forward and reverse chemical reactions. The efficiency losses of combustion and electric power generation are the greatest obstacles to overcome. However, if the presence of hydrogen increases the combustion efficiency, it is very well possible to see benefits with the device.
The following links are really mathematical, but show how such a scenario can occur. The first link looks at the theoretical energy needed to produce some quantity of hydrogen, how associated efficiencies (these are probably optimistic) increase the actual energy needed to cause the hydrogen production reaction, and the little quantity of gasoline that is needed to produce 1 gram of hydrogen.
http://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1806005&postcount=59
The second link uses graphical data from one of the previously posted citations to analyze how the production of hydrogen on-board can increase fuel economy:
http://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1809899&postcount=65
Unfortunately, the graphical data from this article requires subjective interpretation, nevertheless it illustrates the essential point. Also note that this study was done on a vehicle in 1989, so an analogous study on a modern automobile may show improvement with the specific fuel consumption values.
Science aside I have built ONE of these units from scratch with no money going to the “scammers”,I have dual electronic litres/100km displays in my BMW ,I drive 120km per day on the same route everyday,I have had the unit in my car for a week .My long term average has now dropped .6l/100km and my resettable trip average(over120km, average speed 60kmh) has dropped from 12.5-8l/100km to 10.5-11.0 l/100kms.This is also backed up by my distance to empty display which indicates a higher range per full tank of fuel and maintains a more steady rate of drop during idling and stoppages.
Joew whatever your paperwork says I agree there is no “free”energy but this system certainly makes my car run more efficiently.
As for gains in science well apparently we can now bend light and make particles invisible .
who would of thought paint could change color depending on how you look at it. “aerogel” no it must be a lie nothing could insulate 8 times more efficiently than what we have now!
open your mind!
@dave re vacuum and injection of gas
If vacuum drops in a “gas” engine at hard acceleration explain how vacuum advance systems have worked for so long ,a vacuum pulls a plate around the distributer under spring tension,if the vacuum decreased how would it advance the distributor further?
also most vacuum inlets work partially off a venturri effect ie the more hi volume air you pass over the port the greater vacuum you will create.IF you all look at the websites for example water4gas you will see that they openly display testimonials that do not support 50% savings.
in fact they are so different it only lends credibility to the argument, for example if 4 people witness a car accident they will all give a completely different account.If the stories are the same generally they have collaborated.
As for “overselling the benefits”what seller doesnt oversell his product?Bought a Big mac recently? tell me the one you bought was exactly like the one on the display board or TV advert.
You guys haven’t even mentioned expansion rates of cold air versus warm ie (cold air injection) ,current draw versus buffering effect of a battery ie when your battery is fully charged the current draw decreases . I`ve driven a car over 100km distance without an alternator.not using any accesories!! how? car batteries have huge reserves!
variable timing,ever think about that one.
most current SAABs will adjust the timing and mixture the get the best out of whatever FUEL you put in it ,Hydrogen would classify as a fuel I believe.
current draw as a percentage of alternator output, alternators charge between 13 and 15volts etc etc etc. if your not getting Carnots 25% efficiency ,there is always room for improvement!
Joew its 25% by the way not 20% as you stated so we all like to quote favourable figures when the time suits us.
I have seen the proof with electronicised digitized BMW hardware.
I look forward to saving approximately $500 in fuel bills this year and five less times idling my car at a service station waiting to pull up next to a bowser.
robt,
You are talking about old ignition systems – they had a vacuum advance and a centrifugal advance. The higher your rpms, the more centrifugal force acted upon a spring loaded cam system that advanced the timing.
@robt:
“Joew its 25% by the way not 20% as you stated so we all like to quote favourable figures when the time suits us.”
Sure, there are some more efficient engines that achieve better results at specific load conditions (for example, the 1NZ-FXE 1.5 litre engine of the Toyoto Prius manages 34% when producing 13.5 hp), but they’re not typical.
The Wikipedia article on the internal combustion engine quotes these two source for the ~20% efficiency of spark ignition engines:
Quote:
“most vehicles on the highways now have engines which have around 21% overall efficiency.”
http://mb-soft.com/public2/engine.html
“(typical US driving condition) 20%”
http://courses.washington.edu/me341/oct22v2.htm
there is already a water powered car here in our country… ever heard of it?
try searching the name
DANIEL DINGLE
he is the one who invented it… but none so far invested for it… here are the sites where you can see the water powered car
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UVhXrvCCILw
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=n-hjxFaLXAk
veejay,
He says one liter of water (1 kg) will run the vehicle for an hour. Here’s some scientific logic to prove how ridiculous this claim is.
