I have been wanting to start up a thread devoted to discussing and informing about the use of HHO fuel production cells in our Maximas. These are very important considering the variety of enhancements they contribute to the performance of your vehicle with no drawbacks, if it is installed correctly. I have used one on my Max for quite some time, but I was negligent to the chemical reactions taking place and ruined my cell with rust. Though my actions were reconcilable, the state of my Max was not, and it has taken me almost 2 years to be at the point where I can call the insurance company back to let them know I am ready for them to send me another bill. The car wasn't hurt at all by the cell and its problems, I was the source of the problem with the car.

Considering my situation, it was easy to see how powerful and effective this technology is.

I was using a wet cell, which is 75-100% less efficient than a dry cell, on my Max. At that time, the car was driving with a halfway decent alignment, there was a timing issue, and my transmission was starting to slip. That being said, I calculated my mpg at 18 mpg at best on the highway. After installing the fuell cell, I instantly felt more power, had more response, and calculated the mpg to be at 24 highway. Considering the car was rated to have 24 mpg high way, stock, on flat ground with no wind, brand new, and my car experience a 33% increase, just out of the box? That was astounding to me.

So, now, I stand a foot a manual 5spd swap to rid of my sliiping auto, and after which I will entertain the dry cell HHO project whereby I am going to make my own cell from free plans offline and will continue to post on here how I installed it, what to look for, how to tweak, etc.

I hope this raises interest and more importantly awareness of a viable and incredibly useful fuel additive that is good for our cars, and more importantly, the Earth.

 

What happened to your car? How did you put it out of commission for 2 years?

Also do you have pics of your old HHo Cell?

 

is this just one of those things that electrolyses water and uses the gas that comes off for fuel?

 

The car has been huggin the curb for that long mostly due to my errors. One thing lead to another, and I was negligent to the facts and not just what I thought was wrong. I did a series of timing belt replacements because I thought I did it wrong, but it seems that the transmission was to blame. I was unaware of the proper diagnostic procedures required to get to these conclusions and this forum helped me tremendously once I fixed what I thought was the original issue: timing. After three consecutive timing jobs, i tried one last time and really gave myself a hurdle; the valves were slapping pistons. At that point, I decided to rebuild the engine and heads, which was complete as of early November last year, 11 months after I parked it for good. before then, I had to use it, with a slipping tranny, and was under the impression it was bad timing, the whole time (8-9 months). So, engine rebuilt, I crank up, crawl out of my yard, and the same symptoms are there. This is when I found this forum. So, now I have a 5spd for it and will be putting that in next weekend, which will end the slipping tranny era for Max, who is now named,
"ReMax".

Here are some pics of the cell and the reservoir. The cell consisted basically of a long piece of threaded steel rod with washers spaced by nuts. This assembly was charged positive while the metal housing it all is inside was negative. I created a chemical environment that was not good for steel, especially when it is surrounded by water and heat most of the time. Use potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide as an electrolyte. DON'T USE BAKING SODA OR VINEGAR, ESPECIALLY TOGETHER, YOU WILL GET THIS:




It basically ate away the chromium layer which makes the stainless steel so resistant to rust and other chemical reactions.

You are correct. There are a few names for them out there, I like HHO fuel cell. The HHO gas is less of a fuel and more of a fuel additive whereby it helps your engine utilize more of the gasoline you are pumping in.

 

I had considered a HHo cell but im waiting on getting a Nistune first so i can program around the added oxygen boost from the electrolysis.

Did you run you set up threw inspection?

 

There is no vehicle inspection in Alabama. You should see some of the things people drive here. The Max was in Virginia before, but I have an inspection license there, I never tried though.........

You can install a EFIE unit which will allow you to alter the reading from the oxygen sensor so that your ECU will think everything is okay and won't respond with more gas through the injectors. They are cheap, and save gas even without a fuel cell unit in the mix. I didn't have one on my Max when running the tube o' rust shown above, but I had to get one for the 2001 Sable that filled the DD position while Max is taking a break.

You should try one out, it never hurts to have it ready to go when you get your new ECU, and I would be thoroughly impressed with that setup if you are able to crank out some serious mpg.

 

I personally fail to see how this process can improve mileage in any way: the car is already burning all the hydrocarbons it can, no other additive can make this process more efficient. Breaking down H20 takes energy, precisely the same amount you can get later by burning this mixture. Given the fact that this energy has to come first from the very same not so efficient engine the end result should be negative - such device would reduce your mileage.

