Better MPG- Real or Scam?

[overlander63]

From what I've seen of this stuff, it smells like what it is--something that comes out of the south end of a northbound bull...
It would be nice if I were wrong, but...

[Lumatic]

Originally Posted by Wayne&Sam

I remember seeing JC Whitney catalogs back in the early '70s that had all kinds of gizmos that claimed to give 2-3 mpg better performance. You'd get 200mpg if you installed them all! In particular I remember the "water injector" whose ad said "Ever notice how well you car runs on a rainy day?"

From what I have heard there is some truth to the water injection idea, BUT, the system requires constant adjustment to the point it is impractical.

Maybe there is a techy way waiting to be discovereed that will improve the efficiency of a internal combustion engine that is cost effective and works, BUT, so far the only testimonials I have seen or heard are on the ads trying to sell them.

[CanoeStream]

Michelle wondered if 12 volts would split H2O without a transformer. My previous post certainly was intended to suggest that splitting water would actually use more TV or moho base fuel than was recoverable by injecting hydrogen thus gained back into the manifold. Although the A/C has the most noticeable impact, all electric accessories do affect mileage. But true, driving habits have the most significant effect.

Yet my father's son remembers his tales. Which takes me back to water injection increasing manifold pressures in WWII P-47 Thunderbolts for a brief extra jolt of power. Only try this on your brudder-in-law's truck...
Water-Meth Injection Q&A - 3000GT/Stealth International Message Center

And from P-47 ace, Francis Gabreski, "The early P-47 - which was the basic airplane - had a very thin propeller, although it was a four-bladed propeller. It didn't have water injection. It didn't have all the niceties of the P-47D20 that came into the theater sometime in the latter part of, uh ... well, it was actually about March of 1944. So the improvement that we had (was) water injection, which gave you a power increase of from 52 inches of mercury to about 72 inches of mercury, which was a tremendous boost in power and performance. Then you had tremendous visibility with the teardrop canopy. You could cover your tail and look out freely without the crossbars kinda' restricting your vision. So I would say that the P-47I finally went down with on July 20, 1944, was one of the finest little airplanes that I have ever flown. It was more than a match for the Focke-Wulf 190. It was more than a match for the 109. I had absolutely no problem as long as I used water injection, and I used it quite frequently. We had water injection that would, with sustained power, keep us there for about three minutes up to five minutes, depending upon how you use it. But it gave us that tremendous edge that we needed against the German Luftwaffe."

[Royce]

Originally Posted by thecatsandi

Ahhhhh scam? Yeah you can put hydrogen into engine but it is not made to run on raw hydrogen. Hydrocarbons yes. 12 Volts is not enough to seperate the Hydorgen from the Oxygen in water. I am still looking into how much it takes. I cannot remember from high school exactly but I know it involved a transformer....

I think the "transformer" you remember was probally a converter used to drop the voltage and also convert to DC. Takes DC currrent to produce H at one electrode and O2 at the other. Here is a link for a simple setup.

Science Projects - Splitting Water

This one doesn't produce O2 but does produce H and other byproducts. Uses salt water to reduce the required voltage.

[wanderer1]

A friend from Delaware (Florida snowbird) used this thing on his Chevy 1500 p/u,from De down here to Fl. He swears it increased his mpg from 15ish to 17.5 mpg. I have intended to try one of these deals,however haven't yet.
Here's the link.
Main

[klattu]

Probabaly a good thing hydrogen is tough to get out of water.
We would be overcome with explosions and imagine all that extra oxygen floating around...or would it be used up in the fire?

Dang...we could be our own Sun !
Its time we took the place back as the center of our Solar System

[CanoeStream]

Originally Posted by klattu

We would be overcome with explosions and imagine all that extra oxygen floating around...or would it be used up in the fire?

Ever have a science teacher toss metallic sodium into a bucket of water? It's so reactive that it skitters around on the top of the water, splitting H2 from O with enough heat that all is consumed in sparks. Imagine a magnesium FeatherCraft burnin' it up down the lake!

Originally Posted by klattu

Dang...we could be our own Sun! Its time we took the place back as the center of our Solar System

We probably won't see the nostalgic days of $2.50/gallon gas again. At least let us do this Mr. Galilei!

Originally Posted by wanderer1

A friend from Delaware (Florida snowbird) used this thing on his Chevy 1500 p/u,from De down here to Fl. He swears it increased his mpg from 15ish to 17.5 mpg.

And does he swear that his average speed was no different? A/C use exactly the same? Ambient temperature? Vehicle weight? Drs. Pons & Fleischmann need work -- they could do this as a controlled study...