The chemical equation to split water is given by
2(H2O) (l) –> 2(H2) (g) + (O2) (g) dH = 486 kJ
Now he said that the products used in the engine for combustion are hydrogen and oxygen, so the this chemical reaction can only be the reverse of the one already mentioned. Since 2 moles H2O equals 36 grams of H2O, only 27.8*dH (13.5 MJ) of energy (27.8 = 1 kg / 36 g) can be released during combustion. So over the course of one second, 13.5 MJ / 3600 s = 3.75 kJ (about 5 hp) of energy is available for operating the car. This power output is so small, and note that we didn’t even discuss efficiency losses and the initial energy needed to break the water molecule via electric current from the battery so the power output is exceedingly smaller.
The important conclusion to take home: This guy is full of BS.
Veejay,
Sorry, I should have been a little more clearer. If we do consider the efficiency losses and the energy needed to split water (the same amount of energy that is released during combustion), then the actual power output is below zero, which means he is powering his vehicle by some hidden and unknown means.
Never mind hydrogen cars, gutless, ugly hybrids and all the rest. The trick is diesels, folks. I’ve got an ’81 rabbit pickup that gets about 40 mpg in town and up to 60 on the highway. On top of that, i’ve loaded it with over a thousand pounds of equipment and have had no problems. If VW had half a brain, they would bring these wonderful little trucks back. For those times when the little truck doesn’t work, i use an ’87 MB 300TD wagon…for something that goes 0-60 in 7 seconds and hauls seven adults no problem, i am amazed that it gets mid 20’s in town. New cars suck. They’re ugly, overweight and vastly overpriced. hybrids aren’t the great environmental saver everyone proclaims them to be, and i’ll tell you why: What the hell are you supposed to do with the toxic batteries in the things? I say reject disposable cars. Just say no to constant consumption. Buy used, learn to fix what you own and if you can manage it, make your own bio-diesel.
Hello Bryant,
your comment about hybrid batteries suggest you’re assuming they’re using toxic heavy metals. None of the hybrids currently made by Toyota or Honda do.
Their traction batteries are NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride), not NiCd or lead acid that you may be thinking of. Yes, NiMH batteries contain nickel (as does any stainless steel exhaust in any ordinary car with emission control) but
a) that’s not a toxic heavy metal and
b) it can (and will) be recycled as it’s economical to do so.
I agree that diesels have great potential. Unfortunately low sulphur diesel, which would have been required for lowering particulate emissions (soot) in diesels, was not available in the US for a long time. Particulate emissions were considered diesel’s Achilles heel. Modern direct injection diesels with particulate filters running on low sulphur diesel are virtually as clean as gasoline engines.
I see no reason to juxtapose diesels and hybrids. Both technologies have merit, even in combination: Several manufacturers are working on diesel hybrids. Given the costs of both systems they may only become economical once fuel prices reach a certain level, but they will come. Several hybrid trucks and buses already use diesel hybrid systems (as did diesel-electric submarines for the better part of a century).
Assuming that these devices do work (After robt’s work, and buffordboy23’s words, I am inclined to think in a different direction)
Getting additional energy from the HHO gas is completely ruled out, as the energy for splitting HHO from Water needs to be supplied ultimately from the energy from gasoline – and in the whole process of conversions we would only be wasting energy. It is just so basic fundamentals.
The one point that interested me was, hydrogen flame velocity, and, its easily mixing ability. Is it possible that the presence of hydrogen, ignites the entire fuel air mixture fast enough, that the energy produced in combustion is sent down the piston, as against a slower combustion without the presence of hydrogen (my assumption, correct me if I am wrong), wherein a portion of the energy of combustion is sent down the outlet port to the exhaust? Or that little faster combustion, sends more energy down the piston nearer the TDC, than lower down, where there is expansion? Is this energy responsible for the higher fuel efficiency? After all, at 2000 rpm, 1 degree represents 83 uSec. I know that the combustion time is variable and depends on various factors, including temperature, fuel air mixture composition, etc., but have no knowledge of the energy release with respect to time from the word GO (let us say, the spark in SI engines). Joe, with your experience, and, data in your fingertips, is it possible this way?
