Injection and Turbo masters,
Has anyone here looked into this company? www.aquatune.com
I can buy some of it, but I get leary of "sonic-waves separating the hydrogen from the oxygen" line that they give. Any feedback? Any benefit over Snow or the Devil's Own kits? Maybe another lead for all the turbo guys out there....

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225 Cubic Inches of Iron-Head American Muscle

225 bored .040 /.100 off block, Schneider Cam 224@.050~ .480 lift - Stock valves, blended bowls, Offenhauser intake with 500 Edelbrock carb

When a company has to resort to handwaving and BS like "sonic waves separating the hydrogen from the oxygen", I am forced to assume their product is garbage, otherwise it would stand on its own merits. I'm also forced to wonder what other lies they're telling me, and to conclude they consider me stupid.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

I would look at one of the more reputable companies, or doing it myself.
http://www.rbracing-rsr.com/waterinjection.html

Warning- Crude language and images, but real world tech experience. I would at least read it, and get a better feel for the technology.

Ow, my freakin' eyes!

I'm with you, that site has a ton of what looks like very high quality information. I don't know nearly as much about water injection as they do, but the technical writing is broad and deep enough to contain stuff I do know about, and I detect zero BS.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

The theory is sound, and their product is intriguing, but their language is a bit of a turn off. It reminds me of the ads from JC Whitney catalogues. This idea though has been around in some form or another since WWII. It does keep the engine cleaner, and it does offer the POTENTIAL for improved economy. But there are no hard numbers that I have seen yet. There are now guys playing around with this stuff in one form or another all over the world. I am toying with a couple of them myself right now, but have no definitive results, other than to say that so far it keeps the plugs cleaner, and does SEEM to run smoother. I need to get this car tuned up right in base form before I can run any kind of comparison.

I have read many, many web sites talking about this type of add-on to internal combustion engines for both trucks and cars, and am not skeptical of the basic idea, but am skeptical of the claims they make. You read claims of improvements ranging from 10% to 100% in MPG. I think this company's claims are too optomistic myself. Although there are guys out there claiming such improvements, I have not seen it yet with my own eyes.

Hydrogen is actually fairly easy to get seperated from water, and it seems reasonable that this device is indeed doing so. One of the problems is that every application seems to require a different tune, and lots of fiddling to figure out how to best set them up. So, hard data is hard to come by. I suspect that the claims are highly exagerated, but that does not mean it is worthless.

Another problem is that on a modern car, the O2 sensor is constantly trying to correct what it sees as an error once you introduce hydrogen into the mix, since the stochiometric mix with Hydrogen included is no longer 14.7:1. If you read the charts included with wide band O2 sensors, they will tell you what the ratios are for various types of fuels with various additives. So if you are thinking of adding this to a car managed with a feedback O2 sensor, you must go far deeper into it to really get the most out of it.

This company's price is about in the middle of the pack as far as what various companies are charging now for this type of device. I have seen them as high as $1000, and as low as $150. I would do a search on the internet, and read long and hard before you get too excited. Just type in Water injection, and then water/hydrogen injection or some such thing. A list a mile long will come up. After a bit, you will see some things in common to all the systems, which begins to lend some credibility to the idea. It is not just one guy blowing smoke. You will find some sites that will tell you how to build your own at home. They really are quite simple.

Do some shopping and educating of yourself before you jump into such a device. Don't expect too much, and or else be prepared to be disappointed with the results. But keep good records, and see for yourself it it works. Let us know then.

Sam

Sam

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Call. I don't agree, but it's certainly possible I'm overlooking something. How do you suppose this or any other water injection or ingestion system separates the H and the O in water from each other?

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Sam,

If water really could be easily reduced to H2 and O you could solve the energy crisis. At least until the oil companies arranged for your untimely demise.

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Joshua

In reality, the hydrogen/Oxygen bond in water is extraordinarily difficult to break. It requires either a rather sizeable amount of energy or a sacrificial material with higher affinity for oxygen than has hydrogen. If it were easy to do we'd all be driving molecular hydrogen powered vehicles and emission controls would be a relic of the past. This is an area of massive research now and progress is painfully slow.

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David Kight
'62 Valiant Signet, White
'98 Dodge Dakota
'06 Jeep Liberty

Growing older is unavoidable but growing up is strictly optional.

The problem is getting large amounts of hydrogen broken away from water efficiently. But you can break it away in small amounts with low current (3-4 volts) on electrodes that intertwine but don;t touch. It is not difficult to do. I am doing it now everyday with a small hydrogen generator in my basement. I don;t make pure hydrogen. I make what is called Browns Gas, after the guy who discovered it years ago. It is also called hydrolized water. Do a Google search on Browns Gas, . It has other names as well. The "free' hydrogen ion remains ionized in the water, where it is very easy to then seperate. It is kind of like disolving sugar or salt in water. This does not form a new, different molecule as you would get in a chemical reaction. There is a very tenuous bond between two molecules that is broken away when the water evaporates.

But you cannot make it cost effective to break away enough hydrogen to run a car on hydrogen alone. What most guys are doing is something similar to this chap and injecting or sucking the hydrogen/water vapor combo into the vacuum where it acts as an additive, not a primary fuel. I don;t know if this advertised device works, or what his process is. I just said it is possible. I wouldn not buy it without reading more about the entire closet industry that is growing up around this.

Now here is the thing that will really freak you out, For the most part, I drink the hydrolized water. I drink two glasses a day, mixed in with fruit juice. It is a very powerful antioxidant, as the hydrogen ion wants to join up with the free oxygen radicals that older peoples bodies create and that eventually can be the cause of cancer. The hydrogen joins up with the free oxygen in the blood, and creates, (guess what?), water. It is kind of like eating a ton of brocoli or tomato sauce every day. It is especially good for prostate, and urinary tract health since this stuff goes right through there.