BTW, 'fuel cell' name is already taken by other type of devices - galvanic cells using 'fuel' to produce electricity. The same nature as normal AA battery just different chemistry. I think the fact marketers of HHO fuel cells used this name for their products reveals their true intentions.

 

Indeed, it does seem that such a device would induce a negative result, but they do indeed work. I invite you to try it, or at least entertain yourself with the thousands of examples where this technology has proven it's volatility. I don't find it necessary to describe how this process breaks down step by step, resulting in an increase in mpg, but I will find the resources which I had to unearth to convince myself of the magnitude and usefulness of its application, if requested to do so

Please pardon me for my mislabeling of said technology. It is unfortunate that these simple devices are, in my opinion, stratified in a thick gray area between conventional auto manufacturing, and the "eco-friendly" designs we are witnessing the emergence of, in the past 5 years. The applicability of these extend to any engine which utilizes combustion, and no matter what, they will work if they are setup right and are maintained. I strapped the one pictured above to my Max with no understanding of how it works, what is required to get good results, and had a 30% increase in mpg. After actually applying some math and sense to what is going on, I was able to get a 2001 sable up to almost a 50% increase. The sky is the limit.

 

Uh, I'll take the word of a highly respected science magazine stating it's BS.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/auto...o/4310717.html

 

I see ...

 

That is a very interesting testimony, but I have trouble looking over the fact that I watched my gas needle stay in place for 120 miles. I thought it was broken.

Every car is different, and had he explained what exactly was installed, who installed it, and some actual statistical reports, perhaps I would be surprised. Though, I need to watch the NBC report to see what they included in case I am speaking too soon. I have seen other reputable sources try this technology and fail to install it correctly and apply the simple methods required to actually get good mileage. Many get worse mileage and bash the technology.

Until you have seen it work, I don't think you will believe my outrageous claims. I am gong to build a more efficient and productive cell soon enough, and will post my updates here to perhaps alleviate anyone's discontent with the subject.


I hope I can prove that this is applicable to our cars and it works. If you don't want believe that it is possible, or have a personal voucher with ideas and concepts beyond your typical spectrum of thought, then maybe it isn't worth your time to post anything here, respectfully.

This thread is to encourage these ideas and potential benefits, not depreciate a technology that is still unknown by many, and for some reason, disregarded by many who have an understanding of it. If you are willing to hear me, I am telling you: it works. Thanks

 

No. Every car utilizes the same fuel and runs off the same priniciple. Unles you are talking diesel or hydrogen etc...

 

Yea this is bull****. I wouldn't call popular mechanics a highly regarded science magazine haha but the author is right. Even if something was happening there just simply isn't enough hydrogen or oxygen produced by this to do ANYTHING. Especially overcome the costs of producing the electricity to work it.

People would be running these things in their home and burning the hydrogen for heat if this was really practical.

 

This is something I was thinking about for awhile.

I think to get n MPG increase you would have to....

a) make the car as efficiant as possible before installing the HHO

b) run the HHO from seperate battery that can be taken out and charged easily so no extra drain is put on the alternator

c) the HHO has to be a large size.

I was talking to a friend who is a chemical engineer awhile back about it. He was saying that it does work but you would need the above to see any difference. The way he explained it was that the hydrogen is not coming from 'nowhere' it is coming from the water and electrolyte, using it up like a solid fuel would.


The other thing that HHO is good for is power. If stored and suddenly introduced to the system, you would have a good nitro effect :-)

 

Good luck.

On the side note, getting yourself educated in basic physics would work much better. The science won't seem so 'concervative' or 'orthodox' after that and you would lose all the fun of pretending to be a researcher in the field but hey - everuthing has side effects.

 

Unfortunately, this won't work either - equal amount of all gases (including combastion mixture) occupy the same volume under the same pressure/temp so whatever you add to the mixture will take place of normal mixture. You'll save on gasoline at the expense of electric energy spent on breaking water by electrolysis. OTOH if you increase the pressure in the intake then ... - just get yourself a turbo and call it a day .

 

i have heard of someone using an HHO on their I6 Jeep and getting like 45mpg.... so it can be done. it all boils down to how efficient the system is vs how much energy you lose running it.

Kinda like how the Top Gear guys used a diesel generator to charge a battery and ONLY the battery to power the motion of the car, and they got pretty good MPG because they were simply able to run the generator at a constant RPM where it was most efficient rather than revving up and down like a car's engine does. The added efficienty evidently was enough to make up for the amount of energy lost by using an indirect energy source.

If you tune an engine to run at a VERY specific RPM you can extract alot more energy per unit of fuel than you can with an engine that has to be designed to make power over a broad RPM range. But as i said those engines usually end up being used for generators and such, not for vehicles.

