Trying somthing pretty crazy

[nate2023]

Hey,
After thinking what should i do about my 16MPG GAGT, i thought. Why not try somthing crazy. I'm in the process of fabricating a Hydrogen booster for my car, it wont make the car run 100% on it maybe just 10%, like i said a "booster" i heard on some other vehicles it increased gas mileage by 7MPG and a little more torque. I'm thinking about an 11 plate system to seperate H2O into HHO and suck it through a vacuum line. currently going to test it on like a lawn mower first. Wish me luck and that i dont explode or anything.

[SikMindz]

What about some SeaFoam/Top Engine cleaner and a tune-up?


I dunno...just a suggestion.

[Ajaxus]

just curious as to what methods of improving gas mileage you have tried so far, if any.

[lone_wolf025]

Umm, quite frankly unless you're a highly skilled engineer I wouldn't mess with that stuff. You do realize the amount of time and money it'll take to even safely attempt something like that don't you? You could buy a brand new car for the cost, and you may wind up having to do that if you attempt that as you could very well destroy your engine.


16 is about average for our cars. If you really want more go with sik's suggestion. Also check the usual stuff of tire pressure and wear, ensure engine is in good working order, drive in D rather than 1,2, or 3, feather the throttle don't gun it, etc etc.

[nate2023]

i'm really good with stuff like this, i do have a engineer professors helping me, its really not that expesive to make, just the cost of all that stainless steel. Its not going to be producing alot of hydrogen, and i will be using a regulator and other safety devices so if there is a falure the unit will shut down and the other device keeps anything from backing up into the main system. Like i said, testing it in something else like a lawn mower or go-cart first. I have seafoamed the car and a tune up (which i have to do again to get those crappy platinum +2 plugs the hell outta my car!) i saw it done by an amatuer on a 2007 Mercury Millan. Research first of course!

[nate2023]

P.S. I never drive in 1,2, or 3, i'm afraid my tranny will explode, my car has 100k miles on it.

[eric99gt]

So you never use 1st 2nd or 3rd gear?

[nate2023]

...as in never drive with it locked into 1st 2nd or 3rd on the shifter, just D all the time. Duh.

[Ajaxus]

So you never use 1st 2nd or 3rd gear?

overdrive..i use them for winter driving, alot of people use them for racing. imo there's no other excuse than those two reasons for using them. *shrug*

[nate2023]

speaking of winter my tires are almost bald, i have no money, crap.

[Rich]

i have faith in you bro. shut these haters up.

[eric99gt]

...as in never drive with it locked into 1st 2nd or 3rd on the shifter, just D all the time. Duh.

I know how it works. Just the way you worded it was off. I never drive in 1st 2nd or 3rd gear implies that you think just because you have it in D that in never engages these gears. I was just making sure. :asshat

[Ajaxus]

technically he never said "gear".. :D

goto sleep eric, lol

[Mike Jung]

overdrive..i use them for winter driving, alot of people use them for racing. imo there's no other excuse than those two reasons for using them. *shrug*
How about when climbing/descending steep hills ?
Or when you are towing ?

You would be stupid not to gear down...

[DrFabulous]

change air filter
change fuel filter
use a different gas station
change oil/filter
seafoam
change plugs



If you aren't averaging 20 MPG after that, your engine is messed.

[WeibSunder]

My car has 103,xxx miles on it, and I average 19 city, and 30-32 hwy. But I keep my engine serviced and my WAI filter cleaned.

[nate2023]

Alright i have 11 9 X 7 stainless steel plates cut and ready to go, thanks all the non-haters. Now the hard part, getting all the plates 1.3MM apart and doing all the wiring, i have somone at RIT helping me with the wiring now!

[WeibSunder]

Sweet, good luck. And you KNOW you must post pics of your progress.

[nate2023]

yea, just need to borrow friends camera, mine broke!

[drumking1721]

i have faith in you bro. shut these haters up.

ditto

[Panacea]

Good luck. It'll be nice to see how it turns out. Oh, as for the mileage, do you have lead strapped to your foot? I know that could be part of the problem.

I averaged 17mpg in the winter time all city driving. I think i averaged 19-20 during the summer months.

[onesexyga]

I've got 80k on mine and i get 28 mpg. I also drive like a grandma (<2,500 rpm's).

Good luck. Post pics. Ill be interested to see how it comes out.

[Bryan]

Good luck dude.

[GregFarz78]

um something is seriously wrong with your car if its only getting 16mpg I regularly got 20+mpg in the city when I had my GA, take it to a mechanic instead of wasting time/money on something that probably wont work

is it just me or did anyone else notice his signature and see a common pattern?

[timka86]

I heard about this about a year and a half ago, decided to see if the theory works.

I didn't want to throw a lot of money into it, just to see if it worked. Planning on going back to it some day, I'd be cool to see what your design is.