Hello Copparam P Ashok,
if fuel burns sooner after TDC so that more pressure builds up sooner, before the piston has moved much downwards already, that would mean that more mechanical energy could be retrieved from the same amount of heat. Work is force multiplied by distance. Therefore an increase in usable energy output from a faster burn is at least plausible.
On the negative side, hydrogen has a higher tendency than gasoline to self-ignite, which is a performance killer, as it can lead to increased “knocking” in SI engines unless countered by reduced compression and/or retarted ignition.
BMW has built a dual hydrogen/gasoline version of its 760iL luxury sedan. It started with a big 6 litre engine precisely because it knew it would have to detune the engine to make it work with hydrogen. Maximum power dropped from 438 to 260 hp, which is the main reason why its quoted 0-100 km/h acceleration time is a moderate 9.5 s, not much quicker than the 10.9 s of a current model Toyota Prius that uses an engine one quarter its size (1.5 L) to move around 5 persons in comfort.
Joe,
I don’t know who you are, but I’m glad I found your blog. A friend just, alas, had one of those magical water engines installed in his car, and I’ve been searching for a long time for an article that could explain to him in simple language – he’s Korean – why it’s not going to work. Worse, he’s in danger of being scammed into becoming a vendor of the things; he’d be selling them actually believing that they work, through the power of cognitive dissonance.
I had to wade through an awful lot of web pages of people wanting to sell me a conversion kit or plans to make one before I got to your page. It seems there is much more incentive to put stuff on the web that is going to make you some money than to just put information out to enlighten humanity. So, thanks.
As for the true believers, a correspondent sent me a valuable piece of folk wisdom that I’d never heard before, though it may be familiar to others. She said to argue with such folks is like trying to teach a pig to sing. It wastes my time and annoys the pig.
I tend to be a skeptic on this kind of stuff and by no means a scientist, but it seems to me like all of you are missing a single piece of the puzzle…….. the car battery. Everything posted here assumes that the electrolysis occurs directly from the alternator, when in reality this “system” is hooked up to the battery. Yes it still takes gas to run the alternator to charge said battery, but the battery stores x amount of energy before needed to be charged by the alternator……. so my question is how often does a typical car battery ger charged by the alternator and given that information, assuming normal drain on a battery plus the hydrolysis system, could it be possible for the system to create more hydrogen than the “best case” 1:1 ratio?
this is a rough example of what i am wondering
it takes 1mj of gas to create the energy to make 1mj of hydrogen(assuming a direct conversion engine>alternator>system)
now add the battery which holds say 100mj(again rough figure for my understanding)
and say the typical car used 90mj of the battery every hour. that leaves us with 10mj of reserve in the battery that the “system” can use to produce hydrogen before the alternator kicks on to charge it. therefore in that situation you have 10mj of hydrogen produced with no extra effort from the motor/alternator. Does that make any sense to you or am i completely off base here?
nick,
the electrical system in a car is actually much smarter than you assume.
The way it works is that the voltage regulators in the alternator always try to maintain a constant voltage in the car’s electrical system (at about 14 V), which is sufficient to keep the battery fully charged.
At the same time the output current varies according to demand. As demand goes up, voltage would drop, but then the regulators step up output power until the desired voltage is maintained. Likewise, if demand drops, voltage would start to increase but then the output is regulated down again in the alternator and a balance is reestablished.
The alternator produces power by spinning an electromagnet inside three set of coils, which inducts an AC current which gets turned into DC by diodes. By regulating the amount of input current that flows through the electromagnet it can regulate the voltage and DC current that come out of the alternator.
As a lead-acid (PbA) battery gets charged, its electrode voltage gradually increases. As it gets full that voltage approaches the steady voltage provided by the alternator and the recharge current flowing into the battery from the alternator becomes minimal.
Effectively the battery provides power only for starting (or while the engine is stopped with the ignition still on), while the generator provides power at all other times, including for replenishing the battery charge on the first part of the trip after starting the engine.
On many cars the battery could actually be disconnected once the engine is running and it wouldn’t make a difference.