 

That's almost like saying you've heard someone built "A perpetual motion machine of the first kind": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion. I know, Wikipedia is not an athority around here but that page actually makes sense . Especially the end of 'Recent examples' part ...

You're right about engine running in optimal mode to be efficient but I'm failing to see the connection to HHO cells here: engine is still used directly with all inefficiency which comes with it.

 

Wouldn't it stand to reason that replacing the atmospheric air(mostly inert nitrogen) with more combustible gasses like hydrogen and pure oxygen would yield more energy?

 

It would, I guess. You'd have to take into account amount of energy released by each reaction but at least it is worth considering. OTOH you have to take into account how much power output you want at the wheels. Let's say you want to get +20 hp. This would mean your fuel generator has to supply approx 3-4 times more mixture for combastion due to losses in the engine (it is 30% efficient at its best) plus something to compensate for replaced gasoline mixture. It would require 80 hp from battery which is approx 60kW or 5000 Amps at 12V. This is at least x50 level of current consumed by starter when cranking engine. One hell of the battery I'd say.

If you have such a battery you could put electric 'helper' motor there instead. Electric motor would convert battery energy into mechanical one much more efficient and all modern electronics is at your disposal to control that motor. You'd get much more power at the wheels: instead of supplying combastible mixture into intake you could simply build electric motor around crankshaft and make it to take up the extra load at peaks smoothing out life for your gasoline engine. I'm afraid this is old news though - some of the modern hybrid cars work this way already. Boring, eh?

Couple more things for tree- hugging researchers out there:
- hydrogen has the smallest molecula size and as such it can go through things normal gasses wouldn't creating slow leaks and accumulating in unexpected places.
- the mixture which is released by the electrolysis process is in so called stochiometric ratio - ideal for combastion but it is also ideal for explosion.
You've been warned.

 

then by your logic a turbocharger must be a perptual motion machine of the first kind as well.. use compressed air coming out of the engine to spin a turbine that spins a shaft that spins another turbine to compress the air on its way into the engine but in reality we ALL know what a turbocharger does to the volumetric efficiency of the engine.

you are assuming that the HHO "adds its energy" to the combustion reaction and then gets that power robbed right back by the alternator. Well according to what i've read what actually happens is that the HHO improves the efficiency with which the combustion elements react within the cylinder by increasing the burn rate of the combustion reaction.. which means you extract more energy per 'unit' of fuel, meaning you can reduce the amount of throttle you are using, meaning you can reduce how much fuel is being used.

 

Turbocharger puts more mixture trough the engine in a unit of time, there's no miracles here or broken physics laws. Contrary to that it is claimed HHO cells produce energy from nowhere - water vapor could be routed back to the cell creating that infamous machine and eliminating need for gasoline altogether. Sky is the limit!

Chemical reaction releases the same amount of energy regardless of the way initial components are converted into final products. This is another well established scientific fact, it is called Hess law IIRC. It actually follows from the same good old law of conservation of energy - just in chemistry terms. In other words, no additive is capable of 'extracting' more enrgy from the given amount of fuel unless we change the products of reaction to something else. In case of hydrocarbons, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen all you ever gonna get are CO2 and water if things are burnt most efficiently - as they already are in the modern cars. No dice here either - pretty depressing picture, isnt'it?

 

Agreed, I don't think he ever said that turbo chargers are perpetual motion machines. 50% mpg increase is a crazy statement.

 

This was addressed to Caped, he did- implying that TC is a closed system. It is not - it consumes fuel readily. HHO cell is the closed system in a sense it doesn't burn anything and as I suggested can be 'improved' to the point where gasoline will be required only for starting it up . Its original 'inventor' claimed exactly that.

 

Well which reaction finishes first? HHO or gasoline? Because Hydrogen burns faster than gasoline, the resulting steam would increase the pressure inside the cylinder making the engine behave as though it were a higher compression engine than it actually is... which makes the gasoline combustion more efficient and more powerful for a given amount of gasoline fuel.

So if you had the HHO mixture burning in separate cylinders it wouldn't work at all because it wouldn't be able to affect the gasoline combustion. They have to occupy the same physical space and happen concurrently.

 

I am happy someone else here has encountered this information before and thought it might be plausible. It's easy to believe when you know people with a good setup or have one yourself.

Indeed, the sky is the limit, and the picture is never depressing! Even though the laws you state are surely existent and I trust the information you provide is evidently true, I also know that these HHO units are useful and can help reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, elongate the lives of our vehicles, and save us money! It is entirely possible to attain free energy and use it in our homes, cars, and work place, but that isn't a discussion I desire to entertain on a Maxima forum.

