Let's talk engines

[M34me]

I should first note that I am no engineer and I have no college education, but I am a car guy and I do enjoy entertaining new ideas and trying to think outside the box.

I'm very curious how much HHO would be needed to run an ICE in HHO alone and why no one has seemed to accomplish this. Oh I know there are rumors of the one guy that supposedly did it and then got killed over it, but those are rumors.

Due to the substantial increase in burn rate, would it be better if someone were to design an engine around the fuel instead of trying to make it work in what we have?

Would it be better to significantly change the timing, compression, cylinder size, stroke etc.etc?

And then how much hho would you need to operate said engine, assuming you could generate it onboard. (maybe not possible?) If you could generate it onboard efficiency of course is crucial. So would it be better to use a catalyst such as urea which only needs .43 volts to make the hh? Then get the O2 from the air.

Obviously you would need to generate the H2 and then compress and store it in order to feed the engine at the varied rates of power demand.

If it can't be done onbaord, then what about an on board generator to assist h2 production and generating unit, maybe even solar/wind powered generating and compressing the hh all day long allowing you to fill up each night after work.

I'm sure others have thought about all of this already, but I have not seen a discussion on it.

The main thing I'd like the discussion to be about is the engine. What would a properly designed engine be configured like?

I'm sure some of you saw that Jesse James just broke the land speed record for a hydrogen powered car. But he used a Chevy small block. Of course I don't know the details of the drivetrain, but I know it was well over $1,000,000 to build this thing and it didn't even break 200 mph. The new ZR1 does that for only $100,000+. That makes me wonder if the hydrogen is not being used efficiently.

[Philldpapill]

You can run an ICE on HHO alone, yes, but you can't run it on HHO, and produce HHO from the engine running... That's called Perpetual Motion, and it doesn't work(conservation of energy law).

In a perfect system, calculating how much HHO you need is fairly simple. Let's take a car idling at 1000 rpm. Let's assume we have a volumetric efficiency of 75% in this case. If the car's displacement is 2.0L, then the engine is sucking in: 2.0L * 75% * 1000rpm / 2 = 750 liters per minute if HHO. Ideally, you would want pure HHO to get the best energy conversion efficiency due to the stochiometric nature of the gas. That's alot of HHO, btw...

Hydrogen is used fairly efficiently just like gasoline in an exothermic reaction(combustion). If you look at their fuel consumption vs. energy used, their engines are actually ****-poor, but designed to put out the most amount of power, instead of fuel efficiency. It's usually a trade off between the two, in any system you design. You can design something to put out tons of power(like a jet engine), but use GOBS of fuel in the process... Or design something to use minimal fuel for the power, but the thing usually puts out low power.

[M34me]

OK, Now what I'm saying is would it be a better idea to change the design of the engine so that it uses the h2 only(I'll go with a straight hydrogen mix due the efficiency we're seeing from urea) and then you can generate/fill the gas at home.

Because of the burn rate I would think that timing for sure would need to change. And very possibly chamber size and stroke as well as compression ratio.

Would you then get an engine that can use the h2 more efficiently a while putting out a more than acceptable amount of power. I would think appropriate design changes could make a very significant difference.

For example the new direct injection engines are increasing both efficiency and power. Why? because of a design change that facilitates a better burn. Just like different chamber designs work better than others.

So would a design change do the same for h2?

[Philldpapill]

I'm an electrical engineer, not a mechanical. However, I do know that there are engines out there that are specially tuned/engineered for using hydrogen. Remember - Hydrogen is just a fuel - an "energy carrier" - like a battery. The only difference between hydrogen and gasoline, is that hydrogen reacts without any pollution products - only water. If we are talking about efficiencies, it would be nearly double efficient to use the hydrogen in a fuel cell to generate electricity. With any process involving heat and expanding gases, your efficiency is always going to be poor. A fuel cell, however, can be upwards of 75% efficient, and maybe higher in the near future. What this translates to, is for every 100kW you use to generate the hydrogen, you'll get about 75kW back out as useable energy. Compare that with burning hydrogen - maybe 30% efficient.

In a nutshell, you CAN run the car purely on hydrogen... but if you're going to make the hydrogen in the first place, use it as a energy storage, then use a fuel cell to convert it into useable energy - not in an ICE.

[M34me]

As I understand it though, the hydrogen needed to run in a fuel cell needs to be 99.99% pure (or somewhere around there). There can't be any contaminants and apparently it is a costly process to do that. No need for the purity in an ICE.

You said that the efficiencies are very similar between gas and hho. I don't see that. HHO burns much more quickly and completely.

Something else though. I'm confused about your math.

If it's true that it would take 750 LPM to run an engine purely on hho, then how is it that we commonly see 20% and more, sometimes a lot more, increase in fuel economy on only 1 LPM. Is there something happening that I don't understand?

