dragonwingsubaru Posted March 28, 2005 Share Posted March 28, 2005 ive been doing alot of reasearch on hydrogen powered cars lately and i have found a few different things dealing with converting your motor over to hydrogen powered. now one thing that seems to be the same in all the things i have seen so far is saying that hydrogen has a more powerful than gas so im wondering if these motors could handle it. and no im not talking about the hydrogen fuel cells oddly enough these conversions are supposed to run on water. now i know there are alot of scam stuff out there but i have now found about 30 different sites that all have simular setups, so im kinda thinking its not bs. if the ea82 blocks are strong enough i might go ahead and set up my spare motor that i had to do some work to anyways to run on hydrogen. so what do you guys think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ross Posted March 28, 2005 Share Posted March 28, 2005 I think it would be ok. Very little of the engines strength is required for the combustion, it is mainly to withstand the large forces required to accelerate/decelerate the pistons, and especially the con rods at high revs. I think there is only one way to find out! I'm interested to know where you plan on getting all this hydrogen, and how much it will cost? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LPGsuperchargedBrumby Posted March 28, 2005 Share Posted March 28, 2005 if you could produce enough hydrogen then yes the ea will run on it.... however keep in mind that hydrogen affects ferris matal and makes it brittle in the ea's case the bore walls would be affected for sure. ceramic coating the bore walls can help prevent this. piston rings and valves could also be affected. spark has to be at or after tdc because of hydrogens flame speed/burn duration Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flowmastered87GL Posted March 28, 2005 Share Posted March 28, 2005 I say try it! The only way to see if they really CAN handle it is for some pioneer to try it. Who knows... you may stumble on to something! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LPGsuperchargedBrumby Posted March 28, 2005 Share Posted March 28, 2005 if you could produce enough hydrogen then yes the ea will run on it...however hydrogen affects iron based metal and makes it brittle after prolonged exposure, in an ea82 the bore walls,piston rings and valves and seats would be of biggest consern. ceramic coatings in theory can help prevent embrittlement. ignition timing has to be at or after tdc on account of hydrogens fast flame speed hydrogen won't give you a massive increase in power however i wouldn't be worried if it didn't give me a HP increase as if you got it to work your fuel is free hmmm sorry about the doubleup 'puter problems abounding Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonwingsubaru Posted March 28, 2005 Author Share Posted March 28, 2005 hey ross i guess you missed the part about me saying that the car will pretty much run on water, yes i thought it sounded like bs but the more im reading the more im hearing more and more proof. hey lpg just noticed the first part of your name are you running your roo on lpg? yeah i have read about the timing needing to be set pretty much perfect to make it work, i think i might look into that ceramicoating, since i pretty much gotta rebuild that motor anyways flowmastered yeah i know the only way to find out if it will work is too try it out, just guess i wanted some imput from the sooby community basically im not gonna be able to get all this going prob till the summer among other things since i gotta rebuild my other motor anyways, but im am definetally serious about this with gas prices the way they are it would be nice to pull up to a gas station and just fill up with free water lol. i can only imagine the looks when they see me putting water in the gas tank lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonwingsubaru Posted March 28, 2005 Author Share Posted March 28, 2005 duh nevermind lpg just noticed your sig!!!! i thought of the propane since i liked it on the schwans trucks when i used to drive. very clean burning, the first truck they gave me was an old 80's ford with a 302 with about 600k on it and still ran like it was brand new with no major work done to it ever. but im looking at the fact that it still costs money for propane and that will probably go up as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LPGsuperchargedBrumby Posted March 28, 2005 Share Posted March 28, 2005 yeah im on LPG i got a 100 liter tank slung just behind the cab currently in the process of building a high comp turbo ea82 motor to take advantage of lpg's high octane rating and to get me some decent mpg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ross Posted March 28, 2005 Share Posted March 28, 2005 Oh... so how do you "break" the water molecules up? It requires a lot of electricity if you do it that way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonwingsubaru Posted March 28, 2005 Author Share Posted March 28, 2005 hey bear with me im still ironing out the details here lol. basically i have seen a couple different systems for it, doesnt seem like it requires much voltage from what i have been reading so far but proof will be it actually working. hey lpg cool, yeah you gotta love that extra hp you get i know many times i had enough power to pop the front end of that ford right off the ground and drag the back bumper. lol they took it away from me after they had to repair the front end for the 2nd time in 4 months Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LPGsuperchargedBrumby Posted March 28, 2005 Share Posted March 28, 2005 i tryed using a truck battery (24v) to produce a hydrogen/oxygen mix a couple of years ago by useing a 10x step up transformer (salvaged from a dead welder and wired up to reverse to what it did in the welder) with 12v running into the transformer had problems with the water heating up to much and never got round to making a flowthrough water system on it go for it man it would be cool it ya got it work like the internet sites reckon it can Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