My intention when starting this thread was to inform and encourage the awareness of something I know to be truthfully helpful and useful, not to argue about how the laws of science hint that this is impossible, impractical, or improbable. If my voucher for this technology and it's practicality is not enough to slightly convince you that it does do what you say it couldn't, then there is nothing more I can do or say to change your mind.

 

Sorry for the vagueness, I was saying Max_5gen never implied that a TC was a closed system.

What it all comes down to is there is just not enough H+ in there to make anything happen at all. It is far to little, they have the math on the popular mechanics link.

Gasoline only has so much energy and a good running third gen extracts nearly all of it.

 

The beauty of energy laws is they allow to consider engine as a black box and analyze it without going into details. Such analysis produces theoretical maximum which cannot be exceeded, the real life engine will be always less efficient. So, whatever happens in the cylinder at the end is going to release exactly the same amount of heat. Combastion reaction happens faster than movement of the piston so it doesn't really matter how fast - as long as it fully burns before piston reaches LDC.

If you want to look into details of this process then you would notice that amount of gasoline mixture would be less as part of it was taken by H2/O2 mixture. On a given stroke it looks like less gasoline except you need energy to create H2/O2 mixture and for that you'd need to open throttle more - no, it won't work.

 

I'm trying to keep it as technical discussion for benefit of other possible readers who might also come across this 'technology'. I actually tried something like this in the high school on my bike. Logical part of me was saying - BS but inventor couldn't resist . Didn't work - I guess I'm non- believer then.

 

I am afraid I am having trouble following your description, and I am not saying your out of your mind, it's just not making sense to me. I have a few questions that I think you can answer, but if you could, please re describe the things you have touched on already, which are pointed out in the questions:

"So, whatever happens in the cylinder at the end is going to release exactly the same amount of heat."
-What is the determining factor of the heat in this
situation?

"Combastion reaction happens faster than movement of the piston so it doesn't really matter how fast - as long as it fully burns before piston reaches LDC."
-Wouldn't the quickness of this reaction
determine power, or another factor related the the
output of energy(when referring to the engine)?

"If you want to look into details of this process then you would notice that amount of gasoline mixture would be less as part of it was taken by H2/O2 mixture."
-Wouldn't less gasoline, more HHO, only present a
situation that would encourage less fuel
consumption? My reasoning here is that the HHO
mix is more volatile and relates to the role of the
gas as an additive.

 

Touche Sir, I commend the level of knowledge and respect you have for the science of auto mechanics, and I will try to uphold that level of stature whilst on the other side of the fence, believing in the things I find to be true.

What kind of a setup did you have and what kind of bike?

 

i'm curious (if you happen to know the answer) exactly what is the supposed ratio of "air/fuel mixture" and "HHO" in these engines? just how much of the air/fuel mixture is actually being replaced by the HHO? 10%? 1%? 0.0001%?

 

my impression was that the quick combustion of the HHO mix (while the piston is still very much near TDC) increases the volatility of the gasoline combustion . that the HHO itself is not powering the car, it's just altering the volatility of the remaining reactants in the air/gasoline reaciton.

 

I find it to be too much trouble to try and analyze these reactions so deeply, and I find it more practical to install the device, tune it appropriately so that it works well, and then take notice of how the engine responds. It is easy to adjust the implements once you have it on the car and operating.

 

Quite so, I think we both have mentioned it's role as merely an additive, not a justifiable replacement. Considering most, especially newer, computerized engine systems aren't used to the results (a lean condition)from the reaction: whereby there are less gases present that are normally there when less gasoline is ignited, combusted, or however it you want to phrase it. That hints, in my mind, that more gasoline is used in the process, which results in all the aforementioned benefits, but only when the signal from the oxygen sensor signal is altered to fool the computer into thinking the conditions are normal.

 

Thanks for making discussion, I think this will really be very helpful...

 

i mean in the spirit of explaining to the naysayers how the system works on the fundamental (and perhaps elemental level)

do you know if ignition timing has to be changed to get it to work right?

 

No, not to my knowledge, the main thing to consider is what your ECU relies on for balance the engine's functions. The ECU for VG I strapped a unit to didn't illuminate the check engine light at all, but the Mercury Sable did almost as soon as the same unit produced enough gas to make a difference. I had to install an EFIE unit to alter the O2 sensor signal so the ECU wouldn't go into slave mode and destroy my hopes for better mpg even more!

