HHO vs water vapor injection
 

I received a phone call from a fellow HHO experimenter who says he is removing his website and dropping HHO in favor of water injection. He claims WI is just as effective without the hassle and expense.

I have tried both systems, but not at the same time. Has anyone heard any credible evidence that would support the claim that WI is just as good as HHO?

I've leaned my engine out too ping and misfire in all load conditions. When i turn the water on and advance the timing all the power comes back. The key is metering and atomization. I'm working on a system now that has no valves or moveing parts. Not even a float bowl.

Was that in conjunction with HHO, or instead of?

No HHO. BTW I just gained almost 15 RWHP on my 97 F150 with a HAFC kit on it. NOT kidding!!
The way I'm injecting water in it the ECM is automatically advancing the timing. It's posted on the web somewhere how I'm doing it, but the site is down. I have not used the water yet on my F150 :cool:

i'd like to know more on water injection and what kits are available.

Here's a good article.

https://www.autospeed.com/A_107970/cms/article.html

I have the one from Snowperformance.net. It uses windshield washer fluid (20%meth/80%) water approx.

On diesels it increases your mileage by 1.6mpg. The second bonus is that it will clean out your combustion chamber of all of its carbon. If you have ever seen how perfectly clean a combustion chamber is when you are replacing a blown headgasket you will understand why this is a great upgarde.

I just went to the site they now have a max mpg version for diesels.
this is from one of their .pdf files.

Also, fresh methanol ? less than 1 month old when exposed to atmosphere ? and using a greater methanol concentration ? up to 50% -will reduce combustion quench.
100% water will cool combustion and EGTs and will increase power
approx 20-30 HP.
75/25 water/methanol will reduce EGTs and power will increase
approximately 40 HP.
50/50 water/methanol will reduce EGTs and increase power
approximately 70+ HP.

https://www.water-4-fuel.com/

hey i just saw this. its one of this sites sponsors. what you guys think?

LasPointe tested it and found no gain.

I tested it and found no gain...but I'm just an idiot.

Some think steam helps.

I think that maybe some water vapor is being put out by HHO generators...espec when run too warm.

There are several kits, but most are made more for increased performance, rather than increased mpg. I think the right person could get it to work for increased mpg, with the right nozzles and tuning.

Some discussion is here
https://www.aquamist.co.uk/phpBB2/vie...59741eb93e2ca9

Can HHO and water injection both be used on any car? I just recently found out about this site and these things are very intriguing to me. I had a few questions about what actually does work and cost. I'm no engineer or chemist so I read through some of the posts that you guys made and seems like both are great things. But since you guys are more experienced in these matters i was curious about your opinions if you have tried both. Also if you ever heard about Stan Meyer and his inventions, I dont know enough to make an informed opinion about whether he was legit or not seems he was along the right path. But his plans were supposedly all put on the internet now that he died. Have any of you researched those and tried to apply his ideas or plans to making a device similar to his?

Sorry Im all over the place with this subject because I'm new and I just have tons of questions.

www.aquatune.com has a lot of glowing testimonials. I tried the system on my 1979 Cutlass, with no change in power (by 1/4 mile) or mpg. However, I was using a throw-fuel-at-it-whether-it-needs-it-or-not Edelbroke carb and a cheap dist that has sticky advance weights, so I'm not ready to write off the system.

WOW $600 for it though and $400 to install if you ant do it yourself... I'm more interested in something somewhat affordable for those type of results. I mean to have someone like flapdoodle, who obviously knows his stuff, build one from the jars or whatever probably would be a more honest and affordable product. I'd rather go about a path like that.

eww aquatune.

I had bad luck with them

That is very kind of you. Thanks.
I started a new page on water injection. Note that I am not an expert on this.
https://flapdoodledinghy.com/H2O_injection.html

So far I am very pleased with it.

Flap lol it just seems you know your stuff is all. When I look at all this I get kinda confused and dont wanna even bother trying it. What about those hho bottles is there a cheap one that can be ordered or has anyone made an effective one that would be willing to help make one or make one and ship it?

I found when messing with water injection that finding a reliable valve that will shutdown enough to flow a reasonable amount of water is not easy to do....serious needle valves are costly...best bet is a model airplane engine valve. Valves tend to clog...as gas mower engine filter can be used to clean the water.

Found that running 1 qt of water into a 1.5L engine over 50 miles didn't kill it and cleaned the rings well enough to reduce oil usage until the next change. I was using MMOil as a top oil.