Now, back to the car, since I have this device, I decided to try it on the car. It certainly has not hurt anything, and eventually I will have some real data to work with. In the end this entire thing may turn out to be alot of noise, and nothing real, but I intend to watch, and experiment a bit on my own. If you want more details on how the hydrolized water interfaces with the induction system, I will tell you more.

I am sure you all know that there is an entire conspiracy theory cult out there that is convinced that the big business interests have kept this stuff suppressed for years. Well, now that the internet exists, this buzz is no longer suppressible. It's proponents are convinced it will turn out to be something real, and will help solve the energy crisis. I take no such position. If it is something real it will flourish, and we will see some results eventually. If it is not real, then it will die and the conspiracy theories will die as well, since they will no longer be able to claim big business exerted unfair pressure. The info is out there for all to play with. I have to say I am skeptical, but interested, and hopeful as well.

Sam

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Well, since I readily recognize that I don't know everything I'm certainly willing to have a look at it but I am skeptical to say the least.

My understanding of water injection is that it simply cools and slows the combustion process so that it is more controlled and less prone to spontaneous detonation. The water itself adds no energy to the equation but facilitates the process of converting the stored energy in the fuel to useable kinetic energy rather than wasted heat. Methanol added to the mix does burn but I don't believe its contribution to be significant; again I believe it is primarily a cooling agent.

One thing I do know, however; conspiracy theories never die. All efforts to refute and debunk them only adds to their momentum. There's always a bogeyman hiding in the corner to lend credence to them, no matter how bizarre or far fetched they seem to rational people.

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David Kight
'62 Valiant Signet, White
'98 Dodge Dakota
'06 Jeep Liberty

Growing older is unavoidable but growing up is strictly optional.

Well, yeah — you can get H2 to fizz off an electrode in saltwater with just a couple of penlight batteries or even just a couple of carefully-selected fruits, and that kind of thing — but low current (or low voltage) doesn't imply anything about efficiency. The energy content of the hydrogen released is less than the energy required to break the hydrogen off the oxygen, regardless of the method used to achieve that breakage.
I still haven't seen any support for the notion that the benefits of water injection are from hydrogen (the benefits are from the water itself). If indeed any hydrogen is split off from the water in the process of being injected, which would itself be something of an interesting trick to achieve, the energy required to do so would not be exceeded by the energy available by burning the hydrogen, so it would be less-than-zero-sum. Not much of a market for a fuel additive that consumes more power than it produces...
Doesn't freak me out. Antioxidant theory is well grounded in science and has a mountain of quality data behind it. Maybe if you carry a tank of hydrolised water in your car, you'll never get into a traffic oxidant! (this reminds me of the poor-quality French we see on Canadian "bilingual" product packaging at the grocery. I saw a vitamin bottle that said "Antioxidant protection" on one side and "Protection contre les antioxydants" ("protection against antioxidants") on the other.
Does it taste any different to regular water?
Yes please! I am always interested in seeing & learning something new.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Here's another great site about water injection, maintained by Eric Fahlgren:

http://www.not2fast.com/thermo/water_injection/

It's pretty heavy on the technical side. Eric explains that water is both an anti-detonant and a catalyst in this case. That doesn't mean it necessarily increases the amount of energy released, but it does have some rather complicated effects on the burn characteristics. Usually it seems that water's roll isn't in adding more power, but letting you get away with mods that add more power - boost, compression, timing advance, or what have you.

Haven't tried it out personally, but that may change...

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"Mad Scientist" Matt Cramer
'66 Dart - turbocharged 225
My blog - Mad Scientist Matt's Lair

I have been following this thread, and think I may be able to help on some confusion. I think we are talking about 2 different things.

( A ) Is talking about injecting water vapor in to the air intake stream. This is not breaking down the water, just changing it to steam.

This I have looked at and it seems that is is only an advantage under boost. I have nothing that has boost, so that is all I can say about that.

( B ) Is talking about using electrical current to actually break water down to free some of the hydrogen. (Browns gas) This I know just a bit about as I helped a friend build one of the contraptions for his Isuzu rodeo. We basically used stainless steel inside of a pvc pipe. Hooked up to 13.5 volts or so (running vehicle charging voltage) it WILL produce some gas. The part I do not know is if it produces enough gas to offset the extra load on the engine via the alternator. I do know that his system can pull up to 30 amps or more at times. I have no idea what this will do for detonation resistance. You can learn more about this type of system by googling "water car" as that is the site we got most of our information from. When money and time allow I am thinking about building a system for the Dart.

Hope this helped at least a little.

TopHat

I'm sure the first engineer who thought of this in WW1 was debuncked also. Damn near 100 years ago and yet people are still playing and developing the technology. There has to be some benifits to it It did help the discussion. Knowledge is power isn't it?

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Chris'
Autobody
Restoration
Service

The problem, as Dan points out, is that no matter how you do it, it takes more energy to extract the hydrogen from water than you get back by burning it. If it were otherwise you could devise a machine which would run perpetually with no external input of energy; a physical impossibility. Any scheme for exctracting hydrogen is a net negative in energy production. Even schemes where photsynthesis is involved using pond scum. The difference is that energy (sunlight) is being used which would otherwise be largely wasted. Some guy recently discovered that an alloy of aluminum and gallium would effervesce, releasing molecular hydrogen when placed in water. Theoretically the oxidized alloy could then be reclaimed but the reclamation depends on passing large currents of electricity through the molten aluminum oxide; again a net energy loser. There ain't no free lunch.

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David Kight
'62 Valiant Signet, White
'98 Dodge Dakota
'06 Jeep Liberty

Growing older is unavoidable but growing up is strictly optional.