The important part is that the alternator does not force a fixed current through the battery at all times, nor does it have a fixed output current. Current from the alternator and into the battery varies based on load and the charge state of the battery. If the battery is already fully charged and no other consumers are drawing power (such as headlights, radio, fan) then the alternator feeds little current and provides little resistance against the belt that drives it from the engine crankshaft. Once you start drawing more power (for example, by making hydrogen in a jam jar) the load on the engine also increases.
The bottom line is, there is no “wasted electricty” available for making hydrogen without burning extra gasoline. This way, to make as much hydrogen as would have the energy contents of one gram of gasoline you always have to burn about ten grams of gasoline. There is no free lunch.
Joew,
Based on my previous calculations, the realistic maximum hydrogen production from a single electrolytic cell is about 15 grams per hour, or about 0.3% relative mass fraction to gasoline. This is not a lot of hydrogen in respect to the quantities used and studied in scientific studies. Still, I think that it is likely to have an effect but how can one definitively say that the added energy is greater or smaller than efficiency losses without a very strict controlled-experiment?
In my own experiences with the device and in talking with other individuals, I think some other mechanism may be at work here as well.
I have used up 3/4 of the water in a 1 liter mason jar in about an hour with one of my cell designs. This same design is also responsible for my best mileage per gallon measurement by far as well; 56 mpg for a vehicle that averages about 34 mpg normally. A lot of the water boiled away rather than being converted into hydrogen and oxygen, and I think this may have an impact on the results because of the following logic.
One liter of water weighs about 1 kg, so 3/4 liter = 750 grams of water vapor fed into the air intake every hour; this corresponds to 0.21 grams/second. From a previous post, I said that 1.5 grams of gasoline is used per second, so the relative mass fraction of water vapor to gasoline is %14, significantly more than the hydrogen ratio. I would think that this would affect the lambda sensor’s oxygen measurement significantly, and the car would modify its air intake in accordance by adding as much as 3 extra grams of air for combustion. Being there are significantly more gases present during combustion, less heat is absorbed by the cylinder walls and more heat absorbed by the gases for expansion, which leads to an increase in the mechanical efficiency of the engine. This makes sense to me. Using a setup like this, however, may not be good for an engine in the long-term because of the large amount of extra gases.
Water vapor at room temperature is some 1600 times lighter than water, so 0.21 g = 0.21 ml of water evaporating per second would generate about 1/3 of a litre of vapour per second.
If you think about a 2 litre engine doing 2000 rpm, the vapor may be in the order of 1 % by volume of the engine intake. Since air is made up roughly of 4 parts nitrogen to one part oxygen, the one percent of water would displace 0.8% nitrogen and 0.2% oxygen.
I would not have thought that this small dilution would have much impact on the readings of the oxygen sensor.
Why would the oxygen sensor setting affect the air intake, which is controlled via the throttle position? The engine management would modify only the fuel injection quantity. If it sees a relative 1% drop in oxygen (like altitude increase of about 200 metres or 700 ft), it should also reduce the injected fuel quantity by one percent to stay at lamda 1. This will cause a slight loss of power, which you (the driver) would have to compensate by opening the throttle slightly wider to increase air flow again.
The bottom line will be the same, except for the energy spent for boiling water and pushing it through your engine and exhaust system (without contributing any mechanical power).
It fail to see how this would get you from 34 mpg to 56 mpg, which is a rather drastic change.
Joew,
You are right. My thinking in regard to post 91 was flawed. For some reason I thought that there were O2 sensors located before the cylinders, rather than in the exhaust, and thus would affect the throttle position electronically along with the driver input.
Joew,
I was thinking about the water vapor mechanism again. The high temperature of the water-vapor may affect the functioning of the hot-wire mass-airflow sensor in the engine’s air take system. As a result, the sensor would send info to the ECU that the air volume is less than normal conditions at some throttle position and ambient temperature. The ECU uses this data as well as the lambda sensor in controlling fuel injection. With this idea, the ECU would inject “less” fuel since there appears to be “less” air volume; therefore, the air/fuel mixture is actually lean, improving mechanical efficiency. The lambda sensor would likely detect excess oxygen and send this data to the ECU to add “more” fuel. So, in this scenario the mass-air flow and lambda sensors are at odds, causing the car to alternate rapidly between running lean and at stoichiometric. Do you think that this is a possibility?
buffordboy23,
since hot-wire mass airflow sensors typically also incorporate a temperature sensor, it should not that easily get confused.
