http://autofuelsaving.com/store/categories/4/dealing-with-sensors/

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Now we just placed an order for HydroxyTech’s EFI1250 Alexis kit to be tested again on our Dodge Sprinter. Their website says that it takes about 3-4 weeks for our order to arrive. It appears to be a better kit than SaveFuel’s SL50 as this one has a power unit which makes electrical connections easier for a non-professional electrician. The best of all is that it has an item called Vehicle Management Unit (VMU) which is essentially a small touch-screen computer that controls HHO cells and also control PWM, MAP/MAF sensor and up to four oxygen sensors. Their VMU can also monitor temperatures for up to two cells in *F or *C selectable. Here is a picture of their kit:

Here is a list of all the items in the kit:

• 1 Bubbler 3×3x10
• 1 Alexis Cell V2
• 1 Backfire Arrester 3LPM
• 1 6′ Fuel-Hose 1/4″
• 6 1/4″ clamps
• 1 Relay 12v (30A)
• 1 Add-A-Circuit ATO (ATM available)
• 2 Inline Fuse 30A
• 2 Holding Clamps
• 4 Relay connectors
• 2 O-ring Power Connectors
• 1 Vehicle Management Unit (VMU)
• 1 Vehicle Power Unit
• 1 VMU wiring Kit (w/connectors)

Please go to HydroxyTech.ca for more info on this kit and other kits and products. Once we get the kit, we will post test results here.

Update (Nov 7, 2008): I waited for two full months and finally I received the kit today - I mean yesterday as it is alreay almost 3 hours past the midnight

Anyway, spent some time trying to condition the electrode as suggested by HydroxyTech manual. And almost at the end of one of the conditioning cycle, I shot a video and uploaded to YouTube. In fact, this is my first YouTube video:

As you can see, it produces quite a lot of oxyhydrogen with only about 9.7A current powered by a car battery charger. The electrolyte is KOH solution (concentration is about 5g/500ml). After 3 cycles of electrode conditioning, the cell solution is still very clear.

I will do 3 more cycle of conditioning and then will measure oxyhydrogen production in real time and real numbers (L/min). After all this is done, I will install it on our cargo van.

Update (Nov 8, 2008): Measured HHO production rate today without using the pulse-width module (PWM) that comes with the VMU of the kit: roughly 1L/min. Not 2L/min as the kit manual describes. Will find out how to reach the 2L/min capacity. I plan to install it on a gas-engine car (1999 Hyundai Elantra), not our cargo van as we may have to sell the cargo van pretty soon and I do not want to mess with the latter’s sensors. Will see what to do.

Update (Nov 9, 2008): Have figured out why my Alexis cell from HydroxyTech produces only 1L/min HHO rather than 2L/min HHO. The KOH concentration - I did not weigh the KOH used in the test. I had quite a few fruit jars of KOH leftover solutions that I accumulated in the past doing KOH dilution. So I just added some and measure the cold start amperage to estimate the concentration. Turned out the cold start amperage should be 10A, not 5A as I thought to be. If the cold start amperage is 10A, then it should increase to 20A when the cell gets hot in working condition - reaching the normal working current designed by HydroxyTech.

Note that most battery chargers cannot give out 20A as 10A is the highest capacity. So I will do the electrode conditioning again using a higher KOH concentration and power the cell alive using a car battery (rather than a charger) while the engine is running.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_Fuel_Injection

Basically, in a research carried out by NASA’s Lewis Research Center in 1977 on a 1969 Cadillac engine, they found that adding hydrogen as a supplemental fuel would allow the engine to run at a leaner fuel/air condition. Without adding hydrogen, the stoichiometric ratio of gasoline/air is 1 to 14.7 by mass. With hydrogen added, the engine can run at a gasoline/air ratio of 1 to 20 or more, which is impossible without the adding of hydrogen. Leaner ratio means less fuel needed, which is exactly what we want.

If you cannot understand the technical terms, then the following post entry on the chemistry of Brown’s gas (another name for HHO) explains the best in simple-to-understand terms:

http://www.fuel-saver.org/Forum/showthread.php?tid=814&pid=6911#pid6911

More resources will be posted here as we find them.