As I understand it you would need 1 LPS for an hho cutting torch. That's a lot of fire power to cut steel and 1 LPS is far less than 750 LPM. So I find it hard to comprehend that your math is correct. Not calling you a liar or anything, I'm just trying to understand what is going on.

[Philldpapill]

Ok, what my math is saying is this...

On each cycle of the engine, the piston is TDC, then moves down, sucking in air through a valve. Now, because the piston moves at such high speed, it sucks the air in so fast, that the air pressure inside isn't the same pressure as the outside atmospher. This is due to a pressure drop through the intake system. Each time the engine sucks the air in, it displaces the volume in the cylinder. When the cyclinder is BDC, it then moves back up, compresses, and around TDC, ignites, goes back down(power stroke), comes back up during exhaust, and repeats. Being a car guy, I'm sure that's not any news...

So, the math - If your car is running at 1000 rpms, then it is experiencing exactly half that amount in cycles(intake, compression, powerstroke, exhaust). So, for a 2.0L engine, that means that the engine is sucking in "The number of cycles x the engine displacement". For a 1000rpm idle, and 2.0L displacement, that's 1000 liters per minute. Factoring in the volumetric efficiency(the REAL amount of volume at atmospheric pressure), that equates to about 75% of that, or 750LPM. The math is pretty solid...

As for a quicker burn, I think that is correct. You can refernce a thread I started, debating WHAT is going on in the combustion process.

You are right about the fuel cell, but 99% pure is fairly easy to do... Just requires some cleaning of the gas before intake.

[M34me]

Ok, what my math is saying is this...

On each cycle of the engine, the piston is TDC, then moves down, sucking in air through a valve. Now, because the piston moves at such high speed, it sucks the air in so fast, that the air pressure inside isn't the same pressure as the outside atmospher. This is due to a pressure drop through the intake system. Each time the engine sucks the air in, it displaces the volume in the cylinder. When the cyclinder is BDC, it then moves back up, compresses, and around TDC, ignites, goes back down(power stroke), comes back up during exhaust, and repeats. Being a car guy, I'm sure that's not any news...

So, the math - If your car is running at 1000 rpms, then it is experiencing exactly half that amount in cycles(intake, compression, powerstroke, exhaust). So, for a 2.0L engine, that means that the engine is sucking in "The number of cycles x the engine displacement". For a 1000rpm idle, and 2.0L displacement, that's 1000 liters per minute. Factoring in the volumetric efficiency(the REAL amount of volume at atmospheric pressure), that equates to about 75% of that, or 750LPM. The math is pretty solid...


I understand the part about how much volume of air/gas mixture is needed to run the engine.
Now what would the appropriate mixture be, hho to air. Like with gasoline it's a 14.7-1 ratio. how much hho, considering it has o2 in it, is needed in relation to air? All your math shows is the hho and does not account for air.

I don't see how people can get 20% and better increase in mpg by only delivering 1 LPM at say 2500 rpm in a 3.0 L engine. That math (and I don't know the proper equation) doesn't make sense to me if I look at the math you provided.

[Roland Jacques]

14.7:1 is pounds.

So how many liters of air = 14.7 pounds of air Also knowing how many liters of Gasoline = 1 pound of gasoline

So knowing this might help in understanding relationships.

[Philldpapill]

Ideally, you wouldn't have ANY "air" mixed in with HHO. People call this gas "HHO", but it's not anything special. HHO is just a stochiometric ratio of H2 and O2. That means that for every molecule of O2, you will have 2 molecules of H2. When this mixture "burns", you get exactly 2 molecules of water for ever O2 and 2 H2. So, basically, the mixture at the intake should be just like normal - the gasoline vapor and the normal "air" mixture coming in, PLUS the HHO gas that is added.

I agree - when comparing the math with the apparent gains people are getting, it just seems silly. I can totally understand why people are so skeptical of it. You're telling me that by adding only ~1% by VOLUME(HHO is lighter than normal "air", so by weight it is <1%), I am going to improve gas mileage by 20% or more??? It seems like a scam to most people.

[M34me]

Ideally, you wouldn't have ANY "air" mixed in with HHO. People call this gas "HHO", but it's not anything special. HHO is just a stochiometric ratio of H2 and O2. That means that for every molecule of O2, you will have 2 molecules of H2. When this mixture "burns", you get exactly 2 molecules of water for ever O2 and 2 H2. So, basically, the mixture at the intake should be just like normal - the gasoline vapor and the normal "air" mixture coming in, PLUS the HHO gas that is added.

So then by what you're saying here is that if you try to run an engine on purely HHO, it would be a sealed system? No air intake at all?

[M34me]

80% of the "air" that goes into an ICE using gasoline is inert unused gases. That's 80% of the volume that the engine is drawing in.

So by that measure, if you're only using HHO and it's a sealed system, wouldn't you get a lot more power from the same size engine? In other words, if it's only HHO and no air, couldn't you downsize the engine significantly and get the same amount of power?

Or am I just not understanding something?