After getting the flow down to around 2% (2% of expected fuel use) I saw no increase in mpg and a loss of power when testing time from 25 to 55 mph in 5th gear.

Wanted to try wrapping the exhaust with a copper tube and running it thru that...but never did.

I do now run a pint of water thru the engine and flush the oil with a pint of kerosene each oil change.

Did you lean out the AFR? The idea is to use WI to prevent predetination under lean conditions. Ricers use WI with high boost and high compression to increase the power without destroying the motor. Most use a pump system with misting nozzles at WOT though. The latest trick is to use larger injectors and run E85 with a rich fuel map. MPG sucks, but they can make a lot of power.

Why not just use a venturi vaccuum to pull water mist in directly in front of the throttle plate? Meter the amount by the jet size. Just look at the venturi's on a big Holley. So at idle there will be no flow, at WOT max flow, at part throttle part water flow. Makes sense to me. Then of course lean out your AFR.

Really, NO WI or HHO injection system will gain anything unless you can control the AFR. Unless you just want to keep your pistons clean.

I have been thinking the same thing- venturi vacuum wil be low at idle and high at high load/flow- perfect for WI. This will work well for my carb- but do throttle bodies have venturi vacuum?

Not all have them. On the Holley 4160 for example, the older ones don't, the newer ones do. The connection below the plate is venturi vacuum, the one above is to the distributor advance.
https://www.holley.com/data/Products/...199R8108-2.pdf

If I was gonna do water vapor....

I'd make a "cooling tower" type evaporator, these have been used for water cooling by overclockers where they are known as "bong coolers"

Basically, I'd strap a 4" dia 3ft long pipe to my firewall... I'd connect the top to the air intake, then I'd have a T fitting on the bottom, with a pipe cap on the bottom end. The bottom would hold about a litre, but could be tube fed from a sealed reservoir mounted somewhere else. The other end of the T fitting would go to wherever you wanted to pull air from, maybe behind the grille, maybe behind the rad, it's up to you. There would be a sprayer mounted in the top of the tube, aimed downwards... the pump would pull from the bottom of the tube... filters may be necessary... the drops are flowing counter to the airstream due to gravity and will have a long time to evaporate... mostly you'll just get vapor in the intake, you might pull droplets at WOT, but at WOT it won't matter. Fill with methanol/water washer fluid to avoid freeze up problems. (Which might happen at up to 10C with regular water since you're supercooling the droplets)

If it don't put enough water in, loop the sprayer feed line around the exhaust downpipe a few times, or move the intake to warm air behind the rad, or use a finer spray head, or use a higher flow pump.

Anyway, this works as an on-demand system to a certain extent because at low airflow, not much water will be evaporated and more droplets will fall to the bottom to be recycled, whereas at higher airflow rates, more will be evaporated. Ideally you'd get it rigged so that at WOT on a warm day, droplets have just stopped being caught at the bottom of the tube. i.e. you're getting as much water in as the air can hold without using forced steam injection or something.

What I meant was to add a small venturi before the throttle plate. A small PCV coupler has a rounded bevel and would work. The holley I mentioned was an 850 double pumper that had small venturis in the main body. The accelarator pump also squirted though these. One the air velocity increased they sprayed fuel also from the power valve (or maybe the main jets).

I think as long as you get a mist of water it will turn to steam once at the intake valve. I might try this, since I have full control over my ECU. The parts to build this would be less than $10.

For those with carbs, you would have to lean it out by replacing jets. but when you ran out of water, this would be bad for the engine.

I have a switch on my dash so I can flip between stock programing and modded. So if I ran out of water, just flip back to normal. Or heck, place a float switch in the tank!

If anyone uses the stock washer tank, most have a low level switch that turns on a light. It is one of the simple safety nets for those who use WI for power.

Flapdoodle and Roadwarrior:

I am a fellow HHO experimentor. However I am not in your league. I am just getting started on acquiring the parts to build several HHO cells similar to the ones seen on Ozzie Freedoms website "water4gas.com".

I highly encourage everyone to look this site over. It makes a lot of sense to me. I recently bought his downloadable book for $97 which gives you easy to follow instructions on how to do it yourself with easy to find, off the hardware store shelf stuff. You can buy kits from fellow affiliates too. I am considering doing that, but want to prove it to myself first.

I met Ozzie in LA. A large group of HHO enthusiasts meet every Saturday. The directions to where they meet are on his web site. Ozzie gets 61 mpg using the combined HHO system and the water injection system on his Toyota Corolla.