I wish to describe this technology better too, for both parties involved, but the thread can quickly become trouble to navigate because of the onslaught of information that doesn't seem to prove much, at least right now.......... Thank you for your simple answers and simple questions.

 

I disagree with this statement.

Analyzing ONLY the HHO, then yes, it is true. You're using electricity to make Brown's gas out of water, then combusting brown's gas to make heat and water. Water in, water out, it's not adding any energy into the system on its own.

However, what may explain these contradictory results could be the following - the process of burning gasoline, air, and oxyhydrogen simultameously is able to extract more usable energy from the same amount of gasoline than a process only burning gasoline and air.

Remember, only about 30% of the energy from the gasoline combustion reaction is transferred into rotational motion. The remainder is excess heat. There are already numeruous factors that can affect this efficiency, which is why not every motor with the same fuel consumption has exactly the same horsepower.

While I don't think there's any doubt that getting "something for nothing" - the perpetual motion machine of using a motor powered off of oxyhydrogen powering an alternator connected to a HHO cell making oxyhydrogen from the water vapor that resulted from the motor's exhaust, with enough emergy left over to move your car around is clearly impossible.

So the real question comes down to this - is gasoline combusted more efficiently with air, or with brown's gas mixed with air? I don't know, but it seems plausible. Just like how advancing/retarding timing, adjusting compression, adjusting boost pressure, and using meth or water or nitrous injection can get more power out of the motor, it's certainly plausible that adding oxyhydrogen can have a similar result.

However, in this regard, a "black box" type of analysis is too simplistic in the manner in which you applied it. While there is water in, water out, there's also gasoline + air in and exhaust gases + rotational energy + heat out, so the energy balance becomes much more complicated than just looking at the electrolytic cell itself.

 

OK boys and girls, how about some sanity.

Any (including the 3rd gen's) internal combustion engine is governed by a simple formula PV=nRT.

With the proposal to use both petrol and HH during combustion, its basically hoped that you would use less of the expensive petrol and rather use HH ...............

Yes its possible to achieve phenomenal results (ito reducing the amount of petrol required) under very specific conditions, but that formula above is still and stays the governing factor because of a single fact ....................... and that is atmospheric pressure at the time of ingestion of both the petrol and HH mixtures.
Given that fact alone, its physically impossible to improve on the same engine's physical "efficiency" - no matter whether you feed it hydrogen, petrol, water beef, blood or plastic - an internal combustion engine's efficiency is governed by its physical design.

So how come then that HH (and other "fuels") can under certain ideal circumstances produce a reduction in the rate of use of petrol or even produce "MORE" power than petrol? ...............simple - the heat content or energy content of the fuel mixture used to produce the heat used to make the engine operate.

Petrol has a typical energy content of only about a THIRD of the energy content of hydrogen .................. so if you could run your standard 3rd gen internal combustion engine on HH only (using the combustion method of energy extraction from fuel) you would be able to produce 200% more power during combustion than if you were to run the engine using standard petrol - but in both cases the efficiency of the engine is exactly the same - you will be using less petrol and have more power because you are using a SUPERIOR FUEL with higer energy/heat content for the combustion process governing the engine's operation - there is no possibility to attribute the gains of that alternative fuels usage practice to increased engine efficiency.

Now lets think about this for a second ito simple things and figures of consumption and cost:

Lets say you have a HHO cell in your car able to somehow produce 0.3 kG of HH for the average 10km trip (in effect saying the same fuel energy input as 1kg petrol) and are somehow able to make the motor use ALL of that HH in the 10km trip rather than the roughly optimistic 1 liter (1kg) petrol required to travel the 10km, then you would have had to have used a total of 11kWh (National Hydrogen Production Association estimates roughly 33kWh per 1kg HH using the electrolysis of water process) during the electrolysis of water to create the 0.3kg of HH for consumption. Lets say that your 10km trip lasted 10 minutes only (realistic 60km/h speed), then you would have to have been able to somehow produce 11x6 or 66 kw worth of electricity in the 10 minutes worth of driving from your alternator ........................ now THAT alternator is going to be the sorta thing able to power your house ..................... don't know what your petrol costs are, but on Earth petrol produce about 12kWh heat/energy per liter during combustion (quality dependent sure - but in that region) , so in reality you would have required the energy content of a whole 1L of petrol to drive the electrolysis process to produce that 0.3kG of HH ................. or in simpler terms and in reality just about ALL of the 0.3 kG HH's energy content you produced leaving you exactly where you start before you even attempt to start/move the vehicle.

Very simplistic only ito energy requirements I know, but that is the simple reality for the absolute best case HH consumption situation in an internal combustion engine in preference to burning petrol.......................