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OK, it took me a weekend to get the home-made HHO generator installed, re-built and reinstalled. The main reason for this prolonged process was because I set the operating current to be around 10 amps, rather than 5 amps or less as recommended. 10 amp setting was for the commercial device and it made the cell too hot with this setting.

Anyway, I filled the diesel tank to the rim this time and onwards - to be more accurate to measure how much fuel I will need to add to the rim next time.

I will make a trip from Calgary to Edmonton on Wednesday and I will take the same test as I did with the commercial device last time. I will report here as soon as the test results come out. Here are two pictures I took during the install:

Note that in the cell the electrolyte color was red and it was probably due to too high current (about 10 amps at the time of picture) causing my non-316L stainless wire to corrode fast. Another possibility was Jack who made the electrode for me used a green-colored plexi glass sheet to make electrode insulator/holder and the high-pH electrolyte might have caused the desolved green-color to turn pink. Will use a totally clear plexi glass sheet to make the electrode insulator/holder next time.

As you can see, I have listened to Bill’s advice to insert a threaded elbow fitting from the inside of the rubber air intake hose and tighten it up from the outside using a flexible plumbing hose. It is interesting to mention that I measured the pressure there while the engine was idling by connecting a digital pressure gauge and it turned out that the pressure was -3.8 hPa, not positive pressure but vacuum before hooking up to the HHO generator. It is kind of surprise but it was indeed so - hope someone out there can explain why (note: now we know that it was because the turbo was not kicked on). Anyway, it is good for us as we want the HHO intake to have some vacuum pressure so that HHO can be sucked into the engine rather than diffuse into it.

One last thing, a one-way air check valve must be installed inside the bubbler jar so that no water can be pushed into the electrolyzer when the engine is shut off (electricity cut off). It appears that the cooling of the electrolyzer creates an pressure inbalance between the bubbler (no quick change in pressure) and the electrolyzer (reduced pressure). The pressure inside the bubbler jar is great enough to slowly push all the water in it into the electrolyzer!

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We have almost finished assembled one of this home-made device with the help of Jack Yan. We say “almost finished” because we have trouble finding these two parts in Alberta, Canada:

1. Barb elbow - it looks like this
2. Adjustable dripper - can be ordered here according to Ozzie’s ebook
3. Grade 316L stainless steel wire

If you happen to know where to get these items in Calgary or any other places in Canada, please let us know. Thanks!

Note 1: This is an update entered on September 11, 2008. We found a swivel elbow made of plated brass that works better than any plastic barb elbows out there. Stainless steel swivel elbows are better but more expensive than brass ones. The threaded end can screw tightly on the fruit jar’s plastic cap by drilling a hole slightly smaller than the male end of the elbow. As for the adjustable dripper we purchased it online. We also found a local store that sells 316L stainless steel wires, sheets, pipes, etc. Thank all those who help us locate these items!

Note 2: after finding out the non-316L stainless steel wire corroded fast, I have purchased some other DIY plans to see what else we can use as electrodes. Click here to check these DIY plans for building oxy hydrogen generators we have bought and now recommend. One is easier than Ozzie’s version to build. Another one is more sophisticated and much harder to replicate. Beside fruit jars, I have seen people use water filter container to build the cell.

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The computer in a vehicle is also called the Electronic Control Unit (ECU). It controls the fuel injection system, ignition timing, and the idle speed control system. The ECU also interrupts the operation of the air conditioning and EGR systems, and controls power to the fuel pump (through the control relay). The ECU consists of an 8-bit microprocessor, random access memory (RAM), read only memory (ROM), and an input/output interface.

When a fuel saving device is installed, such as an oxy hydrogen generator, the petroleum based fuel is burned more completely. One of the results of this is that there is more oxygen (and less unburned hydrocarbons) in the exhaust stream. This is a good thing, and is in fact, what we are trying to achieve. However, the computer will perceive this condition as a “too lean” air/fuel mix. In other words, what is now a desirable condition in the exhaust, will be interpreted as “not enough fuel”, and the computer will direct the fuel injectors to increase the amount of fuel being pumped into the engine.

The result is that the oxygen sensor and computer prevent efficient combustion from occurring! In other words, it cancels out most of the improvement we have just made.

The Solution

The oxygen sensor “tells” the computer what the oxygen content is by providing a voltage on it’s signal wire between 0 and 1 volt. 450 millivolts (.45 volts) means that the fuel/air mixture is correct. Higher values means the mix is rich (has too much gas), and lower voltages means the mix is lean. By adding voltage to the sensor’s output, we can compensate for the additional oxygen in the exhaust.

The Electronic Fuel Injection Enhancer (EFIE), (not MAP - Manifold Absolute Presure - Sensor Enhancer), does exactly this. It adds a floating voltage to the top of whatever the oxygen sensor is putting out. It has an adjustment that allows you to control, to within a few millivolts, the amount of this added voltage. This allows the computer to be unaware of the additional oxygen content of the exhaust, and the oxy hydrogen generator can now achieve it’s full potential in fuel savings.

Most cars have oxygen sensors both before and after the catalytic converter. The ones downstream from the converter do not need to be treated. Their data is used to determine when the converter has gone bad, but are not used in the air/fuel calculations. EFIEs are only needed for all upstream oxygen sensors.

If you are purchasing an oxy hydrogen generator for a fuel injected vehicle, click here to check these commercial available electronic fuel injection enhancer products.

We do not plan to implement this EFIE device in the initial testing stage on our Dodge Sprinter as we’d like to see how much it saves fuel without using the device - I was told that an EFIE does not help much with fuel saving for Dodge Sprinter as its oxygen sensor is a wide band sensor.

Note that Hydroxy Tech offers a device called VMU (vehicle management unit) in their complete HHO generator kits to deal with oxygen sensor, MAP sensor and MAF sensor.

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Before Christmas 2007, we had been searching for ways to increase fuel efficiency for vehicles we drive. Oxy hydrogen generators - both the commercial available ones and the home-made ones - caught our attentions.

We bought the commerical SL50 stainless steel oxy hydrogen generator found here last year on December 5, 2007 but only had the time to install it on our Dodge Sprinter yesterday (March 23, 2008). Here are two pictures taken after the installation was finished:

After installing the oxy hydrogen generator, we did not sense any noticeable change of engine noise - probably because it is a new vehicle (Dodge Sprinter 2006). However, one thing we did notice was that the coolant temperature did not rise up as fast as before - this makes sense as the product of burning HHO is simply water and water is the best in absorbing heat.

Also the temperature appeared to stay lower than before. Before installing SL50, the coolant temperature stayed usually around 85 degrees for city driving and 90 degrees for highway driving. After installing the oxy hydrogen generator, the temperature stays around 83 degrees for city driving. What is the temperature for highway driving? We have not tested that yet. One of our staff will be driving this cargo van to Edmonton (from Calgary) to deliver diamond tools to our Red Deer and Edmonton customers on March 8, 2008 - we should know the result pretty soon

Anyway, so far so good. We have now filled up the fuel tank with diesel and recorded the mileage meter reading. Once we have the result, we will report it here.

Note 1: We are going to run tests as well on the 2005 Toyota Sienna and 1999 Hyundai Elantra which we own and drive.

Note 2: Accidentally, we found that the water level in the plastic bubbler (marked IN above) decreased fast in the original design and also since it was made of black plastic we could not see when the water level was low. So we built one ourselves with a wide-mouth fruit jar - see picture below:

This home-made one is almost transparent and can hold a relatively large amount of water compared with the one that came with the commercial device we bought.

Note 3: To save your time of having to go over all our test entries in the comment area below, we summarize our tests here. Basically we got 31% fuel saving in our recent apple-for-apple road tests. We just need to do one more test on a longer route to confirm this. Will report here when we get that done.

Note4: I have not done it myself, but this YouTube video shows one guy in Guelph, Canada did it with his ScanGauge on his HHO generator:

From my own tests I have learned that you need to calibrate the MPG reading on ScanGauge with real tank-fill data. But the above video is the first one I’ve seen showing instant change of MPG reading with the HHO cell turned ON and OFF. Need to test this as I do have a ScanGauge II.

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