With rising gas costs...

[LA_phantom_240]

I would like to know if anyone int he Zilvia community has experimented with Hydrogen generators as a way to increase fuel mileage on their 240s? This is a really interesting subject to me, as they appear to be easy to build and maintain. Using water and baking soda, along with an electrode to produce hydrogen and oxygen seems pretty neat to me, if it does indeed increase fuel mileage and reduce emissions.

Discuss.

[ZX88]

sounds interesting probably not that pratical yet?

[tt99ol]

they did that on mythbusters, didnt make enough hydrogen to help,
but they did rent a canister of hydrogen and ran the car entirely off that
it was neat

[Matej]

For my 240 I want a biodiesel motor with jet turbines.

http://www.neatorama.com/2007/10/21/an-environmentally-friendly-hummer/
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/120/motorhead-messiah.html

[Kn1ves]

sounds interesting probably not that piratical yet?

Damn those pirates.

[ZX88]

Damn those pirates.

lol my bad :D

[waynehead05]

i read an article about increasing your mgp by like 100% because of water. wtf is up with that?

[jworks]

I heard BMW made the 7 series into a hydrogen car. Also, apparently there is a hydrogen kit online that goes on the 3 series that increase mileage up to 30%, I say its a garbage :ughug:

[98koukile]

I saw an Opel on tv last night with a turbo diesel and the goddamn thing gets 113mpg while going 140mph!

[LA_phantom_240]

Well, I'm doing some research on which electrolytes work best, without producing such hazardous substances as chlorine gas (when you use salt as your electolyte), and then I will begin testing different arrangements of electrode plates. I hope to be the first HHO/Gasoline s14 hybrid on Zilvia!

[qt_240]

seriously.. thats awesome.. hats off to you.. hope it all works out.. post pix and a write up if you can

[kognition]

We just got a new hybrid in my household, the Wife uses it but i use it to get groceries and do errands.

I would like to know if anyone int he Zilvia community has experimented with Hydrogen generators as a way to increase fuel mileage on their 240s? This is a really interesting subject to me, as they appear to be easy to build and maintain. Using water and baking soda, along with an electrode to produce hydrogen and oxygen seems pretty neat to me, if it does indeed increase fuel mileage and reduce emissions.

Discuss.

[drift_student]

It totally works. I manage an Advance Auto parts and a guy was coming in and buying ALL of our vacuum hoses and fittings every week. So finally, I asked him what he was building and he tells me about the hydrogen generators. We go outside and he has a late model Toyota 4-Runner with this hydrogen generator on it the injects hydrogen into the throttle body.

He had an adjustable resistor controlling the amount of hydrogen that was being injected in. I took a look at the exhaust when the truck was supposedly running off of 60% hydrogen, and sure enough there was a large amount of water coming out of the exhaust. He even has a "stack" style cluster that displays the MPG, RPM, AF ratio, and miles per tank. When I saw it, there was a little over 300 miles to the tank he was on.

I will definitely take pictures the next time he comes in.

As far as the electrolyte solution he was using, all he could tell me is that he was "experimenting". He did mention baking soda though.

[LA_phantom_240]

Hmm... Thanks for the info! Tell him that I'm looking into it myself (not for profit, of course), and would like to know anything that he wants to share.

[drift_student]

He is totally open about hydrogen power because he cares about the environment. He's not trying to make money off of them either. He looked at my rear bumper (which is blackened from running stupid rich) and said he was disappointed.

He told me about this site that got him into hydrogen power called waterforfuel.com. He told me I should use my Mechanical Engineering (when I finish) degree to help develop vehicles that run off of alternative fuels.

[LA_phantom_240]

He is totally open about hydrogen power because he cares about the environment. He's not trying to make money off of them either. He looked at my rear bumper (which is blackened from running stupid rich) and said he was disappointed.

He told me about this site that got him into hydrogen power called waterforfuel.com. He told me I should use my Mechanical Engineering (when I finish) degree to help develop vehicles that run off of alternative fuels.

I've been to that site myself... pretty good site imho.

[mothon]

sounds pretty cool. does it was have any affect on my performance?

