converting V8 efi to hydrofuel hybrid

The biggest reason for the difference between the performance of a modern 2.5 litre petrol and a 30-year-old one is the efficiency with which it burns fuel, so I'd have thought that if anything can be done to increase that efficiency of an older engine then it'd be worth it. The only real question with the product is whether the efficiency gains over-ride the cost of making the gasses in the first place and that'd vary depending on engine I'd have thought. Chances are it'd be best on an old engine, but it does need a closed-loop EFI to work.

I think I'll let someone else try it out, but it sounds like it

The website is noticeably short of figures, but at £499 per unit, for it to be economic, it's got to save 500 or 600 litres of fuel over its lifetime. Add in an unspecified amount of Potassium Hydroxide at unspecified intervals, at a fiver a tub, (Or, possibly, vinegar at whatever the supermarket's selling it at) and the claim that it needs distilled water or rainwater to operate properly, so it's only got to decrease the fuel consumption by not far off 3% over an average 10 year life at 20 mpg. Most people vary that much just by variation in driving from day to day. Naturally, there are no claims about how much fuel it can save on the website......

The other downside is that the small unit absorbs about a horsepower, the large one 2 horsepower, once you take the alternator inefficiency into account.

It would be interesting to see some real life figures.

It's a tub of rat spunk.

On or around Fri, 6 Feb 2009 08:14:51 +0000, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:

Oh, I'm sure it does *something* However, you don't get anything for nothing, and the engine is generating power to make the device work, which reduces the efficiency overall. If the thing takes getting on for 1hp to operate as someone said, well, I know my 3.9 is rated at 185hp, but the point is that in most normal motoring I only use about 30 or 40 of those horses. 1hp in 30hp, that's about 3% reduction in MPG. and I daresay they'd tell me I need the bigger one that uses 2hp...

I thought about this from the POV of supplying extra oxygen from an O2 bottle, to allow for more fuel and therefore more power from the same engine.

Start looking at the gas flow rate through e.g. a 2-litre 4 stroke doing

You don't get anything for nothing, but you don't need to be able to in order for this thing to potentially work. I've had a few cracks at explaining why not now, so I'll not have any more, but this is not one of those "you don't get anything for nothing" things.

In article , Dieseldes writes

Oh dear.

Oh dear, oh dear.

No. The principle in use here is that of 'find the lady'.

Go Google again...

People hi,

I have fitted as similar system in my 1993 evented CT Discovery 200Tdi.

Eventhough it appears to have had no serious results in decreasing fuel consumption it made a READ difference as far as black smoke from the exhaust and performance from the engine is concerned.

The person who sold it to me said that he will have to fine tune it in order to provide a more significant result in relation to fuel consumption.

The fuel consumption decrease I noted was around 0.5 to 1.0 lt per 100 Km (the usual fuel consumption is ranging at around 12 to 14 lt/100 Km)

But as far as engine performance is concerned even my wife was impressed with how much better it pulls and how "sweeter" the engine sounds losing the characteristic rattle of the Tdi by a significant margin.

If anyone would like to see some photos please let me know.

Take care Pantelis

In article , Pantelis Giamarellos writes

That's the anti-knocking effect of introducing water to the combustion chamber. The Americans used to do that with high-compression petrol engines (P38 Mustang?) during WWII, but the engines and fuel systems concerned were intended to do that. The phase change in the water (to steam) absorbs some waste heat energy and converts it to physical force. It's one reason why diesels really do run better on wet days (at the right temperatures).

Regarding the electrolysis stuff: snake oil, sadly. Using 13-15V will create a negligible amount of hydrogen and oxygen, and if anything your fuel consumption will go up, because of the inefficiencies of the electrolysis process and the additional load you place on the alternator (electrical energy is not 'free': it requires power from the engine, and it's not especially efficient on motor vehicles).

As an aside, one useful 'green' rule ought to be a requirement to publish the conversion efficiency of such things in normal use. I'll guess there is a huge difference in efficiency between alternator designs, and between new and old ones. If we're serious about reducing energy consumption this, and the corresponding conversion efficiencies of motors and other appliances, is a vital bit of information.

Sadly, your fuel consumption change is probably too small to be significant, unless you can really control the circumstances so as to be very systematic about the measurements.

Regards,

S.

PS: To my pleasant shock, the solar heating kicked in around 11AM yesterday. I happened to be in the attic next to the pump when it started up and I was so surprised I went out in the back lane to look at the roof: the panels were surrounded by snow, but their own covering had slid off completely. I don't think we got a huge amount of energy off them, but considering the temperature didn't go much above zero until at least 1430h, I don't think that was too bad.