I used large diameter pvc, with plugs on each end, dropped in my stainless stell assembly, which actually was stainless steel wallplates from home depot. I got some threaded rods, and rubber gromets, and nuts. drilled two holes in each plate, every other plate had a gromet so it didn't touch the opposite polarity rod. they were probably about 3mm apart.

The trick is using the right water, and getting the voltage right.

Tap water - is not clean, the impurities will will begin to show in the water with in hours of running it. Use distilled water. Distilled water has no negative ions, so itwont work by itself, You have to add something like salt. After reading online about it, KOH (potassium hydroxide) is what people recommend, this stuff if a better then salt, BUT CAUSTIC. it will eat your skin.

You can get it on ebay cheap. I think I paid 10$ for half gallon bucket. it comes in flake form.

The more you add to the water the more ions, the more the contraption will draw power. It was drawing over 30 amps, the wires I was holding were hot. so it's not safe. Get an ampmeter to monitor this.

It looks almost like it boils, the solution does get a warm when you plug it in, but only warm. You'll also see that if you add a lot of KOH, water, with no power, will get warm. Too much KOH and it'll get scalding hot.. (I've done it)

And I tested to see if it was really hydrogen coming out. It actually isn't just hydrogen, it's both hydrogen and oxygen(sometimes called E gas), both highly explosive. I trapped the gas in a zip lock bag, and set a candle on the ground, It was maybe 1/5 of a gallon ziplock bag, but boy was it a bang. My face was about 5-6 feet away, I felt the air past my ears.... my ears rang for a little while

Keep us updated.

[timka86]

And another thing, I read that if you pulse the DC volts, you get even better results, more efficeint, not requiring so much power.

SOmething like a PWM (pulse width modulator) used to control DC motors or LED's. But you need a high power one to handle the amperage.

Also the stainless steel plates will work better if you make them rough, or drill holes, the more surface area you have the more results.

good luck

[nate2023]

GregFarz, that pattern is because i'm not rich and i bought cheap cars, the one was even free and didnt run good at all when i got it. and its not like all of that happend overnight, if this doesnt work in the car, then cheap heating for a room or donation to a school is fine.

[DrFabulous]

You have problems that you need to fix before you attempt something like this.

[nate2023]

To timka86, thanks for the constructive feedback and the suggestions. I have somone at RIT making me a pulsing device, and a couple people at the U of R helping me also. this system is going to use 11 plates each plat has a 1/2"X1/2" cut out of the corner so i can alternate them so i can drive one bolt for + one for - and have good support also. I'm going to take 1 day in 2hr intervals to "condition" the plates. future plans if it works okay is to get a pump rigged in it so the water thats in it is constantly getting filtered.

The only thing thats wrong with my car right now it i need to get the Boche Platinum +2 out of my car, and change the tranny filter/fluid.
I have OCD when is comes to how my car is running, low gas mileage is due to my heavy foot
My car runs NICE and SMOOTH with no bogging, pinging, knocking, or exploding.

This is just a project.

[DrFabulous]

I just can't imagine getting that kind of milage out of a GA without something being horribly wrong! haha

Even when I ragged the crap out of my 2.4, I couldn't get less than 22 mpg. Granted, it was a four banger, but still. Even my 200hp 3.0 Mazda 6 gets upwards of 21 mpg with a HEAVY foot, and that thing is heavier than the GA.

[nate2023]

*iagree* but you have a better motor, those boche plugs probably arent helping.

[DrFabulous]

Better motor is up for debate, its a Ford Duratec motor lol



I'd bet switching back to AC Delco platinums will get you some good gains in mpg

[nate2023]

Alright i put NGK Iridiums in and did my tranny Filter/fluid gas mileage has been restored, so far i have the stainless steel cut and the circut is almost done, a durable container is going to be my problem, i'm going to take a visit to the University of Rochester and see if my friend will make me a suitable container to hold the small pressure. I'm going to use pulsed DC. First, i test it on an old lawn mower :)

In other news, my resonator has like 5 small holes in it, and its starting to get noisy. Deletion time!

Thanks to all the people who gave me constructive feedback.

[timka86]

so what's the status/verdict?
Got pics?

you shouln't have pressure built up, it should be released right away. You just want a container that wont get eaten by the corrosive KOH.

[SSRacer]

Didn't mythbusters debunk this contraption?

I can get anywhere from like 18 to 25 MPG just by adjusting my driving. I usually average a hair over 20. Been keeping my foot out of it a lot more with the way gas prices are.

[Ajaxus]

slowing down became instinctive for me after i got my radar detector..gas prices have slowed me down further..i used to drive like crazy and barely get 180 out of a tank..now i get about 240 in the city..its nuts what a light foot can do for your savings. :D

[timka86]

Actually, speaking of mythbusters, they did a horrible job with testing this myth.