[ranger240]

screw hydrogen.. we should all just drive cars like this http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/12/27/aerocivics-mods-combine-great-aerodynamic-and-a-um-stunning-l/

that brahs got some sick aero

[Antihero983]

We just got a new hybrid in my household, the Wife uses it but i use it to get groceries and do errands.

LOL @ hybrids. i worked at toyota, the prius's are a joke. my 91 corolla get just as good if not better gas mileage from its 1.6L.

no lie, we had a woman get her prius towed in. we told her it wouldnt run because it was out of gas, and she couldnt understand that it needed gas lol

[SiI40sx]

LOL @ hybrids. i worked at toyota, the prius's are a joke. my 91 corolla get just as good if not better gas mileage from its 1.6L.

no lie, we had a woman get her prius towed in. we told her it wouldnt run because it was out of gas, and she couldnt understand that it needed gas lol

LOL!!! Thats a good one, wouldnt you think the tow guy was pretty stupid too???

Anyway, higher gas prices??? Get a higher paying job :bigok:

[Bobafreak]

^^ why can i picture that plus the blank expression on her face lol.

[Bobafreak]

LOL!!! Thats a good one, wouldnt you think the tow guy was pretty stupid too???

Anyway, higher gas prices??? Get a higher paying job :bigok:
or ride a bike. I would love to ride a bike but its cold somtimes and i hate when people honk at you to scare the shit out of you, till you almost fall off or yell inappropriate things at you as your on the road.

[LA_phantom_240]

sounds pretty cool. does it was have any affect on my performance?
I have yet to have any first hand experience, but from what I've read, your performance goes up a bit. Lemme see if I can dig up that one guy's dyno sheet.


EDIT: Found the emissions test sheets.
http://www.fuelfromh2o.com/emissions.html

[posdrift240]

If your looking into an Alternative thats easy and cheap go propane!

Im converting my 240 within the month.

Propane is = to 100-110 octain of Gas and for every 10 gallons of propane it = 26 gallons of gas!

With propane it doesnt have the carbon build up as a gas engine does and also doesnt have gases mixing with your oil, You only have to change your motor oil once every year. Spark plugs last 10x longer and you get no carbon build up on your cylinders,valves, ETC.

If you convert it your self it cost less than 1,000 and from what I have read SIMPLE hookup, This also gets rid of expensive injectors, MAFS, Tunes maps for ECU, Bigger Throttle bodies, ETC GONE!!!!

If you wanna save money, This is they way to go!

[HKSdrift3r]

If your looking into an Alternative thats easy and cheap go propane!

Im converting my 240 within the month.

Propane is = to 100-110 octain of Gas and for every 10 gallons of propane it = 26 gallons of gas!

With propane it doesnt have the carbon build up as a gas engine does and also doesnt have gases mixing with your oil, You only have to change your motor oil once every year. Spark plugs last 10x longer and you get no carbon build up on your cylinders,valves, ETC.

If you convert it your self it cost less than 1,000 and from what I have read SIMPLE hookup, This also gets rid of expensive injectors, MAFS, Tunes maps for ECU, Bigger Throttle bodies, ETC GONE!!!!

If you wanna save money, This is they way to go!

post the info on that please!! or be banned haha!

thanks,
George

[LA_phantom_240]

If your looking into an Alternative thats easy and cheap go propane!

Im converting my 240 within the month.

Propane is = to 100-110 octain of Gas and for every 10 gallons of propane it = 26 gallons of gas!

With propane it doesnt have the carbon build up as a gas engine does and also doesnt have gases mixing with your oil, You only have to change your motor oil once every year. Spark plugs last 10x longer and you get no carbon build up on your cylinders,valves, ETC.

If you convert it your self it cost less than 1,000 and from what I have read SIMPLE hookup, This also gets rid of expensive injectors, MAFS, Tunes maps for ECU, Bigger Throttle bodies, ETC GONE!!!!

If you wanna save money, This is they way to go!

Any links to some solid info? Oh and the HHO generator thing is more of a pride thing to me than anything. Nothing would mak em happier than to be able to hand build something that could potentially save me a shit ton of money.

[posdrift240]

Here is a few links I searched:
http://www.gotpropane.com/p3.html
http://www.propane-generators.com/benefits.htm

[Antihero983]

^^ why can i picture that plus the blank expression on her face lol.

because 85% of prius owners are former shortbus residents. :smash: :duh:

and it took us a half hour to convince her btw.