Warmer air means that less heat is carried away from the hot wire, but the temperature sensor will realize that this is because air is warmer and not because the air is less sense (e.g. due to high altitude).
I don’t think that line of thought really explains how it might work.
Joew,
This setup will vary from car to car. I have 92-96 Toyota Camry Haynes repair manual that shows that the Intake Air Temperature sensor (IATs) is located within the air cleaner box, and the Mass Air-Flow sensor (MAFs) is located at the end of the air intake duct near the air intake chamber for six-cylinder models; four-cylinder models have a MAPs (pressure) rather than a MAFs.
With the direction of airflow into the engine and the exact placement of the gas outflow from the electrolytic device, it is easily possible to bypass the IATs–the kits sold on the internet usually have a similar installation setup although they don’t refer to this complimentary mechanism that I now suggest. Therefore, the MAFs could contradict the IATs and O2 sensor according to the ECU.
I still don’t know what the magnitude of this effect would be in regard to the expected voltage variation in the MAFs, but it is likely to be small. I wonder how car manufacturers program the ECU. I would imagine that voltage readings from the sensors are used in conjunction with some type of mathematical formula that determines the pulse width for fuel injection.
I am not a car guru, but perhaps some other reader can provide a deeper insight into the expected effects, if any, of this additional mechanism.
On another note, the Gibbs free energy equation, dG = dH – T*dS, does show that as the temperature of the water increases, the work needed to produce the same quantity of hydrogen diminishes, yet at high enough temperatures, steam in appreciable amounts is produced in conjunction.
Thanks for playing. I installed a system on a 1999 GMC Suburban with a 7.4 liter V-8. My Hiway miles increased from 16 to 24. How do you explain that if the system doesn’t work?
thank you Jay Mahn ,it seems the guys using a bought system are getting much better mileage increases than my home made one but nevertheless from the time of my last posting till now I am still getting great figures. the only noticeable difference from trip to trip is when the temperature is very low outside .then I believe the gas is condensing in the delivery line . the same trip in reverse with the same traffic conditions but at warmer temperature delivers a much better visible outcome on the l/100km display.
now if mileage was only better due to denser cold air my mileage should remain close to or if not, be better in the morning when the air is cooler.
In short I am in no way a pig trying to learn how to sing,I am a mechanical engineer (not cars) and have an electrical licence.
I have backed up this “scam theory” by trials,calculating actual fuel used and by maintaining exactly the same driving habits as before installing the unit.
those who believe cars are delivered from factories at optimum efficiency and output, should band together and shutdown all the companies who”re-chip” vehicles for better performance and/or economy.They must be “scammers” as well.
whatever you do or don’t believe, however it works,it works.
@Jay Mahn:
“How do you explain that if the system doesn’t work?”
It is easy, the placebo effect. Numerous changes in a driver’s behavior can explain such results. This is why logical scientific explanations are needed, but unfortunately a complete description, at least to my knowledge, is lacking. I do believe you since I’ve obtained similar results.
@robt:
“the only noticeable difference from trip to trip is when the temperature is very low outside”
Colder air is denser. This means greater frictional resistance for the car to move through the air, to pump or rotate lubricated car components, such as pistons and gears, and to rotate the tires against the pavement. Also, the engine loses more heat to the environment.
@Joew:
I agree with your section “Cooler running engine?” of your blog. Recently, I was looking at other forums and saw that many people reported a cooler running engine with the device attached. This prompted me to look more closely at my engine temperature, and sure enough, it runs cooler than without the device. This is a sign to me that the engine is running lean. A description of how a lean engine improves engine efficiency is in the last paragraph of post #91 of this forum.
So, this leads to the question of how the device causes the car to run lean. My general hypothesis is that the sensor data is affected in some manner, which causes the ECU to shorten the pulse-width for fuel injection. Of course, many people modify there cars to make them lean, but I have seen very many positive reports for people who do not make such adjustments. If this hypothesis is correct, then this would explain why some people, who only use the device, obtain negative or no results while others obtain positive results: the sensor setup and ECU algorithm is likely vary widely across manufacturers and car makes. If time permits, I may explore this in the coming months by compiling user feedback.
You can buy the system for 50 dolls. If you’re so keen in seeing if it really works or not why don’t you try it??? 50 dolls is the price of going to diner, movie and a couple of drinks in a hip bar.
I don’t drive but I would sure try this stuff just for a laugh!
thanks