Manifold Questions! Please help - I'm desperate!

[HHOhoper]

Ok, so I've gone as far as I can possibly go with trying to go through the air box without any mods. I'm completely satisfied with my cell - it will produce as much HHO as I'll ever need, draws very little amps and never has heat problems. The problem now is getting the cars to take this stuff. I don't want to do anything with EFIE stuff until there are NO other options. So the next step I'd like to take is tapping into the manifold vacuum lines and seeing if bybassing the MAF will be enough to get me an acceptable MPG improvement. The large majority of my research and studying of this stuff has been primarily with making the cells themselves, but I don't know a whole lot about the engine variables. So will you (the collective you) walk me through the best way to do this?

Thank you!

[HHOinKY]

What kind of car?

[HHOhoper]

2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee is what I'm working on right now. My other car is a supercharged 2000 Pontiac Grand Prix. I saw about a 2 MPG average increase with the car, but absolutely no movement with the Jeep. Didn't go down or up. I want to get the Jeep done and then I'll deal with the car. Going through the manifold with a S/C'er is going to be tricky.

[HHOinKY]

Jeeps are pretty common, buy an extra air box (if you don't want to drill your original one) drill a hole into it and pipe the hho through your air intake box (where the air fileter is).

Thats the easiest. Or you ca pipe it into the intake tube anywhere. After the MAF sensor is best from what I've read.

Trying to help, not sure though.

[HHOhoper]

Jeeps are pretty common, buy an extra air box (if you don't want to drill your original one) drill a hole into it and pipe the hho through your air intake box (where the air fileter is).

Thats the easiest. Or you ca pipe it into the intake tube anywhere. After the MAF sensor is best from what I've read.

Trying to help, not sure though.

That's what I have done right now (going through the airbox). Absolutely no change whatsoever.

[EdCaffreyMS]

My Thought is..... If you get by the MAF, then your also going to have to deal with O2 sensor in the exhaust manifold/pipe. This sensor is hooked into the computer system, and if it registers an exhaust fuel/O2 that is out of the set paratmeters (which is very likely if your running HHO, on the "too much O2 side") Then it's signal indicates to the computer a lean mixture, and the computer will compensate by enriching the fuel mixture.

I've helped enough folks with HHO/computer controlled engine issues to realize that you basically either resign yourself to the fact that in order to achieve anything, your going to have to mod the sensor/computer system, or spend a lot to time chasing something you'll never catch.

I'm fortunate that my daily driver is an older Toyota pickup, without a computer. I plumbed the HHO into a vac port at the carb base, backed off the timing a few degrees, and leaned the mixture out slightly.....the result for me was a 12 mpg increase.

[Painless]

Does your Jeep have the 4.7?

If so, you can probably do exactly as I did. My Ram 4.7 has a resonator box that attaches to the front of the throttle body and joins same to the tube from the filter. I attached a hose barb to the side of the resonator and then screwed another barb on the inside of that and ran a hose to the base of the throttle body.

These 4.7's are obstinate little SOB's, I've only managed an extra mpg or two with 2.33 LPM and O2 extenders.

[HHOhoper]

Yes, it is the 4.7! There's another guy on here who has an '04 and he went from 16 to 24 MPG with no mods! How the!?!?!......... I hope he posts on this thread.

Painless, can you post a pic for me? I just want to make sure that I'm doing it right. The hose on the inside was a great idea! Your HHO still passes through the MAF though, doesn't it? Have you tried T'ing into a vacuum line?

If I have to end up remapping the computer system and sensors, then so be it, I just want to be positive that there's no other way. I know there are a handful of variables that can present obstacles (MAF, O2's, etc), but I'm hoping I can knock out a limited amout to get where I can accept the results.

[Painless]

Yes, it is the 4.7! There's another guy on here who has an '04 and he went from 16 to 24 MPG with no mods! How the!?!?!......... I hope he posts on this thread.

Painless, can you post a pic for me? I just want to make sure that I'm doing it right. The hose on the inside was a great idea! Your HHO still passes through the MAF though, doesn't it? Have you tried T'ing into a vacuum line?

If I have to end up remapping the computer system and sensors, then so be it, I just want to be positive that there's no other way. I know there are a handful of variables that can present obstacles (MAF, O2's, etc), but I'm hoping I can knock out a limited amout to get where I can accept the results.

On my Ram, the MAF is situated at the end of the tube from the filter to the resonator, therefore, my HHO feed bypasses it.

