On the one hand, you say it is physically impossible because it violates the first law of thermodynamics.
On the other hand, you say it is not physically impossible and would not violate the first law of thermodynamics, but you would have to tune the O2 sensor (and EFIE, and ECU, and MAP, and IAT).

That's a pretty substantial reversal in the setting of a counterfactual claim of certainty.

A review of my comments above will indicate I accounted for the need to tune in my requirements for any video making a claim, and I point out that popular mechanics failed to do this when they "debunked" HHOs in their testing. It might be true that HHOs don't work, but you certainly won't figure that out if you don't attempt to tune the engine. A piggyback controller for the ECU is also in original video I posted of the guy with the Disco, and is referenced in the subsequent post.

Here is an example device claiming to do this - https://www.hho-1.com/hydrogen-hho-controller-tuning/
and a video of him tuning it - I'm relatively unimpressed by this video, for what it's worth, but it speaks to your point -
Making businesses in tech hardware is hard. You need startup funding, prototypes, testing, sourcing circuit boards, quality control for manufacture, marketing, employee salaries for the day in/day out, etc.

I don't think it's very reasonable to just dismiss what is a *nonimpossible claim* (it does not violate the first law of thermodynamics if you are reducing the amount of fuel injected per cycle because you have instructed the engine to do just that) based on "my hunch is this wouldn't work" when confronted with this level of effort. I have seen many "gas saver" bs things, and they all are completely cheap plastic that cost the person nothing to produce, often literally taking something that actually works for something else (like an actually functional fan, or an LED light in an ODB reader) and spending no money on a website instructing you to put it in your intake for "fuel savings." Making a fraudulent website doesn't cost anything. These systems clearly do, not the least of which is the energy and effort of the installers.

This level of investment could only be sustained by success or fraud (pyramid scheme), and HHOs do not appear so popular that they are getting enough new buyers to justify all the obvious costs. Unless it works and the engineering pans out, in which case getting investors is not as hard and there is a grassroots community fighting for it, which there seems to be.

Again, none of this is evidence that it works, but none of the arguments stated ("it's physically impossible except it's not but it would be hard and I don't feel right about it.") is evidence that it can't.

Thanks everybody, I was looking to see if anybody was interested in trying to help force a proved solution, sounds like I was only able to solicit those willing to theorize an untested conundrum. Appreciate the challenges though, I may not have heard anything novel and scary but that's good news if I'm considering the attempt.

 

I have an electric fan and I'm here to say I don't notice any difference in mpg or power. I'm planning to go back to the normal fan setup as I did find the one flaw in having an E fan as a major part of the cooling system.

That major flaw is if you lose your alternator when you are outside a major metropolitan area you have about 18 minutes of drive time before lights out. Of course once the ALT is dead the E Fan runs off the battery and depletes it very quickly and I don't plan to carry a spare alternator every time I go off grid.

Sorry for the deviation from the topic but if this one feature of his mod is wrong, others could be as well.

 

Agree, I've been interested in a Mark Adams Tornado chip for a while, and frankly still am even with this recent excitement.

 

No, it cannot work. It's a scam.

Yes, it violates laws of thermodynamics. The amount of electricity needed to seperate water into HHO is greater than the amount of energy that can be harnessed from that HHO.

Your alternator, plus a catalyst cannot efficiently create an excess of HHO to increase your gas mileage. Even. If you add a hard catalyst such as mercury and aluminum, the amount of energy to create the aluminum is greater than the energy gained by burning the resulting hydrogen.

Car companies spend $100 of millions on getting a tenth of a mile more mileage to meet CAFE laws, if HHO were even remotely possible, car companies would spend billions on it, as it would mean tens of billions more in annual profits.

 

This is only a true statement if inefficiency does not exist within the engine already, or if it were not possible to shift inefficiencies to parts of the equation that do not require volume of fuel consumed to remain constant.
This is obviously untrue, or tuning vehicles of any kind (or octane changes) could never increase efficiency.

So while I still make no claims that HHO can "fill the gap" (perhaps even an imaginary one) - I have not yet been convinced that the this is a physical impossibility when nobody is claiming that electrolysis is a net-gain reaction.
Sounds like we are at an impasse regarding knowledge, and evidence will speak louder than theory. I'm willing to be wrong, but only with challenging effort.

 

That is not what I said. You are conflating two of my points.

