The PWM, as can be seen in the picture, looks the same as the old.  This will change in later boxes as the adjustment knobs are no longer functional. I placed it in the same location, but the wiring is a little different, so I had to run two new ones into the cabin that connect with the new LCD display.

I removed the previous panel I made for the old LCD display, switch, and Air/Fuel Gauge.  The new LCD is in a larger box, so I need to do some creative adapting if I want it to fit in the same space.  But that’s a different project I won’t cover here now.  There was some extra wiring needed to install this LCD, since it is controlling the PWM now from here, thus the two wires mentioned above.  I removed the Air/Fuel Gauge since it is a basically a useless device. I’m thinking the Kiwi MPG will fit here nicely giving MPG feedback, which is far more important than the light show of the Air/Fuel Gauge.  The Kiwi will also tell Check Engine Light Codes, should they occur.

Once hooked up, all seemed to work well, I was able to set the controls on the LCD and the fuel cells were generating hydrogen.  Right now the LCD is only temporally installed as I design the rest of the panel.

More to come.

Nothing. I’ll be honest, but as I said, Matt is seeing a 30% increase on his Toyota, in Italy he saw a 25% increase. We are shipping several of these systems to South America because of positive results they have been getting, with a cab fleet possibly ordering to equip all their vehicles. We have a Roto Rooter fleet of trucks (using one of our wet cell systems) that reported seeing an increase from 5 MPG to 7 MPG, and I talked with another Mustang owner at the HHO Games that installed a system in his early 90s Mustang and saw improved MPG, so it’s only a matter of time before I see a gain as well.

But through the trial and error, I’ve pointed out several improvements that could be done and we’ve been adjusting for, so these systems are getting better.

First off, the manufacturer has redesigned their PWM and the LCD display. The model I have had the Frequency and Duty adjustment knobs built into the PWM, which isn’t the most convenient when mounted in the engine compartment, like I have mine, and then try to watch the readout on the LCD panel at the same time while adjusting. The new system has one knob with multiple adjustments built into the the LCD display mounted inside the car. This makes it much easier to tune the PWM, plus the readout gives better feedback, such as amp output to the cells, versus simply a Duty readout. Also the unit now has a “straight current” design. If you recall, I mentioned that my Frequency was bouncing all over and a little fluctuation in the Duty. The new one provides a steady current to the cells. As fluctuations occur within the electrical system, it compensates so now what you set, it what you keep, a “steady current” to the fuel cells. This will make the hydrogen production much more reliable.

Another thing we are trying is adding an additional reservoir to help filter the hydrogen before it goes into the engine. This isn’t a new idea, and was believed to not be needed, since primarily adding a “Scrubber” is to help filter out the catalyst being used for the electrolysis process.  Using Potassium Carbonate in this system is far less dangerous than what some of the other systems use.  But one issue I was having in the hot Florida heat and engine compartment is the moisture of the water and in the gas actually being pulled through the tube to the intake. While the amount isn’t much, and the flash suppresser seems to be filtering it, I still was concerned. Adding this extra reservoir tank and running the hydrogen through this water first, which will also act as an overflow from the main supply, it will help to reduce this amount of moisture that may still be within the hydrogen gas. This second container will also act as the flash suppressor, removing the current one, and any flash that may occur will stop here and not back into the cells. I’m still thinking of adding a one way check valve which would act as an additional suppressor where my current one is. These aren’t as reliable as the current suppressor, but between that and the second tank, you basically will have doubled the safety.  In addition, using this second tank, and it acting as an overflow, you can now fill the first tank up nearly full, providing less upkeep and checking needed when it comes to adding more distilled water.

Most of these are enhancements to make the system better, which both of us like. As with any product, if you can figure a way to improve upon it and make it a better “mousetrap,” then why not? This industry continues to grow, design new systems, and improve upon current ones, based on new developments and customer feedback. We’ve heard of a few new concepts being worked on that sound exciting. If you purchase a system and have suggestions, please let us know. You would be helping everyone.

That’s the basics for the moment, I’ll keep you updated. I hope to have the new PWM and display installed in a week or so. The new display, because of the controller being built in, is larger and will no longer fit in my stereo DIN opening. I’m looking for different options, including maybe removing the display and adjustment knob from the box and remotely mounting them so I can still use this opening. Matt mounted his under his dashboard, which seems to look good in his Toyota truck, but with the more ergonomic flowing design within my Mustang, this won’t work as well. I’m picky, I want it to look stock. Watch for more updates.

