My latest brainwave on fuel.

Discussion in 'Fuel Economy & Emissions' started by Stormin' Norman, Jun 5, 2008.

  1. Roadking41A

    Roadking41A Well-Known Member

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    I plan on changing my alternator from the factory Ford unit and installing a Chevrolet 165 amp alternator which I found a write up at FTE seems the trucks respond better with the higher amp alt better lighting and such without frying the wiring harness.I have also been thinking about swapping the heads out to a Mustang GT40 heads and intake system and computer at a later date since those heads flow better than mine.I'm going to do some more checking I might go for a early Ford Lightning set up which I think has a supercharger. A lot of options for Ford.
     
  2. peg legs wagon

    peg legs wagon New Member

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  3. Roadking41A

    Roadking41A Well-Known Member

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  4. Stormin' Norman

    Stormin' Norman Well-Known Member

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    Yep! The first is the HH O electrolysis system. water and alcohol. Works too, although I would have been more conservative with the efficiency/perfromance numbers.

    The second one is like this one from a Mother Earth News article in 1980.
    DIY plans and materials list (one $10 trip to a junkyard, gas included), but I think the second unit on their site (runyourcar...) is an HH O unit):

    http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/me3.html
     
  5. Roadking41A

    Roadking41A Well-Known Member

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    Stormin' wasn't that second link where the guy got his welder to work on water?
     
  6. Stormin' Norman

    Stormin' Norman Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, he built a Hydrogen powered generator using that system and he did his welding from it. I've got a link around here where one guy uses 6 gallons of gray water (toilet flushing) to run 4.5KW of power for his 2,500 sq ft house and his 3 car garage off of that system. It's been around for quite a while, but they all need the stored water and alcohol. That's fine on a stationary generator, but I get the heebeejeebies when I think about driving around with gasoline in the back tank, a live reserve of hydrogen gas and oxygen gas at the front end, and no way to shut it down.

    That's why this ON-THE-FLY from normal air humidity appeals to me. Far less risk of an explosion. No tanks or alcohol to carry around, and the little bit of reserve you do have is only there to start the car, the rest is live production and combustion.
     
  7. Roadking41A

    Roadking41A Well-Known Member

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    Maybe water injection is the best way to go.I would need to figure out how to do that with FI since there is no carb and my truck does not have maf.
     
  8. Stormin' Norman

    Stormin' Norman Well-Known Member

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    You asked for it! Since WWII. It's an Aussie site.

    http://www.autospeed.com.au/A_107970/cms/article.html


    EDIT:
    Oops meant to add this DIY:
    http://better-mileage.com/index.html

    You may have to register:
    http://fordsix.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=49182

    He links to this one for FI:
    http://www.turbomirage.com/water.html
    http://fordsix.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=49182
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2008
  9. Roadking41A

    Roadking41A Well-Known Member

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    Interesting. I will reread it when I'm not so tired. Thanks Norman
     
  10. Stormin' Norman

    Stormin' Norman Well-Known Member

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    Pictures are worth a thousand words. The trouble is sorting out the hype and getting to the meat. Somebody went to trouble of rating some of the companies making 'ready-to-wear' systems, in this article:

    http://ezinearticles.com/?What-on-Earth-is-a-Water-Fuel-Cell?&id=1145558

    That links to this rating table:
    http://waterfuelcell.topconsumerproductreviews.com/

    Which rates this one as Number 1. They sell a book - pretty safe to get a good rating, but unless you want to spend hours on a dozen forums watching other guys talk about what THEY did, might do, should do, the book sounds like a good idea:
    http://water4gas.com/2books.htm

    They have an embedded YouTube video which is SLOOOW to load, so I clicked on their video and went to YouTube, where they list 34 videos, some of which are from DIY guys, building their own. And 214 comments from folks who support the idea, have used the idea or discredit the idea.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhSP8b1OBAg&eurl=http://water4gas.com/2books.htm

    Scroll down the other videos listed. There's other news pundit videos and a few guys showing what they did to build their own.

    The YouTube comments to the first video, are all over the map. Someone(s) even went so far as to say it would use up the water supply. They never looked into how it works. You pump in the separated Hydrogen (HH) and Oxygen (O) gasses and after combustion, it comes out the exhaust as WATER VAPOUR!