[LA_phantom_240]

No love for the Fuel Injected vehicles there....

[LA_phantom_240]

I built my first, small, HHO generator using a car battery, stainless steel screws, a plastic cup, water, baking soda, and a small length of wire. It was encouraging to say the least.

[LA_phantom_240]

UPDATE: Got a video of my first HHO experiment. It produced a LOT more HHO than I had initially expected. I'm starting to like this.
http://s5.photobucket.com/albums/y152/phantom240/?action=view&current=Video0010.flv

[3-240's-N-aMule]

I heard BMW made the 7 series into a hydrogen car. Also, apparently there is a hydrogen kit online that goes on the 3 series that increase mileage up to 30%, I say its a garbage :ughug:
They tested a few of them for a little while. Jay Leno was testing one for like a year i think.

[ak_slick]

This might come across as a little negative but I think you all should know all the numbers about what you are trying to do and why it hasn't been done in a major commercial production yet(to my knowledge).

I don't mean to destroy your dream of hydrogen fueling by all means pursue it. Science has shown time and again that despite all the constants there are some little oddities that defy the larger norms of chemistry. But if your goal is to just get better gas mileage at a minimal cost without much experimentation this might not be the best option and here is why.

Now the Info

First off, the reason for hydrogen fueling typically tend to be better gas mileage, less harmful emissions, save the environment, stop global warming by reducing CO2 etc... Pretty much everyone agrees this is Good Stuff.

The only good and real way to get better gas mileage by switching fuels, is to switch to one with a higher number of Btu's(measure of energy) per unit fuel (pound, gallon, liter...) it doesn't matter what the unit is just the relative difference. This is why people think/thought hydrogen would be a dream fuel source. You can see propane looks pretty similar to gas by the weight comparison.

Hydrogen: 61,000 Btus per lb
Gasoline: 20,500 Btus per lb
Propane: 21,548 Btus per lb


Of course this looks incredibly promising. With 3 times the energy of gas by weight, hydrogen seems like an excellent candidate. But there are two major problems: Hydrogen, doesn't naturally occur in the world, and it comes in gas for where a pound of Hydrogen gas occupies approximately 190 cubic feet of space @ atmospheric pressure. Propane has a similar issues but not to the extent of hydrogen, because it is a lot easier to compress propane into a liquid. Liquid hydrogen is well, pretty hard to obtain(I won't say impossible).

Here is the main problem... around atmospheric pressure(the standard air pressure you breathe) This is a comparison of how you would most likely be getting your fuels. Your hydrogen you are generating from a reaction and you are most likely not even generating pure hydrogen. Propane well, you generally buy it pressurized in a liquid/gaseous mix, for the sake of argument we will assume it is all liquid to give it better numbers.

Some Energy per Gallon Values (from web, sources at bottom)

1 Gallon Gasoline(liquid): 126,000 Btus
1 Gallon Propane(liquid): 91,502 Btus
1 Gallon Ethanol(liquid): 76000 Btus
1 Gallon Hydrogen(gas): 40 Btus
Propane would make for a pretty good substitute considering it's much closer energy content but it still only contains about 73% of the energy of gasoline per gallon. That also assumes you can manage to inject 100% liquid propane into your cylinders as propane will start to boil and turn into a gas as soon as it is released from it pressurized liquid state, which poses another hurdle but that one can be overcome with some ingenuity.

You can estimate how much hydrogen you would need to be able to generate and inject into your system for a gas mileage increase. Basically you need a lot and you would need it to be dense(pressurized) to make a very significant difference in the gas mileage of your car. You can of course get pressurized tanks of it but the tanks don't hold enough and they are so heavy that the weight cancels out any benefit the hydrogen itself adds to your gas mileage according to:

Force = Mass * Acceleration
Assuming you want to keep the same acceleration

Your mass increases with the weight of a heavy tank. (plus your car essentially turns into a bomb, adds to the excitement.)

The force required to keep the same rate of acceleration increases which relates to the energy needed to accelerate your car: Energy Consumption or the Btu's required

Because the car gets heavier it takes more energy to drive it, this is why there are no hydrogen powered cars being produced by big companies.

Now that isn't all...