[M34me]

Hopefully someone will reply to this. For some reason this thread kind of died.

According to the math given, which I don't dispute if you wanted to run an engine on pure HHO you would need 750 LPM for a 2.0 running at 1000 rpm.

Phill.... said "That's a lot of HHO" And if that were the only thing going into the engine, I would agree. However that is not the only thing going in. You also have air. Which has been explained to me that air is necessary for the "expansion" of gases and dissipation of heat.
So what would be the appropriate mix of HHO to air? Then you can figure out how much HHO would be needed.

That being said, given other recent discussions, I'm starting to think that maybe the most efficient use of HHO is to use it as an "igniter" so to speak for the gasoline. The making the appropriate adjustments to engine timing and such.

[Philldpapill]

M34me, when I say a "closed system", I'm talking about thermodynamics. You don't have any energy going into the system. In fact, energy is leaving the system through heat dissipation and moving the car.

In an ideal world, every unit of energy you put into producing HHO through electrolysis, you would get that exact unit of energy back in through combustion in the engine. With that regained energy, you could turn it into electrical energy via the alternator, and then power an HHO cell to make more HHO to power the car, to power the alternator to make more HHO... etc. - a perpetual motion machine.

The only problem with this, is that electrolysis isn't 100% efficient. I think it's something like 60% or so, meaning for every 1,000 Joules of energy you put into the cell, 400 joules goes into heating the water/cell up, and 600 joules get converted into energy in HHO. Looking at one cycle, you start with 1,000 joules, create 600 joules in HHO, combust that, generate power to drive the cell(with only 600 joules now). You then end up with only 360 Joules of HHO and 640 joules of heat. Going through the engine again, and you have 216 Joules in HHO, 784 joules in heat, and so on.... that's not even counting engine loses or moving your car.

[M34me]

I understand that, But what's that have to do with my last post?

[M34me]

So what would be the appropriate mix of HHO to air? Then you can figure out how much HHO would be needed.

This is the question I have.

[Philldpapill]

Whoa. To be honest, I have no idea WHAT my post pertains to. I swear, someone had suggested running the engine on HHO alone... You're right though, that doesn't really go with your post. Oops?

[M34me]

Soooo, you don't have an answer?

[HurstOlds]

I'm sure some of you saw that Jesse James just broke the land speed record for a hydrogen powered car. But he used a Chevy small block. Of course I don't know the details of the drivetrain, but I know it was well over $1,000,000 to build this thing and it didn't even break 200 mph. The new ZR1 does that for only $100,000+. That makes me wonder if the hydrogen is not being used efficiently.

This is a great thread.

Jesse James had $1,000,000 put into designing and the technology to figure out how to do it on a normal ICE engine. He did say that once he proves it works, he can put it on any car's engine.

I need to watch that episode again, he didn't reveal much info about his system. By the way, it was a twin turbo Chevy big block engine.


The recently restored streamliner was fitted with a 572 cubic-inch Chevrolet V8 and twin turbochargers supplying 50 pounds of boost and an ice-water cooling system to prevent engine-block meltdown. For fuel, a 10,000 psi tank of hydrogen gas from by Quantum Technologies replaced the previous tank of gasoline.

Hmmm, one page I found had the above (10k psi tank), and another page had this quote here:


The engine itself took three years of development to make power on hydrogen. Converting the 572-cubic-inch Chevrolet crate motor to hydrogen was first attempted by Quantum Technologies, which then handed the project over to Detroit engine deity Kurt Urban. The problem was heat.

"As you make power, you make heat," Urban said.

All engines do that, of course, but with hydrogen, you have significant obstacles to overcome. Urban invented all kinds of ways to deal with the heat.

The biggest and potentially most-lethal problem was that the hydrogen would ignite back into the intake runners. So Urban used longer intake runners that also had a low profile to fit under the hood. The runners he chose are the same ones used on Can-Am race cars back in the day. Then he introduced a means to inject water into the runners as needed to prevent detonation of the fuel there. Water shoots into the twin turbochargers to cool them, too.

A large tank packed with ice and water sits inside the car's nose. When the engine temperature rises above 170 degrees, the ice water flows through the block to cool it down. With runs that last only a minute or two, you have options you wouldn't have on a regular car.

Twenty-four injectors spray fuel into the eight cylinders. A normal V8 would have eight. The car carries three, 5,000-psi tanks of gaseous hydrogen.

"The engineers said it couldn't go over 500 hp," said Urban. "This one makes 740. Sometimes engineers are too smart."

[Buster]

I've read somewhere that it takes 200lpm of HHO to run a 2000cc car. ie that is how much HHO you need to give the engine enough power to drive with. The air intake,if any would be needed??, would be extra to this volume.
I believe it requires considerably less HHO when water or steam is added to the injection process, to power a car.

[HurstOlds]

If I knew more about his (JJ's) setup/engine, it might be interesting to do some calculations to try and determine how much (LPM) hydrogen they were injecting into the engine.