    One litre/quart of water makes 1,833 gallons of combustible gas (on a 1999 Toyota Corolla that gave him 900 miles before adding more water) with a 61 MPG result). I find that a bit tough to believe, but... he used to add to his regular gas combustion requirement - i.e. He's injecting it along with normal gasoline. I don't think that's necessary. You might have to inject some addtive to keep the pistons happy or change to another alloy, but there's more energy in Hydrogen than gasoline - like 3 PLUS times more.

    Ok, then the others have lesser ratings, but they're in the top (and only 4) companies listed. I don't know squat about them, but the thing they all have in common is that they carry a bottle of water and some alcohol to keep the water from freezing and give an additional push to the mixture. The system isn't clean enough to produce straight hydrogen. Just for context, the Hydrogen cars don't need alcohol boosters. They aren't using water to get the HH out, because they did that in there Fuel Cell plants.

    Humidity content in common air would need to be chilled a bit more to make water, but why bother? Why not just electrolize the humid air itself and get the gasses (HH and O) straight out, on-the-fly? I have to look into that.

    That Supercharger suggestion sounds like the cat's meow, RoadKing. You're pushing the air mass at a controllable pressure (engine speed drives that aspect) and it just has to pass the electrodes to convert the air into HH and O. My hood scoop Iris idea would be too bulky (maybe an adjustable grille vent control), but the Supercharger would get the job done. I don't know if the Air Pumps used for older Emission systems would do the same thing. In a dry climate, you'd need more air to come in to suck out the humidity content. In a wetter region, you'd have to let the air pump idle, but many superchargers have built-in bleed valves or vacuum controls to adjust the boost pressure. Another item to check out.

    As I showed in the earlier posts, there are a few sites with all the DIY on building a Water-Bottle system. For either Carbed or Fuel-injected systems. Getting the HH O gasses into the combustion system is a done deal - no mystery there. Its getting the HH and O out of the Air.

    Anyone got some Geek Teenagers in a Physics course at highschool? This is like Grade 11 or 12 stuff. I can pick up book at a library. I think I actually did do it, when I was in highschool, but never connected the dots to fuel. Niether did the teacher driving his new 1963 390-powered Galaxie Convertible. Of course gas was about 60 cents a gallon (CDN gallon) back then. :evilsmile:
     
  11. Stormin' Norman

    Stormin' Norman Well-Known Member

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    Geek school experiments?

    The kids are coming up with new experiments too:
    http://www.icestuff.com/~energy21/electrolysis.htm

    What's good about this page is all the cross-references to different inventors and some patents of different aspects - the actual electrical circuit improvements, electrode shapes and forms, etc.

    Here's another simple experiment from scratch with two batteries, two paper clips, and a cup of salt water:
    http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Stories/001.1/index.html

    Home Power magazine has a good article from 1994 (issue #39) on how much energy it takes to make HH gas.

    Solar Hydrogen Production by Electrolysis:
    http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/h2homesystem.pdf

    I just ran a search on their site and found this result for all kinds of ways to make it and use it at home, but the older (before 1996) aren't there. The above link downloads the complete article. This list is quite good at listing the pros and cons:
    http://www.homepower.com/search/results/?search=Hydrogen

    I'm blue-skying here, but if you think about those old blue-light mosquito traps (roasted 'em), where the humid air passes from the air-pump/supercharger to electrolyse and separate the humidity into HH and O, the gasses collected into the fuel system, or many barb-like electrodes, like that desert monster in Star Wars, reducing the need for long sheets of 304 perforated stainless mesh - you could use rivets or small pins (cheaper and easier to customize the inlet - I think.)

    The thing is that since nobody seems to be willing to break the thinking mould in this Hydrogen chase, new ideas from outside the box have to get kicked around to build an 'On-The-Fly' system that simple to set up and adaptable to any fuel-powered (gasoline or diesel) system.