Other factors that come into play are flame speed. You want a quick clean burning mixture otherwise you get problems. You want your fuel to be able to burn up during that cycle of the engine so you don't waste the energy by just shooting flames down your tail pipe.

Some more stats:
Flame Front Speed
(at standard pressure<from different sources thus these are not perfect or necessarily correct>)

Ideal Hydrogen-air mixture: 8 feet/second
Propane-Air Mixture: 10.8 feet/second
Gasoline-air mixture: 70-170 feet/second

Of course things act differently when pressurized in a cylinder(they tend to burn even faster) but as you can see the data shown suggest that high rpm operation is just not very feasible with those fuels compared to gasoline.

Gasoline is pretty much the most useful fuel for it's obtain-ability, Energy Density, and ease of application.

For best gas mileage increases, I would recommend tuning your car better with a megasquirt or such, reducing rotating mass/inertia, overall mass, lowering your coefficient of drag and trying to avoid stop and go driving to lessen energy lost to braking friction.

More stuff to consider for ideal alternative fuel:

The stoichiometric ratios for these fuels to find out how many Btu's per cycle your engine can actually process of each fuel.

The octane differences as higher octane will let your run higher compression of boost safer thus increasing power output and/or efficiency.

Cost per Btu so you can find your actual cost per mile, rather than just mile per gallon. Because getting 100 mpg from a super fuel is nothing to brag about if it costs a million bucks per gallon.

It is 4AM so I can't come up with any more at the moment. I apologize in advance if this doesn't make sense I will try and stop by this post later to clean up nonsense phrases that happen when you type late at night. Hope this helps guide your endeavors, inspires you and doesn't crush any of your dreams.

References:
Yes I know they aren't all scientific... I write enough technical papers that I feel lazy and want to slack off on finding perfectly verifiable sources.

http://www.mb-soft.com/public2/hydrogen.html
http://www.twi.co.uk/j32k/protected/band_3/jk49.html
http://forum.onlineconversion.com/showthread.php?t=233

[LA_phantom_240]

Eh, I'm still gonna mess around with it. I've never been one to just give up on an idea that really interests me.

[drifter808]

yeah this really works. My girlfriends dad does it to his cars. Works great and is super easy to install. Im waiting to get my kit but i gotta go back to work first. He installed one on his mercedes 300d and gets about 60+mpg and three hydrogen tank thingy's on his dodge diesel dually and has yet to tested it though.

[ak_slick]

But the question is is he getting 60mpg gas... how many is he getting per hydrogen... he is adding hydrogen to the mixture I am assuming and then just calculating his gas mileage when he isn't getting all his mileage from gas... and how much does his hydrogen cost o add to get that boost in gas mileage?. Hydrogen isn't the cheapest thing in the world.

[sdaigle240]

I saw an Opel on tv last night with a turbo diesel and the goddamn thing gets 113mpg while going 140mph!

i saw that sh/t fukin crazy....i think it was actuall at 155 or something and it was non stop till empty it was like a 2 litre to....and it ripped!!!!!extreamily fast accel and everything

[drifter808]

no there's a kit he found on the internet. Its a bubbler with electrodes in it so it produces all of its own hydrogen. Its totally cost free for him aside from adding some distilled water every once in awhile. i dont know the exact details but i wouldn't mind getting 50+ or more mpg in my car. Dont really care about the technical aspect but if i dont have to go to the pump as often im happy, And at $3.87 a gallon anything helps.

[used240sxparts]

bah $9.00 fills the motorcycle with 93... granted i only get like 130 miles till empty

[sliksta1]

yeah this really works. My girlfriends dad does it to his cars. Works great and is super easy to install. Im waiting to get my kit but i gotta go back to work first. He installed one on his mercedes 300d and gets about 60+mpg and three hydrogen tank thingy's on his dodge diesel dually and has yet to tested it though.

where you getting your kit from? i hope to convert my car soon also...
shit when this becomes really popular (more than now)i bet gas prices will go down!

[drifter808]

i dont know the exact website but i can ask tonight. I forget how much he paid but wasnt that much.

[LA_phantom_240]

www.fuelfromh2o.com is a good site. That guy has been around for a while. I'm been keeping up with his progress for about a year now. Come a long way indeed.

[drifter808]

www.hydrogengarage.com is the site with the kit im planning on using.