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Water injection gadget

Skandocious

Skandocious

Post Whores Make Me Sick
19,076
655
California
My buddy has a 2004ish Acura TL, super nice car. He's talking about adding a 'water injection' gadget to double his gas mileage. I've read articles about this garbage and it does NOTHING. He's going to waste his money and damage his engine cuz he won't listen to me.

You guys, please offer some intelligent advice for this guy so he can see that I'm not just whistling dixie. I'd hate to see him make such a huge mistake. Here's what he's planning on buying:

http://water4gas.com/2books.htm

Perhaps I'm wrong and the above product actually works... I've actually never seen that EXACT product -- but I've read about similar products and that they actually DECREASE mileage AND horsepower and can lead to engine damage. But my guess is that it's a classic case of snake oil.
 
Last edited:
blacksnapon

blacksnapon

Moderator
Staff member
9,461
301
waynesville,mo.
My response to anyone wanting those "miracle gadgets", If they work so well, why isn't everyone using them?
 
Skandocious

Skandocious

Post Whores Make Me Sick
19,076
655
California
The supposed idea behind this device, is that you keep a mason jar full of water under your hood -- then run 12v and ground to terminals mounted on top of the jar, then dunk electrical probes from there into the water. The electricity is supposed to convert the H20 to HHO gas which they claim is highly potent (I'm no chemist), and the hydrogen in the HHO gets injected back into the intake stream to provide some 'assistance' with the combustion. With the added 'hydrogen' in the combustion chamber, the computer is able to lean out the fuel/air mixture to compensate for the added juice you gave it. I call MAJOR bs on this. Unless of course all the scientists that have been doing research on hydrogen cars all this time have only come up with 'a mason jar and some electrical probes' :rofl2:
 
Old_Paint

Old_Paint

Old guy with old cars
225
29
Alabama
Water injection was quite common in the 60's and 70's on hot rods, but all of those were using breaker points ignition with vacuum advance, and carburetors that looked like 5 gallon buckets with partitions, sometimes in multiple quantities. The injection systems of those times had little to do with electrolysis or Brown's Gas (HHO). It had more to do with the water expanding in the combustion chamber during ignition, and giving a much higher compression ratio because of the water flashing to steam. There was no "burning" of the water as fuel, just a compression enhancement.

I saw just such a system on a 1971 Plymouth RoadRunner with a 383 Hemi and a 4 Speed Hurst. It would jerk the front wheels off the ground easily with the factory engine. Added the water injection, and it started begging for wheelie bars after it dragged the rear bumper.

It's not that different from adding any type of inert gas injection. The inert gas is injected at the END of the intake stroke to start compression BEFORE the piston starts back to the top. Same principle with water injection. By Inert gas, I mean something like Nitrous Oxide. Nitrous is non-flammable, i.e. it WILL NOT BURN. See the following MSDS. http://www.linweld.com/msds/NitrousOxide.PDF. However, inject it into a combustible mixture and ignite the mix, NO2 expands very rapidly. Nitrous is not a fuel, it's a compression enhancer.

Now, will an EEC-IV work with a compression enhancer? Probably, to some extent, but not very well. There will be elevated O2 readings, and it's going to dump in more fuel, making an enriched mixture, and defeating the whole purpose of the whiz-bang gadget that is supposed to boost economy. Put the same gadget on a carbed engine, yeah, it'll help. Nothing there to tell the carb it needs to dump more fuel. Will it cause pinging? More than likely. That, of course, is going to screw with any automated timing control, so out the window with electronic spark advance control, and put in a simple vacuum advance. But wait, didn't we just take a 40 year flying leap backward in time?
 
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Skandocious

Skandocious

Post Whores Make Me Sick
19,076
655
California
Old_Paint said:
Water injection was quite common in the 60's and 70's on hot rods, but all of those were using breaker points ignition with vacuum advance, and carburetors that looked like 5 gallon buckets with partitions, sometimes in multiple quantities. The injection systems of those times had little to do with electrolysis or Brown's Gas (HHO). It had more to do with the water expanding in the combustion chamber during ignition, and giving a much higher compression ratio because of the water flashing to steam. There was no "burning" of the water as fuel, just a compression enhancement.

I saw just such a system on a 1971 Plymouth RoadRunner with a 383 Hemi and a 4 Speed Hurst. It would jerk the front wheels off the ground easily with the factory engine. Added the water injection, and it started begging for wheelie bars after it dragged the rear bumper.

It's not that different from adding any type of inert gas injection. The inert gas is injected at the END of the intake stroke to start compression BEFORE the piston starts back to the top. Same principle with water injection. By Inert gas, I mean something like Nitrous Oxide. Nitrous is non-flammable, i.e. it WILL NOT BURN. See the following MSDS. http://www.linweld.com/msds/NitrousOxide.PDF. However, inject it into a combustible mixture and ignite the mix, NO2 expands very rapidly. Nitrous is not a fuel, it's a compression enhancer.

Now, will an EEC-IV work with a compression enhancer? Probably, to some extent, but not very well. There will be elevated O2 readings, and it's going to dump in more fuel, making an enriched mixture, and defeating the whole purpose of the whiz-bang gadget that is supposed to boost economy. Put the same gadget on a carbed engine, yeah, it'll help. Nothing there to tell the carb it needs to dump more fuel. Will it cause pinging? More than likely. That, of course, is going to screw with any automated timing control, so out the window with electronic spark advance control, and put in a simple vacuum advance. But wait, didn't we just take a 40 year flying leap backward in time?
Click to expand...
Awesome post. You never fail to amaze me Tim.
 

eco

646
12
Old_Paint said:
There will be elevated O2 readings, and it's going to dump in more fuel, making an enriched mixture,
Click to expand...

I have been wondering about this notion for a while now.

E10 fuel has added oxygen in the exhaust - does that mean that it will also throw off an EFI system? Supposedly it doesn't, but in theory it should because of added O2 in the exhuast. There is less fuel economy because of the drop in BTU, but the oxygen doesnt seem to be effecting anything. Ethanol is an alcohol and any alcohol is an oxygenate.

Having said that, will the added oxygen from an inert gas really effect an EFI system?
 

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