I did research on this topic, not for school or anything, and they did a really crappy job making the hydrogen booster. I was disappointed, i figured with their resources, they would be able to come up with something better. Cuz I got WAY WAY better results at making hydrogen then they did. Their contraption barely bubbled. Mine looked like it was boiling.

http://www.hydrogen-boost.com/February%202006.html

read that site. they sell a kit, $1000, a lot I know, but you can make your own at home for way less then that, prolly most expensice part is the SS plates.

but what they add in addition to their hydrogen booster is a fuel heater. They literaly head the gasoline going into the engine, in a safe way.

A copper tube is soldered in such a way that engine coolent heats the inside of the tube, and they put this inline with the stock fuel line. heats fuel to about 150*, with energy loses during transfer, cuz engine coolent gets up to 200*. So when gas is sprayed out of the injector, it atomizes instantaneously, burns better. They did some dyno runs, it give more power too.

Now just so you know they're not running major gains, but basically with the setup they sell, their 40 mpg saturn get's 60mpg. there's a video.

they sell their setup on ebay too, for $900. Now if mythbusters had done anything remotely close to this, they would have at least made more hydrogen. Their contraption made like 3 bubbles.

http://waterpoweredcar.com/hydrobooster.html antoher link, with more info.

hydrogen boosters do improve gas mileage, you probably can't make one big enough, or it's not worth the resources to make one big enough to make enough hydrogen to have the engine run on just hydrogen from the booster. but in conjuction with gasoline. When hydrogen burns it also cleans the carbon build-up in your engine.

[Graxall]

slowing down became instinctive for me after i got my radar detector..gas prices have slowed me down further..i used to drive like crazy and barely get 180 out of a tank..now i get about 240 in the city..its nuts what a light foot can do for your savings. :D

heh getting rid of my radar detector has stopped the ticket flow for me...

[Ajaxus]

eh..for me it showed me how many cops really are out there..i only speed on highways now

[nate2023]

getting the stainless steel plate cut soon, found a good container and going to test on lawn mower first without ANY gas, lol. More people from RIT and U of R are going to help. and yea, mythbusters one sucked, there MANY different ways of making a Electrolyser. For me i found pulsing the DC works better and keeps it from generating alot of nasty heat. And the 9 X 7 plates where a little too big, i'm getting them back soon.

sorry about no pictures, my camera took a nasty fall, getting a new one soon.

[DumpsterDamon]

sorry about no pictures, my camera took a nasty fall, getting a new one soon.
creating a hydrogen booster for that too?

[Matt95GT]

<-- lols @ spending money to save money, especially on something shown many times not to do anything.

[timberwoof]

Have you blown yourself up yet? And why haven't we seen pics yet?

[Caleb]

As far as heating the fuel goes... wouldn't it be the opposite that is true?

Chilling the fuel would give the desired effect... more power, therefore a slight decrease in the amount needed to achieve the same result.

Warming fuel will give you better acceleration from a stand still, but youll end up getting ping and have to retard the timing a bit. Not to mention you'll get vaporlock during idle.

Speed freaks have been chilling their fuel for decades for more power... warming it would just end up countering any gains netted by your device.

[nate2023]

Where did heating the fuel come from? lol. Its not my Gas i'm heating, sending power through water to split the atom generates heat but its at the unit not at the motor. So far i have the case made and i got a new camera phone so pictures (even though low quality) will come up soon (i'll get really close, lol). The case is made from ABS plastic. And i never heard of drilling holes in it to increase product, i can see how it will help because i'm allowing more flow. I am doing a pulsed DC, i've seen where it keeps the heat it generates down. My friend still has the plates so i'll send him new CAD drawings.

[Caleb]

My bad, I misunderstood.

In any case, I really hope to see you finish this. Worst case scenario, you blow up it does nothing. (kidding)

Heh, I wonder how dangerous this is on a turbo'd engine?

[mr03SCT]

i wonder what happened to this?

[Ajaxus]

probably nothing

[Exodus]

Or he didn't get past Thanksgiving....

[timberwoof]

boooooom!

[lone_wolf025]

Didn't the mythbusters test out something like this and found out it was useless?

[2laze]

good luck on project. check out e-bay. i am looking into doing the same to mine plus adding carbon fiber hood, fenders and trunk with the money i save from the gas. i will hate to trade my car for an egg on wheels.

[Cormaster]

I love how GM advertised the car as "21 and 29" on the sticker, yet I think I got an average of about 17mpg with the GAGT. Sounds like I'm not the only one who has had bad economy. Good luck with your soloution hope it works out for yah

[cardude007617]

well i know mine gets 30+ on the highway with a heavy system in the trunk and someone else in the car... but ya, i think its the city ratings that are pretty far off....

[gaowners32]

well i know mine gets 30+ on the highway with a heavy system in the trunk and someone else in the car... but ya, i think its the city ratings that are pretty far off....


I drive all highway and I only get about 28mpg( cruise control on 55 all the time) so :amraam: