Coast to Coast AM tries out HHO (Water4gas) system

The Coast to Coast Am late night radio talk show, hosted nowadays by George Noory, often lends a sympathetic ear to those with a bizarre tale to tell or folks making outlandish claims. After being deluged with calls and emails to the show asking about assertions made of increasing gas mileage using kits such as those sold by Water4gas, (they claim to break water down into HHO and burn it along with your gasoline) George decided to try a "real life" experiment to see if it actually worked. With his producer's car.
It took some time for the results to come in but last night, after an update on the latest in alien implants, producer Tom Danheiser came on the air to let the audience of millions hear the result. Before installing the device under the hood of his Mustang, Danheiser calculated his gas mileage to be 17.99 mpg. After driving around with the device for a week his mileage went down to 16.56 mpg. To add insult to HHO hoax injury, he had to have his car serviced. Twice. The bottom line can be summed up with a pair of truisms; there is no free lunch and the laws of physics just aren't made to be broken.
[Source: Coast to Coast AM]













Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
7-18-2008 @ 5:58PM
a.brien said...
He has bad results because these hydrogen kits are sold incomplete in amenuities. If he were to understand how the internal combustion engine works, he would have chosen a better kit then this one but i checked myself to buy a good one and made it install at a good tuner shop and unfortunatelly nobody sell and install a good hydrogen electrolyser kit because no tuner shop in u.s.a and canada knows how an internal combustion engine works. Some even put electrolyte in the water to help boost the electrolysis and this produce acids that will provoke rust in the engine destroying it in a few years.
For good results with that kind of kits you have to re-program the engine management unit and today no tuner shops can re=program the engine because each models year for each manufacturer is different with differents codes, so on.
These kit should be sold and installed with a reprogrammation that measure in real time the intake manifold pressure, engine rpm, engine temperature, oxygen in exhaust, gasoline injectors operation, ignition timing. Then when you inject hho gas you have to retard the ignition timing and put less gasoline. And the electrolyser should have space in it to contain some hho at some pressure 5 to 10 pounds by square inch and a gazeous injector
like the bmw-hydrogen inject the correct quantity of hho and gasoline at any given time.
This customer is a masochist and im not, that's why i didn't purchase this kit. It's been 4 years that im looking for a good kit
and maybe the best would be a kit installed in the factory by the manufacturer to save easilly 30% to 60%. Gm could save themself by installing a good kit on their dying s.u.v. That's why
i said yesterday that gm is there to serve big oil. There is 20 time
more profit in petrol selling then car making and gm is just a reseller of petrol.
Reply
7-18-2008 @ 6:46PM
retro77 said...
-1 bud.
7-18-2008 @ 7:05PM
axiom said...
Its unfortunate. They bought an incomplete kit and probably didn't even install it right, and then get surprised by the results.
If someone is going to do a public test like this they should go to a shop with a credible history of installing these, or at least have a major supplier approve that modification is installed correctly, preferably both.
7-20-2008 @ 3:06AM
Chris M said...
The "water4gas" guy doesn't sell a kit, axiom, he just sells a book of instructions on how to build your own electrolyzer. So, if it wasn't done right, is the fault with the home mechanic, or with faulty instructions from "water4gas"?
Seems to me that maybe they did very carefully follow instructions, and it still didn't work...
7-21-2008 @ 11:06AM
oldraven said...
"...no tuner shop in u.s.a and canada knows how an internal combustion engine works"
..... You're a damn fool.
7-18-2008 @ 6:28PM
Snowdog said...
"He has bad results because these hydrogen kits are sold incomplete in amenuities. "
Or because this is obviously complete BS.
There is no free lunch get over it. It takes more energy to extract hydrogen than you can possibly get by burning it. So you should get less mileage running these scam kits.
People always fall for nonsense like this when fuel prices go up. Try living in reality instead of wishful thinking land.
Reply
7-18-2008 @ 6:41PM
why not the LS2LS7? said...
I think the problem is he only employed HHO (changing the bond angle of water). He should also have attached magnets to various places on his car.
Perhaps HHO doesn't increase MPG alone, but combined with the power of magnets, the results should be obvious.
Reply
7-21-2008 @ 2:01PM
Serge said...
the secret is that you also have to replace the fuel-injection system with a magic carburetor from the 50's.
7-18-2008 @ 6:46PM
retro77 said...
I bet he is glad he used his producer's car instead of his.
Reply
7-18-2008 @ 7:12PM
MarkR said...
By no means am I a HHO apologist. However I keep an open mind with the technology and a.brein has a valid and astute point. The reason for the failure is simple in modern computer controlled engines. you have a Oxygen sensor but not a hydrogen sensor. most HHO systems are injected through air manifold intake. when the Oxy sensor notices more oxygen being taken in it compensates with more fuel. It (the cars computer) is looking for a certain Oxygen/ fuel mixture to be burnt. But the computer doesn't know the person has added hydrogen to the mix. Therefore you burn more gas as it compensates for the additional Oxygen.
You have to modify the computer program to compensate for the added HHO mixture. You do that and you would see an increase in MPG with these systems. But until then you will burn more gas and defeat the purpose.
Reply
7-20-2008 @ 2:09AM
Chris M said...
But the oxygen sensor is in the exhaust, NOT the intake! If the H2 and O2 burn completely, there wouldn't be an excess of O2 to cause an increase in fuel usage. Quite the opposite.
The problem is that H2 is a rather bulky low density gas, it would displace some of the air coming in, reducing the amount of air available to burn the gasoline. Since the amount of O2 from the electrolyzer would be used up burning the H2, the end result would be less O2 in the exhaust, which would trigger opening up the throttle and/or reducing fuel flow, and maybe even trigger a "check engine" message if the computer thinks the air intake was clogged.
8-13-2008 @ 5:55PM
mikeh said...
or perhaps a rheostat across the o2 wires so that
you can tell the computer that the exhaust is not
lean after all and it wont try to add more gasoline.
7-18-2008 @ 7:16PM
stevefazek said...
you need to apply feng shui with the positioning of bumper stickers and coins stuck in between the center console and seat.
THIS will never work thermodynamics is not a oil company conspiracy
Reply
7-18-2008 @ 7:21PM
RPD said...
He has bad results because this won't work, because it can't work. Electrolyzing the hydrogen out of the water costs far more energy than you'll get back by combusting it.
If you do the math, it becomes blazingly obvious. Here's a site that explains the actual physics of it: http://www.aardvark.co.nz/hho.shtml
Reply
7-18-2008 @ 9:53PM
Vidar said...
Say what you will, and I'm sure I'll get flames for this, but I decided to try one of these about two months ago, and have had much better results. I currently drive 700 miles a week. Prior to installation, I was getting between 29 and 32 MPG in my 2007 Aveo. For the first two weeks, I didn't see any improvement, then I installed the map sensor enhancer. Since then, my mileage has gone up to 32-36, while typically getting about 35. It doesn't seem like much, but considering I get gas every two and a half days, this has netted me more than a free tank of gas every month.
So say whatever you want, but I now know that it can work if done right, just don't expect the 70% increase that some of the sites claim.
Reply
7-19-2008 @ 7:27AM
rar said...
Vidar, 700 miles a week? Over 36000 miles a year for work only, wow, that a lot of driving. Have you thought about a job closer to home or moving closer to your work? That would save a lot more than some hydrogen kit.
7-21-2008 @ 2:06PM
Serge said...
now the question is, do you see improvements in your gas mileage due to installation of water4gas kit or due to modifications of a map sensor?
7-19-2008 @ 12:36AM
James said...
No wonder the United States is so far behind in the sciences. Instead of facts we prefer to rely on magical thinking to solve our problems. As George Bush so ineloquently claimed, there is no magic wand.
Reply
7-19-2008 @ 3:28AM
Chris said...
People seem to be confusing two different principles here:
1) the amount of hydrogen you can get for a given amount of electricity;
2) the effect of HHO on the combustion of gasolene.
The first is important if you want to run a car for free. M. Faraday studied DC electrolysers and came up with a limit as to how much hydrogen you can get for a given amount of electricity. He was wrong. He didn't have access to modern catalysts and nano technology which increase production markedly. He also never studied pulsed electrolysers because the technology wasn't available. With the correct pulse shape and frequency you can produce vaste amounts of HHO for very little electricity and can indeed run a car for free amongst other things.
The second is more important for our present purposes. To understand it you must realise that a gasolene engine is very inefficient. The addition of HHO make the combustion process and therefore the engine much more efficient. This is because HHO burn much faster and more violently than gasolene. The effect of combining the two is that the gasolene is combusted more effectively with HHO than on its own. This gives a rise in gas mileage. The reason it didn't work for the bozos in the article is as already stated. They didn't understand the science behind it. The ignition timing must be retarded for this to work properly, otherwise the faster burn of the HHO mixture works against the rising piston in an advanced ignition setup.
This system works best with older vehicles that have distibutors and no engine management system. It's a shame that we have been led into needing all these computersied systems and sensors in a car when we could have been running them for free without all that stuff.
Reply
7-19-2008 @ 11:01AM
Bill said...
Comments like the above and on other forums make clear that the reason this works for some, especially in older cars, is because the installers screw with the engine/sensors to "lean out" combustion.
That means your vehicle now exceeds emissions specs (it will NOT pass emissions testing if it is required in your area)
And to be clear, room-temperature electrolysis is only about 50% efficient.
Frequency, pulsing, etc. of the electrical current does not matter - only the *total* energy you are pumping into the water.
High temperature electrolysis (70%+ efficiency) requires temperatures that would melt your engine.