    Today, Toyota announced their new Hydrogen-Fuel-Celled vehicle. It can't be purchased - it has to be leased. It runs 516 miles on a cell, instead of the old max of 205 miles per can of hydrogen. But it doesn't run in real cold weather (-22F/-30C). Another challenge for us cold-cellar dwellers in the Prairies and Mountain regions. The Aircraft engineers have to address that for Hydrogen-powered aircraft, so something is or will be out there, soon enough.
    http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2008/06/06/toyota-fuelcell.html

    Nobody would say how much the can costs or the car. It's worth a bit of experimenting to do this.

    Anyway, food for thought. I'm gone with Andy over the weekend to pick up his new project car, but I'll keep my eye open for more ideas. We should be back by Monday. 11 hours with food and gas breaks each way.
     
  12. Stormin' Norman

    Stormin' Norman Well-Known Member

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    We drove almost 1,800 KMs to get Andy's new project car through to the very south west corner of North Dakota. West enough to change Time Zones. Gorgeous countryside! Lots of humidity. They even put up road signs warning you that an area is a 'Fog Patch' area for X miles!

    I already laid out my strategy, but just to get it here again, rather than have you go back into the earlier pages:

    Once it's all reconnected and running, I'll tune it, per the book(s).

    Then I'll change to the Mr. Gasket Advance Curve kit (more HP, better mileage (could be up to 20%). Judging by Andy's car, its even better than that. The car we picked up was the same engine, the gas gauge didn't work and we ran out of gas, both filled at the same time, he had 1/4 tank in his Canuck Fairmont wagon, and the ND wagon ran dry. Same distance, same speeds. They both maxed out at about 85 MPH. Andy's car had a Tach and that translated at just around 3,500 RPM.

    Next, I'll do the Water Injection (just plain water, no conversion to any gas.) It should give me a bit more HP (5% PLUS), cleaner combustion chambers and therefore cleaner oil. The fine water spray makes really a hot steam explosion that bursts any existing carbon deposit off the chamber casting.

    Then I'll make up one of the DIY systems to try out with the water bottle and alcohol.

    And then, if that goes well, I'll tinker with the supercharged On-The-Fly system. I have to do some math to figure out how much Hydrogen and Oxygen is needed to get X MPH. I'll do it in Excel first and make a stand-alone program in VB6 (retired from programming when the new VBNet came out - too much like C language :().

    With Roadking's idea of a supercharger to suck the air into the electolyser, convert the water content (any humidity in the air) to HH and O, and directing it to the Carb or Fuel Injection system still makes sense, after this trip.

    Andy claimed that we used up as much or a bit more in fuel as it cost for the new project car. That is RIDICULOUS, but true, sadly.

    I'm not sure that a Supercharger is required to suck in the worst-case low humidity air we might find, driving through a desert. An airpump might be enough. That means a person could still add a supercharger to act as a SuperCharger. Andy's new project car has a sensor I've never seen, right in front of both rads (regular and AC) pointing to the front, and I have a funny feeling it is a humidity sensor. If so, it would be cheap and nasty, off the shelf. The other way I thought was those home weather station kits for under $100. They have an adaptable humidity sensor in them - at least for testing out the experiments. I'm sure there's something around.

    The only big obstacle is sponging off the humidity (remember the old fuel oil furnace humidifiers?) and doing the electrolysis to the humid air. If anyone comes up with an idea, please chime in.

    It would be so much fun to pass every gas station forever. Well except for a caffeine fix and a dump. :evilsmile:
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2008
  13. Roadking41A

    Roadking41A Well-Known Member

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    You know Stormin' a air pump or smog pump as we call them down here would put a lot of air into a system own it's own. It would be easier to hood up and might put air in the same volume like a supercharger.
     
  14. Stormin' Norman

    Stormin' Norman Well-Known Member

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    Thats what I was thinking too. Stock brackets, belt, everything. I'll get one at a junkyard for experimenting. We saw a small Zephyr sedan with the AC for my six, and I think it had the pump too.
     
  15. Roadking41A

    Roadking41A Well-Known Member

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    Norman let me know how good it works. I plan on going to a Pull a Part to get a factory carb to put back on my wagon which will put my mileage where it should be then I want to do the same injection unit that you're doing along with some ZMAX that one of the FTE members said it really works.
     

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