I installed a simple kill switch so I can turn the entire system on and off. A typical install would have the accessory wire that turns it on, connected to a fuel pump so the system is only creating hydrogen while the engine is running. You don’t want to sit in a parking light and turn your key to listen to the stereo and be making gas. The kill switch simply is spliced into this line so I can turn everything on and off, should I choose. This is more to help with me showing the gas production on and off. The PWM also has a switch to do this, but I like this idea of a main switch. The red LED above that switch comes from the dual EFIE hidden behind the panel. The LED is built into the unit, but I pulled it out and remotely mounted it, again, just to see and make sure the unit is on.

The gauge to the left is an old Air/Fuel gauge I used on a car several years ago, but it’s basically a light show and pointless, which was proven when it showed a good reading back on the old car but with the larger turbo it had, I ran lean anyway and lost a some valves and warped a few pistons. This will probably be removed. The thought is to give you an idea of your fuel mixture by showing the feedback from an O2 sensor. With my car being a narrow band, they really don’t tell much of anything other than something is happening. The car ECU (or PCM) gets the signal and knows what to do with it, but the gauge itself just bounces lights up and down. Swapping the O2 sensor and gauge out for a wideband system will give you the actual reading, but doing that will tend to cost around $200.

Other gauge ideas could be an EGT gauge to show engine exhaust temps. If you are running to lean, these temps will rise and show on the gauge. Or maybe an accurate amp gauge to show the draw on the electrical system from a stereo, stereo amps, HHO generator, lights, etc. What I may end up doing is mounting the Kiwi MPG gauge there, if it looks like it will do the job.

Behind the panel, as mentioned earlier, is the EFIE. This taps into the O2 wires, in my case the front two O2 sensors. Once activated, you need to tune the EFIE to compensate for the oxygen the O2 sensor will see. Since it will see more, it will send that reading to the car computer, which will think not enough fuel is going into the engine and will compensate and dump in more fuel. You may have heard stories where people have commented about actually loosing MPG using an HHO system, and chances are, it’s because they are not compensating or have their tune incorrect. By adding this unit, I can now adjust it to send a different reading to the computer, so it is still happy and won’t add that extra fuel, in fact lean things out a bit since you are using hydrogen now as a partial fuel source. In the case of my car and the particular EFIE I’m using, which is the standard unit for this system, if you lean the adjustment out too much, the ECU will think the sensor is bad and drop into a default mode, usually a rich mixture, and most likely trigger the Check Engine Light indicating a bad O2 Sensor. This is what I’m trying to tune, but like I said, it’s a drawn out process to drive, gas up, figure out MPG, adjust, and then drive another tank, etc. This is where the Kiwi or Scangauge comes in handy or if your car has an MPG computer already in it, like my Chrysler Minivan.

More in Part 4

The tube heading into the engine has a flash suppressor, should there be a backfire, it will be caught here and protect the flame from reaching the resevoir which will be holding more hydrogen. This is a pretty safe system overall, hydrogen does not get stored, like what most of the hydrogen test vehicles currently being tested have. These have tanks storing hydrogen under high PSI, much like a propane tank. An HHO system makes the hydrogen as the engine runs and is consumed almost immediately with no storage when the system is off. There will be some changes to this setup in my car, which I will cover later and why.

Towards the back of the engine on the driver’s side I mounted the PWM. From here the wiring gets distributed to the cells and the display inside the car. This is basically your brains which helps to control the production in the fuel cells and also keeping them cool, by balancing out the amps and frequency needed. Again, more on the new PWM soon.

Inside the car I used an open stereo DIN slot I wasn’t using since I had changed out the stock stereo years ago. I made a plastic panel and mounted the digital readout which shows the Frequency the PWM is set for as well as the Duty. The Duty helps to determine the amperage draw on the system. You want to try and get the proper hydrogen output needed with as little amperage draw as possible. With this setup, a Duty right around 60 is good. This will fluctuate a little. The Frequency at this point is nearly pointless, since I have seen this thing going all over the place in readings and I believe it is related to the temperatures the PWM gets. There is different quality of hydrogen that can be produced, and if you locate the proper Frequency, which is nearly impossible without a sniffer in the tailpipe, you can fine tune that quality. A smaller amount of good quality hydrogen will perform better than a lot of bad quality. But with the various atmospheric conditions, temperatures, etc, it makes it difficult, and this PWM tends to fluctuate with heat, I found. However, the new PWM addresses this. Again, more later.

More in Part 3

The Engine, Dry Cells, and Reservoir

Since my engine is the single cam 4.6 liter V8, we figured I should use the dual cell system to make sure we have the hydrogen output that might be needed. Each of these cells puts out about .8 of a liter per minute, with testing actually having shown to be more in most cases. I ended up mounting them under the front bumper on the passenger side of my car. If you look to the driver’s side, you might see the Amsoil Dual Bypass Filtration Systems, for those who have considered this from me as well.