555Ron Posted March 28, 2005 Share Posted March 28, 2005 Hey Drangonwing, would you mind posting a couple links so i can read up on this? I've seen one website with the basic idea and how you could go about it (Pretty sketchy though)... but BMW made a V12 and Ford (in paternership with mazda... perhaps?) converted a Focus to run on Hydrogen using a modified IC engine. I think it reduced power output by roughly 25%. (But who cares... plus i think Ford supercharged their car to overcome this) Try doing a search on these projects... it may have a couple of tips for you. Both these cars were powered by hydrogen that was fed into the cars fuel tanks. Water is the result of burning hydrogen... so in a round about way you're trying to burn the ashes of a fire is how it was put to me by a nay sayer. But, if we all had of listened to them... we wouldn't have got too far. Go for it... and if it works... you'd better give me the recipe for my EA82. I think you should start off trying to run the engine on hydrogen... then try to get it to run off the water. I think you'll find this will be the part that will be harder then you think, so you'll have to be determined to get it finished. But good luck with it... i really hope it turns out. Give us some progress reports too... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonwingsubaru Posted March 28, 2005 Author Share Posted March 28, 2005 hey 555ron im not on that comp right now so i cant post them at the moment but i will later on today.yeah i had seen the hydro focus and a bunch of others a few months back on a TLC thing with that old MASH doctor(cant remember the guys name) thats what started to give me the idea yes i have read about the possability of it getting too hot, but i think i have also found a system that has a cooling setup with it. im running the stuff by a couple people i know that are a bit smarter on stuff like that than me on the system setup i have found the voltage setup it needs i believe it was .5 to 5a and has a total current draw on your system from 10 to 20A, so i guess when i do that it will be time to swap in my 105A gm alt i have also read of some people doing a 93% water to 7% gas mixture to help with the detonation as well, so that is another option, 1 i may start out with till i can get it to run perfect on the pure water. now i have a question or 2 about regarding out motors 1: are the lifters stainless steel lifters? if not does anybody know where i can get a set 2: does anybody know the type of place i would need to find to get ceramicoating done at as i will need to do the pistons, cylinder bore and the exhaust. im glad people have shown an interest in this, and believe me when i read the first site saying it was possible to run your can on water i couldnt really believe it, but after close to 30 sites saying the same general thing, im really thinking it is possible. this project will happen at least if nothing else just to see if it will work to see. what i may do is build the whole system and test it out briefly on the motor already in my soob to see if it will really works and if i find it does then i will go through the cost of getting the other motor ceramicoated and whatnot Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s'ko Posted March 28, 2005 Share Posted March 28, 2005 now i have a question or 2 about regarding out motors 1: are the lifters stainless steel lifters? if not does anybody know where i can get a set 2: does anybody know the type of place i would need to find to get ceramicoating done at as i will need to do the pistons, cylinder bore and the exhaust. You might want to try Paeco for those parts http://www.paeco.com/ Good luck and keep us posted BW Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baccaruda Posted March 28, 2005 Share Posted March 28, 2005 you might also research adjustable cam gears to help tweak the timing. I can't remember who was looking into making those (garner perhaps?) but it should come up in a search. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonwingsubaru Posted March 28, 2005 Author Share Posted March 28, 2005 thanks for the info SKO and baccaruda ill check those out in a little bit and see if i can find anything heres a couple of the first links i came across not super informative but gives you the idea, i didnt save any after these so i gotta do a little more searching to find some of the other ones i went to that were a bit more informative these are more trying to sell you the book to do it, ill get the more informative ones later on tonight http://http://www.cashmaxmall.com/hydrostar.htm http://http://www.futurehorizons.net/hyd2a.htm like i said i will try to find the actual info ones later on Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthWet Posted March 28, 2005 Share Posted March 28, 2005 Folks, all I can say is.... Please take a Chemistry class, and pay particular attention to valances. What you are talking about with the "water-power" is worse than a perpetual motion machine, as you are planning on extracting 30+% of the energy during each use cycle. There is no magic to hydrogen, and it is being pushed because people think it is magic. It does not exist naturally in elemental form for very long because it is reactive, so there are no "stores" of it; it must be generated, usually by using some of our electrical capacity. Do we all remember how much spare electrical capacity we had a couple of years ago??? Due to the laws of physics, it takes more energy to generate hydrogen gas than it can release in our engines, so there is a net loss of energy in a hydrogen economy. Baccaruda, that was All-talk with the statically-adjustable cam sprockets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hooziewhatsit Posted March 28, 2005 Share Posted March 28, 2005 Due to the laws of physics, it takes more energy to generate hydrogen gas than it can release in our engines, so there is a net loss of energy in a hydrogen economy. I remember having a short discussion in one of my computer classes a while ago that it would take more fossil fuels to create the hydrogen then would be used by just burning fossil fuels in cars. So.... the conclusion was hydrogen sounded good, but was actually worse for the environment. I haven't had time to research this anymore and figure out if it's true or not. Quite a while ago, a friend and I helped my brother electrolysize(sp?) water to create hydrogen. It takes a lot of voltage, but almost no current. It seemed like it took a lot of energy to create even a little hydrogen that was captured in a balloon, and then 'release' :-). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phishy75 Posted March 28, 2005 Share Posted March 28, 2005 I'll come in on the middle ground here. Northwet makes some very valid points, but I think there is definitely more to hydrogen than he gives credit for. I am no expert, but I am a little familiar with hydrogen power. There is no way you are going to run a car on water, or a water/fuel mixture. Water is just way too stable, hence the reason it is expensive and energy intensive to extract hydrogen from it (the process is called electrolysis). You need pure straight-up hydrogen to use - hard and expensive to produce. The next problem is storage. Hydrogen has about 12 times the energy density of gasoline, when stored in liquid form. Now storing in liquid form is very difficult and one of the major hurdles (at least last I heard) to using hydrogen as a mainstream fuel. Storing in gaseous form is relatively easy, but the energy density is only a third (or maybe a quarter - I don't remember exactly) of liquid hydrogen - not economically viable given the cost of production. All of the hydrogen powered cars, buses, battery packs etc you hear about are producing electricity by essentially re-making water from hydrogen (stored) and oxygen (in the air). Like Northwet said, there is a net energy loss between producing hydrogen and using it to generate power. The reason for doing this is because it is clean, with water being the "exhaust". As for actually combusting hydrogen, I'm not sure how good a fuel it is for combustion. I know it is definitely flamable, but not as much so as most people think. Hindenburg did not burn because of the hydrogen gas - the major culprit was the fabric used (or more specifically the chemical used to treat the fabric - aluminum oxide if I remeber correctly). Being filled with hydrogen didn't help matters, but it was also not the real reason for the tragedy. Now where was I going with this???... Oh right - I definitely encourage you do see what you can do with this, but I think you need to do some major research before you jump in full bore. Hopefully one day relatively soon (though having dubya playing in the oval office sets us back a while) we'll all be driving cars that make almost no sound and pour water out the tailpipe. In the mean time, I'll still be lovin the old EA82. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanislru Posted March 28, 2005 Share Posted March 28, 2005 Yeah hydrogen's not going to help anyone other than those hyping it. And as far as the energy used to produce it, 10,000 volts @ 1 amp is the same as 10,000 amps @ 1 volt, ie it still takes X wattage[power] to produce and you get less energy than u put in. Water injection into turbo's works great to reduce detonation but a motor running on water? I'm going to google this... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phishy75 Posted March 28, 2005 Share Posted March 28, 2005 Yeah hydrogen's not going to help anyone other than those hyping it. And as far as the energy used to produce it, 10,000 volts @ 1 amp is the same as 10,000 amps @ 1 volt, ie it still takes X wattage[power] to produce and you get less energy than u put in. Water injection into turbo's works great to reduce detonation but a motor running on water? I'm going to google this... And maybe the environment... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ross Posted March 28, 2005 Share Posted March 28, 2005 I agree that you will definately need to use stored hydrogen. To produce enough energy to beark up the water, your alternator would requre at least three times the power your engine puts out. If you can find a source of hydrogen you should be able to make it work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phishy75 Posted March 28, 2005 Share Posted March 28, 2005 For those of you interested in hydrogen power - you should do a search about Iceland aiming to become oil-free in 10 years. Hydrogen will be the basis for this, and there is some really interesting stuff. Iceland is a special case though, because they have loads of free energy from geothermal sources, so producing hydrogen is way more cost-efficient for them. They definitely deserve kudos for their lofty goals, lets hope it works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hooziewhatsit Posted March 29, 2005 Share Posted March 29, 2005 Here's the first site I found on google. http://www.spiritofmaat.com/archive/feb2/carplans.htm They have plans on that page to create hydrogen by running a PWM into the electrolosis chamber, then running the gas off to be burned in the engine. I don't buy it yet. In other places on that page they talk about doing certain things to water to 'give it a conscious' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobBrumby Posted March 29, 2005 Share Posted March 29, 2005 What they mean by runinng the engine running on water is you split water with two charged plates to make hydrogen to use in your car. I remember doing this in chemistry, you would hold a test tube upsidedown over it, cause its lighter it rises into it, then light it with a match. It makes a loud pop. Then when you burn this in your engine your exhuast is H20 vapour. But this isnot very energy efficient as using hydrogen in power cell for electic cars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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