I am just getting started on this stuff but I really value what you and "roadwarrior" has to say. I have enjoyed reading your experimentation with HHO so far and find it most interesting. I also value roadwarriors comments about HHO.

Roadwarrier says that a short-stroke engine would not do as well as a long-stroke engine for HHO. I am not sure of the difference since I am not that mechanically inclined to know the difference. But I assume my 1999 2.0L VW Jetta is a short stoke engine design?? I don't know. Maybe you or roadwarrior can enlighten me on that.

Anyways...I look forward towards reading your daily exploits with HHO and encourage you to look at water4gas.com. They put together a package that includes a simple HHO on-demand system, and a water injection system...both systems using mason jars, and other off the shelf technology such as preheating your gas line via routing it next to the top radiator hose, a PVC enhancer, MAP sensor enhancer and others. Look at the Free marketplace link on the website for people making kits around the country. Ozzie only sells the information of how to do it, not the kits.

Please check it out and let me know what you think. I will report my results with my experimentation over the next several months. Thanks and please keep me informed of your results so that I can learn from your past experience. Thanks again...

I guess there's more to it than short stroke vs long stroke, it's more to do with running compression and expansion ratio... if making enough H to speed up the burn substantially, then shorter stroke motors or lower compression motors may benefit from that, whereas if it's more the displacement of Nitrogen by steam as a "working fluid" that counts then longer stroke or higher compression motors are more likely to benefit more.

If Jetta motors are detuned from Euro spec to work better on lower octane gas here though, the cams might be set up to give a lower running than static compression ratio, which is favorable for HHO or water injection, because there's a better compression to expansion ratio, like in the Atkinson cycle, so effects of a "working fluid" that has better expansion might be a little greater.

Roadwarrior: On an earlier post about HHO you said this:

"So maybe on the perfect vehicle for it, long stroke, late closing, alternator always running, the gains may be quite impressive. However on the flip side, vehicles with shorter strokes, earlier intake closing, and ECU modulated alternators, you may see nothing at all, or maybe worse MPG".

I'm confused. You seem to be saying just the opposite now. I am not the gearhead you are....just trying to understand in layman terms what you are saying.

First off..give me an example of a short stroke vs long stroke engine...dont tell me "atkinsons" or whatever cause I don't know what that is my friend. Give me something concrete like a small bore 2.0L engine like my jetta vs. a big bore Chysler Hemi. Is that what you mean? What do I have specifically...my jetta?

Not being a smart aleck. I just don't know and I am trying to get a working knowledge before I jump into HHO with both feet. Thanks.

An engine that has a stroke that is the same as the piston diameter is said to be square. If the stroke is greater than the bore, it is long stroke, and if the stroke is shorter than bore diameter it is said to be short stroke.

I am wondering now if cylinder swept volume is a big factor, since there is (usually) just one spark plug and the flame will have to travel farther in (relatively) the the same amount of time.

This may be why some folks have to retard the ignition more than others when hydrogen is used.

My second water injection unit should be finished tonight. Maybe I will know a little more when it is tested. (BTW, big engine, short stroke)

Hmmm, yeah I keep trying to generalise.... so here's a try at clearing up what I mean...

In a shorter stroke motor, it's more likely that at lowish "normal driving" RPMs the expansion of the exhaust gases cannot move the piston fast enough, due to lack of leverage against the engine's inertia. At lower RPMs piston speeds are low, so adding more push at this point barely helps for fuel economy purposes. They become more efficient at higher RPMs and "rev high" because they can turn more RPMs before the piston is out accelerating the mixture.

Conversely in a longer stroke motor, the piston moves relatively faster at lower RPM and enhancing the ability of the burning/expanding mixture to keep up with it, would probably show more gains, and less stress is placed on the engine in the process.

Static compression is the theoretical compression that would result if the cylinder was sealed at bottom dead center. Running compression is what you actually get, due to valve timing (intake or exhaust closing late or early) The expansion ratio, is what you actually get out of the motor after combustion, this could be the same or higher as the running compression, but not higher than static compression. So if the motor is 11:1 static, and the intake closes when the piston is on the way up, some mixture is blown back out again, and the actual amount of mixture compressed may only be equivalent to 9:1, however, if the exhaust stays closed all the way to BDC, the expansion ratio could be 11:1. This can be more efficient because the engine does less work in compressing the mixture... So in an engine set up thus, with more expansion than compression, enhancing expansion of the combustion gases may have greater effect.