Here are some pics I took a while back to show my HHO input through the resonator box, hopefully, your Jeep has the same or similar setup:

This first picture shows the resonator from the left hand side, the large hole is where the air hose attaches from the filter housing. To the right of the hole is where I attach the hose from my bubbler. Inside the resonator, there is another barb which screws into this one (one has a male thread, the other female) and attaches to the hose you can see inside the resonator, running to the throttle body hole. Note, you can see the MAF in the left side of the air filter hose hole in this picture.

http://www.hhoknowhow.info/~russ/images/100_0524.JPG (http://www.hhoknowhow.info/%7Eruss/images/100_0524.JPG)

In this next picture, you can see the throttle body attachment hole on the resonator. Note that the previous picture was taken as if viewing from the right hand side of this picture. The hose is attached to the bottom of the hole by a zip tie, which is threaded through the plastic outer casing. These holes are sealed by the collar that connects this part to the throttle body.

http://www.hhoknowhow.info/~russ/images/100_0525.JPG (http://www.hhoknowhow.info/%7Eruss/images/100_0525.JPG)

I haven't tried any kind of vacuum delivery yet.

Hope this helps.

[HHOhoper]

Yes, I can see how that all works and it's really quite clever. I think I should be able to work something like that on both my car and the Jeep.

Did you do this with your resonator initially or did you try the air box first? I'd like to know if there was much of a difference after having done this.

[Painless]

Yes, I can see how that all works and it's really quite clever. I think I should be able to work something like that on both my car and the Jeep.

Did you do this with your resonator initially or did you try the air box first? I'd like to know if there was much of a difference after having done this.

I went straight for this approach as it seemed to be aligned to most peoples advice. I'd also been following radgenh2o on youtube's videos and noted that he had throttle response problems when introducing at the air filter.

[HHOhoper]

Interesting. So let's say that this doesn't yield much of a benefits or improvement. What would you try next?

Also, can you explain how a MAF works exactly? It doesn't have a clue what the stuff going past it is made of does it? I'm a little...ok, let's be honest...I'm VERY confused as to how the MAF interferes with anything actually.

[Painless]

Interesting. So let's say that this doesn't yield much of a benefits or improvement. What would you try next?

Also, can you explain how a MAF works exactly? It doesn't have a clue what the stuff going past it is made of does it? I'm a little...ok, let's be honest...I'm VERY confused as to how the MAF interferes with anything actually.

As far as I know, there are several designs of MAF, they measure mass airflow usually by heating a wire and allowing the flowing air to cool it. One of the auto techs can definitely give more help here.

I personally don't believe that bypassing the MAF makes any difference. We're not producing enough gas to measure up against the fresh air flow hitting out engines.

If this doesn't work, I might try the PCV vacuum tube. At the moment, I'm very confused about the results from my own setup, something just doesn't seem right when I compare to others results with exactly the same vehicle. I'll go into more detail in my own thread as soon as I have my head together on the facts. I'm working all this weekend, so will have a lot of downtime for thought.

[HHOhoper]

I personally don't believe that bypassing the MAF makes any difference. We're not producing enough gas to measure up against the fresh air flow hitting out engines..

After thinking about it, the same thought occurred to me. I could be completely wrong, but I just don't see it making that much of a difference.

I really think doing the manifold vacuum thing would be the next possible step that I really think could yield a notable benefit (all speculation of course). I just want to make sure that I'm tapping in at an effective and safe spot. Doesn't the PCV just recirculate exhaust gases back through the engine? Is that the best way to go?

[EdCaffreyMS]

On most vehicles, the PVC valve recycles the engine gases back to the base of the air cleaner. The flow on the PVC goes from a valve cover, to the air cleaner base.
I hold to the statement I made previously... once you get this aspect figured out, its likely that your going to have to deal with the O2 sensor in the exhaust manifold too. The overall system of sensors/computer in a vehicle were designed to work in concert, meaning that once you get past the MAF, then the O2 sensor in the exhaust is likely going to pickup the change in the exhaust gas temp, which will occur due to the change in the air/fule mix going past it. If that temp is not within the set parameters for the sensor, it will signal the computer that the engine is running lean, and the computer will compensate by adding more fuel, which will negate any benefit. Because each vehicle seems to react slightly differently to HHO, you may achieve a slight increase in MPG, but nothing like you would if you consider the overall picture.

[HHOhoper]

Well, if that turns out to be the case then I really hope that extenders will be enough to compensate. If not, there's another bridge to cross. Thank you for the helpful insight! :)