I said that:
1. Assessing the use of hydrogen strictly as a fuel in the manner suggested, using hydrolysis to make hydrogen and then using hydrogen in an engine cannot make more energy than is put in according to the first law of thermodynamics.
2. Given what is said in 1, the remaining assertion that could be made (from the makers of these systems) is that the hydrogen somehow increases the efficiency of the fuel burning in the gas engine (ie through flame propagation, engine temperature reduction, etc), so that you make better use of the gasoline fuel you are already using. The hydrogen as a catalyst, etc. That would require significant tuning to get right. Sort of like how nitrous / meth injection can be used to change engine performance.

Does it actually reduce the time the injectors are open by measuring the amount of hydrogen in the system or modify the signals to the ECU? I'm guessing probably the latter. The latter alone could contribute to the MPG numbers by providing 'false' data to the ECM. Thus going back to what I said earlier about things the ECU assumes are constants are actually variables.

I agree.

You are looking at the evidence provided though a biased lens. Popular Mechanics looked into this:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a3499/4276846/
https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a3983/4310717/

I'd believe Popular Mechanics over some vague youtube videos. I'm all for increasing fuel economy, but I'm not convinced about this.

 

Popular Mechanics
Summary of the first article is supportive of the core tenets of this discussion, reducing inefficiency:
"a system of modifications that disables the engine management's computer and makes the engine run extremely lean--as lean as 20:1. That's far from the normal 14.7:1. The hydrogen is necessary to let the ultralean mix burn completely [as claimed by HHO people]"
"That means you might have to disable--and perhaps remove--the system to pass the annual smog test. Just don't get caught in between."
"I had another long talk yesterday with Steve Rumore, my off-road buddy turned HHO donater. He's experimenting with several vehicles, and actually getting some consistent results--fuel-economy improvements to the tune of 10 to 12 percent on diesel trucks pulling trailers."

Summary of the second article is not supportive of the primary outcome whatsoever:
"we did weeks of testing, it definitely doesn't work."

It then linked to this video, which I watched, and which seemed to contain obvious fraudsters conducting a clear scam with poor technical knowledge and sales pitch designed to separate fools from their money:

Ok then. Seems legit.

 

This site has an excellent review of the subject:

https://www.aardvark.co.nz/hho_scam2.shtml

Summary - as suspected, the principles hydroxy gas injection into engine intake are sound, and doing so can indeed increase thermal efficiency by as much as 15%.

However, it is expected that hugely impractical volumes of gas would be required, and for the road conditions used on these devices it is almost certainly not happening. Also, nobody has been able to conduct controlled testing to the author's satisfaction for what should be a relatively straightforward request.

The argument being made is that *some* of those people who are reporting higher MPGs may *actually indeed* be seeing higher MPGs just from running their engines lean - however they must also be seeing increased exhaust gas temperatures and it is not worth the likely breakdown costs.
- incidentally, this is also a likely argument in favor of why car companies do not do it, because redesigning engines have failed to scale and adding on to existing ones affects reliability, let alone if they just aren't getting any extra up front value in the first place

This is why the original post was listed in the way it was, because someone claimed to have had one running for 60K miles without messing up his motor, and why identifying that specific installation as true/false would affect basically all downstream considerations.

This has been fun

 

New here, I've never tried these HHO kits, but I want to try one some day. I think they would work and I have some reasons for thinking that.

I've added fuel additives before and they made a very noticeable difference in rev and power. And that was just a very small bottle. If you add enough HHO to the intake it would have a similar effect (different chemistry) but it would at least do something. But you might also have to lean out the fuel. I think that most people who try to debunk this don't actually change the timing and lean out the fuel, they forget this part so they don't see a MPG increase. I also saw this guy's video and his truck looks cool. If he's not selling the kit, then why would he lie?

 

The insinuation isn't that he's lying, it's that he's wrong.

FYI, he also has a flat Earth video on his YouTube feed, and he's got other somewhat "I know the way and the truth/light" stuff, so there might be an air of self-importance deluding his objectivity and reason.

If you find anyone who is doing the following, please post the videos here:
1) On/off switch for HHO showing RPMs increase by ~30% at idle without adding gasoline. Note: not increase load on engine, increased RPMs with equal load, indicating a change in thermal efficiency that could be explained by hydroxyl gas catalytic injection.

2) Someone reliably demonstrating equal distance traveled with reduced volumes of fuel used with HHO on.

I haven't found either of these and it is a conspicious absence.