I may have found the optimal water injection rate for my car at least. The engine is lean as I dare at the moment. When the HHO is turned on, the idle increases, when the water injection (with methanol) is added, the idle increases some more and no ping.
https://flapdoodledinghy.com/auto/water_graph.gif

I marked off ounces on the side of an olive jar (because it is tall and thin to give a slightly more accurate reading). 4 ounces of Walmart windshield washer fluid ($1.48/gallon) was added and I timed how long it took to drop the level an appreciable amount, then measured and calculated the following:
.516 ounces/minute
$.0059/minute
248 minutes per gallon
$.35 per hour

Are you spraying the WWF or sucking it?

Sucking it in. The line is hooked to the vacuum venturi port. Flow is controlled by an irrigation dripper and a squashed 1/16" brass tube. The irrigation dripper is okay by itself for distilled water, but added restriction is needed for the water/methanol mix I am using now.

Sucking it in via the vacuum venturi port.
https://flapdoodledinghy.com/auto/vacuum_port.jpg

I have reached the limit on reducing the jet size at 31% smaller area than the original jets (#65). The car still runs ok with a slight reduction in mid range power, but not open throttle performance. The BIG disappointment is that I can no longer see any difference with the hydrogen generator turned on except at idle.

Perhaps the fellow that told me that you are better off with water/methanol injection instead of hydrogen is correct, at least on my car.

I finally have some real figures on mileage. Previously the best I could get in mostly town driving was 10 MPG. Sometimes that went as low as 8 in the winter.

With the HHO off, and the leaner jets and water/methanol injection I got 12.94 MPG (this is mostly stop-and-go driving). Much of the time the air conditioner was on, and I made a few performance runs that really suck up the gas. Not all of the time did it have the really small jets, just the ones I purchased that were 9% less flow. The main jets now are 31% smaller in area.

I can see no drastic reduction in power or acceleration.

This is very encouraging for a 5600 pound car with a 7.5 liter engine.

My previous MPG highway was 15.4. Hope to get that up to 20 MPG.

Guess I just have one of those cars that prefers water injection over HHO.

A 30% gain in city driving isn't peanuts?

You should find an econobox and set that HHO gen up in it?

Something to factor is is how much water/meth you used, and how much that cost. Just because you used less gas, doesn't mean you saved any money.

Not sure if you understood. The 30% gain was with water/methanol mix injected. So far I have seen NO gain with hydrogen in any test I have made, with any ICE. My experiments will not continue with hydrogen. They will continue with water mix injection.

.516 ounces/minute
$.0059/minute
248 minutes per gallon
$0.35 per hour

Average cost of water/methanol, city driving, 7 cents / gallon of gas used.

For this test with lots of stop and go miles the saving per gallon on gas is $.994 (actual measurements)

Guess I wasn't paying attention. With my one test of HHO...I lost mpg...but also had other stuff going on....currently testing again.


So I figure that on the highway at 55...you are typically using 3.5 gallons of gas per hour or 112 oz. And using 30 oz of washer fluid? (doesn't account for mpg gain)

The way I was figuring it when testing...your injection rate is around 26%...or 26% washer fluid relative to typical gas used.

When I was testing water injection...one time I used around 1 qt in 50 miles...or maybe 17% for this car....and I was afraid I'd messed up the engine. I finally got the flow down to 2% and tested a 10% loss in power and no mpg gain. I wasn't leaning it out any though. Straight water.

You might want to use some MMOil in the gas as a top lube? That water/methanol mix might be hard on the oil film?

I might give this a go this summer.

I have no idea where you got the figures in the first paragraph. None of the driving in that test was at 55 MPH. However, 3.5 gallons would equal 448 ounces, NOT 112. At the current rate the methanol mix consumption would be 30.96 ounces (or 6.9%) and cost 36 cents for the 3.5 gallons you quoted.

The loop through town where I have done all the tests has a max speed limit of 45, but in town it is 25 with lots of traffic lights and stop sign. I have owned the car for 24 years so I know that getting 13 miles to the gallon for this this type of driving is pretty incredible.

This is not the first time you have questioned my statements without checking your own math. Your statement that I am using 26% washer fluid makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Is this your idea of Leading the perpetually ignorant and uninformed into the light of scientific knowledge?

I am still wondering why you e-mailed me telling me I should not post to this forum. With a few exceptions, I find this to be the best of all the forums I have encountered, and sincerely hope that it stays that way.