The current supply reservoir tank is mounted next to the radiator reservoir and drains down into the cells, where the plates within each break out the 2 Hydrogen and one Oxygen (thus HHO instead of H2O), and the gas is then transferred back into the reservoir. The pressure from the gas keeps pressure in the system to help keep pushing water into the cells, while on the other side of the tank the gas is pushed into the engine. I picked this spot for the reservoir after remembering that the 2004-05 Mustang Cobras has a reservoir located here for their superchargers. The water has Potassium Carbonate in it as the electrolyzer so it is far more safe than many of the other systems using Potassium Hydroxide.

WARNING: Do not use Zephyrhills Distilled Water as your water source. When I first used this the tank filled up with suds that looked like a kitchen sink filled with detergent. Even with the tank 1/4 full, it filled it to overflow out of the top cap (when removed) and of coarse started to get pulled into the engine. We’re not sure why Zephyrhills is acting this way, but at the HHO Games, others commented about having similar problems and Crystal Distilled seemed to be the water of choice. Matt has used Publix Distilled with no ill effect. Once I mixed a new batch using Crystal Distilled Water, all was normal, no suds.

More in Part 2

The  group was started to get people from the area together who are interested in using hydrogen injection as an alternate form of fuel.  While not replacing gasoline completely, using an HHO system to supplement your fuel intake will help to increase gas mileage and lower emissions being put out by the vehicle.  This makes it an excellent “green” product and an inexpensive option to convert your existing vehicle into a hybrid without the cost of buying a new car or truck.  It isn’t uncommon to see an average MPG increase between 15-30%, with some owners seeing even more.

Because this group is being sponsored by HHO Monster, we ask that no other vendors come to promote their products.  We intend to show those available from HHO Monster, which include numerous different manufacturers that have passed our own quality control, where we can also give the pros and cons of each system and suggest which one would work best in an application.  Other vendors are welcome to share in the discussions as this technology and group is open to everyone to learn and exchange ideas.  If you do have a product you would like to promote, please contact HHO Monster first. We might be interested in helping you market it, if it meets our standards and warranties we offer customers.

As the group grows, we hope to see many different systems and learn from each other. We hope in the future we can get some of the manufacturers to the components and systems to visit and explain in more detail how their products work. Besides having vehicles of our own on display, we will also have static displays to show.

If you’re in the area and are interested, please sign up for the group. As membership grows we will schedule the first gathering. A location is already set, we just need to get a better idea on how many would actually show up and let them know what day we’d like to use their location.  If you’re not in the area, feel free to follow along in the discussions in the forum we hope to get going as more people join and start talking.

Here is the link to visit and join:  http://www.meetup.com/HHO-Hybrids/

We had some reps from South America visit the booth I was working at looking for systems to distribute there, primarily Ecuador and Columbia.  I was approached by a service center from up north that works primarily on buses and Detroit diesels.  He came down because he was getting more and more bus fleet owners asking about these systems and wanting them. Another was in the marine industry working with fishing boats.  Some theories amongst the different vendors is while this technology has been frowned upon, and ignored by the government as an alternative fuel, more people are becoming aware of it and learning more first hand, than trusting the word of a few people that have never used one.  As sales have been increasing, it’s believed that these units will jump in popularity by next year and start to rapidly increase from there as they become more mainstream.

The company I’m now working with is called HHO Monster, and they feature systems from several different manufacturers.  Their goal is to offer a variety of systems to the public rather than just one. This let’s the customer shop the different systems and get the pros and cons of each from us and decide which one fits what they are looking for.  More manufactures are interested in us selling their systems and approaching us, but each system is first checked for quality and durability.  We want to be able to offer a warranty on top of the one the manufacturer offers.  As mentioned, we have seen a lot of growth overseas, with a division of HHO Monster in Italy, and expect this demand to increase.  In order to provide better service for our customers, we are trying to get a network of installers.  We had several shop owners interested at the show, but so many people were asking who can install a system for them, not being the Do-It-Yourselfer themselves.  This has become something we’re hoping to solve by getting more mechanic shops interested.

If you think you would like to install these systems at your shop, let me know.  I can get you the information needed to sell the systems and make money from the installs.  These costs vary depending on the complexity of the vehicle and system, so there really is no set price you have to charge, just what you feel is a fair price for your labor and of course be able to stand behind the install.

On a side note, if you are not carrying Amsoil Synthetics already, both products go hand in hand when it comes to savings for the end user. I received a good response when I had my Amsoil booth setup at this show earlier this year, and this weekend when I mentioned I could help with synthetics on some of the bigger diesel applications, there was a lot of interest, if they weren’t using Amsoil already.  Both products are also great if you are focusing on the “green” market with their reduction of waste and much lower emissions.