Bogus Alt-fuel Cars - Seen Any?

[gtc]

I have a friend "who knows a guy" with an old truck rigged with some sort of hydrogen generator. From what I'm told about the system, it sounds like he's using electricity from the alternator to perform electrolysis on water, and funneling the hydrogen into the carb intake.
High school chemistry and my M.E. education taught me enough to know that his claims of increased mileage are almost certainly bogus, since I can't see how he'd be producing a significant amount of hydrogen. Having not seen and used the system myself, though, I can't call BS.
Have any of you seen some of these homebrew devices? Brown's gas, electrolysis, that thing that runs off wood chips, whatever. I'd love to hear about them.

Thanks!

[Porsche-O-Phile]

If I put a "hydrogen" sticker on my 911, can I get a carpool lane sticker?

[Pazuzu]

Originally Posted by gtc

I have a friend "who knows a guy" with an old truck rigged with some sort of hydrogen generator. From what I'm told about the system, it sounds like he's using electricity from the alternator to perform electrolysis on water, and funneling the hydrogen into the carb intake.

That is exactly what they're doing, and yes, you're right, there is no way that you can get any energy gain from that. The real scam is that there are people selling instructions on how to do this for gobs of money all over the web...

Yes, you too can get rich off of fools by telling them how to stick two stainless steel bolts through the lid of a jar, fill with water, and electrify it.

[Jims5543]

A friend of mine did it and certain cars will respond negatively to it unless you are willing to go the extra step and separate the oxygen from the hydrogen. The oxygen is causing the O2 sensor to read lean and richen up the fuel therefore making worse mileage.


My friend is using alternator power that is being stepped up. (tansformer?) He hooked a reader up to his truck and drove it for a week prior to the installation of the generator, then hooked up the generator and drove another week so the ECU would adjust.

he was reading his fuel injector duty to see if the computer would pull fuel out and after a coupe of days he saw about a 20% drop in the injector duty.

He also says he is getting much better mileage out of the truck somewhere around a 5 MPG gain IIRC.

[Gogar]

I "know a guy" who has a hole cut in the front seats of his CRX, and uses a funnel and some plastic tubing to route the "naturally generated" methane to the intake of the car. He says it's good for .1 MPG gain over stock, depending on the quality of his "alternative fuel" intake, ie: burritos, or franks-n-beans, etc.