[jdalrymple]

Not that the TV show is any better source of info than the fellow hawking it in the campground, but Mythbusters did a show on several "mpg boosting" gizmos, the hydrogen generator, and several of the JC Whitney type products too. Their conclusion was what we all aready know. They don't work.

Kinda like the diet pills sold on TV. "The pills, when combined with a healthy diet and excercise, will make you loose weight." No kidding, eat right and stay off the couch, huh, whod a thunk it.

[richinny]

Originally Posted by 85MH325

You might find this interesting:

Roger

i had the same thoughts as the last line of the story. if cars ran on water, how expensive would water become?

[Skater]

Everything I've read in this thread, except for the "better driving habits" comments, is a scam.

The Tornado does absolutely nothing for mileage. The reason it seems to work is that when you put it in you're thinking about mileage, so you drive more gently. The Tornado can do one thing though: if one of those tines were to break off, you'd be out an engine - which is going to offset any increase in mileage you would've gotten if it did work.

The hydrogen thing has been covered already, but let's face it: 1. You're only going to get tiny bits of hydrogen out, and 2. You now have to carry around a bunch of water for the engine's use (I realize us RVers are already usually carrying around water, but you see what I mean). The weight, complexity, and cost of this system will never offset the price you paid for it in terms of fuel usage - especially for a motorhome which doesn't get that many miles to begin with. Even if it does work (which I highly doubt).

Don't even get me started on magnets on the gas line... yes, because magnets have a HUGE effect on non-ferrous materials like gasoline.

Oh, and bottled water is still more expensive than gasoline. Go figure.

[choctawmel]

I installed a water injector on my 360cid Dodge back in the '80's. Had to use distilled water or the jet would stop up. Never could get it adjusted to work right. Couldn't tell if it helped or not. Not too long after I installed it, it went nuts and shot in too much water at an idle, flowed the engine and bent a couple valves.

[Tom Nugler]

What’s old is new again.
Advertisement from 1947 Science and Mechanics magazine.

Tom.

[Ike T]

I might try the "water-via-vacuum-line" or the "injection via smog pump" trick with my Travelall to see if I can improve efficiency. The 345 engine with 1406 Edelbrock carb in the T-all has less than 9:1 compression ratio and rarely spins above 2500k rpm at the speeds I drive (60mph or less). The engine seems like a good candidate for improvement via some of the links posted. I removed all the vacuum lines associated with the emissions system but did not remove the air pump. Just depends if I want to add another thing that might go wrong to a 35 year old truck.

I'll post my findings if I do this.

[cooperhawk]

The idea of injecting water into aircraft engines isn't new. The reason for doing it however was not to burn the water as a fuel per se. It was done to increase the mass of the air being drawn into the engine.

The early Boing 707's had water injected engines. We called them "Water wagons". They were so underpowered that water was injected to help them climb. It wasn't the hydrogen they were after, but the oxygen that was available in the water which had a higher density than the thin air of the upper atmosphere.

In other words, they couldn't suck in enough air in the early engines, so they injected water to increase the mass of oxygen. Nowadays, they have solved that problem and no longer have a need to do so.

In the end, you can't create more energy than is already present in the fuel. You can only use it more efficiently.

[Boondocker]

The things you can learn here.....

[ScottW]

Actually, I thought the water injected engines the military used were to turn the water into steam, therefore increasing thrust. Water expands many times (10 or so??) when turned into steam. In thrust we trust!

[altamont]

Interesting article in todays Wall Street Journal about mileage increasing products. None of them work but people are still trying to make improvements at any cost. The only thing that really helps are low restriction intakes and exhaust systems.

[vswingfield]

The main use I have seen of water injection was on turbocharged engines to allow more boost without pre-ignition issues.

[Pick]

Those HHO devices are a big scam. When you calcuate how many BTU's of hydrogen you would need, versus the amount a mason jar sized hydrogen generator "might" produce, it is very clear that it is a physical impossibility for such a device to work as claimed.

Do a search for HHO or Hydrogen Generators on YouTube. You'll laugh 'til you cry, funnier than watching the comedy channel.

[overlander63]

Originally Posted by ScottW

Actually, I thought the water injected engines the military used were to turn the water into steam, therefore increasing thrust. Water expands many times (10 or so??) when turned into steam. In thrust we trust!

Water injection was used during WWII in military aircraft for much the same reason it was used in early jets. They had to be careful with the big radial engines that water didn't pool in the bottom cylinders, hydrolocking the engine. Very bad at 20,000 or more feet in the air when the motor starts shucking internal parts.