hydrogen peroxide injection?

boojiewoojie · 07-31-2007, 10:47 PM

Okay, I'm halfway through a trip to CA from TN - about 5000 miles round trip and things are going great. Part of the trip is to see my wife's grandmother and part of the trip was to deliver and pickup a homebuilt airplane kit. The fellow I delivered/ picked up the airplane from is an A&P mechanic who has quite an impressive resume. We spent several days together so I got to see much of his work and it is impeccable. He has described and I am almost finished installing a system he claims should help increase mpg 2 or 3 mpg. Has anyone ever used water injection or hydrogen peroxide injection in their engine? I'm about to try it tomorrow. I, of course am being pretty cautious because I don't want to screw up a motor 2000 miles from home. I'm not a mechanic so I would love to get some of ya'll's feedback if you've ever done anything like that. I told him I was thinking about propane injection but he says this is easier with better results.
Anyway, I'm on a library computer right now so I'll check in tomorrow to see if anybody has had experience with this...

bus-bro · 07-31-2007, 11:20 PM

Does he tell you the science of it. It is all chemesitry, the energy has to come from somewhere.

the_experience03 · 07-31-2007, 11:22 PM

Here's my opinion on it....

Water injection and methanol injection are popular methods of reducing preignition (detonation) within an engine by cooling the intake charge. Makes sense I guess...spraying me with a hose makes me cooler too. The system is incredibly efficient at preventing detonation due to forced induction, timing that is advanced too far, high intake temps or engine temps, low octane fuel, lean burn mixtures, etc.

Great, right? Well...not really. I don't think you're suffering from any of those problems so what you're doing is extinguishing your flame causing peak cylinder pressures to be made too late. You'd be costing yourself power unless you maybe advanced the heck out of the timing. Perhaps you could start using lower octane fuel as a result of this system. Maybe, just MAYBE it could allow you to lean out your mixture. That would be the only way you would gain mileage (ok...lower octane fuel would save you money, but I bet you run 87 octane anyway).

So let's recap...we're going to put a system in place that injects water into our intake charge. If it injects to much we hydrolock the motor and probably bend some rods. If it doesn't inject enough and we've advanced the timing, lowered the octane, or leaned the mixture to make use of the water injection we end up with melted pistons and burnt valves.

I guess it's up to you, but it seems like you'd be adding a lot of risk and work for the potential to pick up just a little more power or a little more mileage. I sure wouldn't do it. That said, I have heard this rumor as well. The part I always see left out is people making the other modifications to make the water injection worthwhile.

*EDIT* Further reading has me noticing that your 3208 is normally aspirated (and a diesel...most of my post was in reference to gassers, but same ideas). You would have nothing to gain with water injection. Diesels are all about adding more fuel. When you don't have enough air anymore you add forced induction. Then you add more fuel. Then you add more air. Then you add more fuel. Then you add more air. All the other mods like propane injection just make that easier. Propane injection helps what fuel we ARE injectiing burn better. Water injection and intercoolers make our air more dense so we are getting more in the engine. It's just more air and more fuel.

boojiewoojie · 08-01-2007, 02:44 PM

Quote:

Water injection and intercoolers make our air more dense so we are getting more in the engine.

That is what he was telling me. He followed the bus to the airport and said I needed to turn the fuel down because of the black smoke. We were at 7000 feet, but he said I was probably still running rich even at sea level. He said that hydrogen pyroxide will increase the density even more. He said that of course a turbo will help, but this is probably my best short term solution to increase mpg. He said that propane is trickier to set up. He's given me detailed instructions on how to do it, which I'm finishing up this afternoon. I'm figuring that at least through the low humidity western states I'll try it going up the hills. Over the course of 2500 miles a 1 mpg difference adds up so I'm thinking it's worth a try. If it doesn't work I figure I can use it for an outdoor shower kind of thing so the kids can rinse off from the beach before hopping on the bus.
I will have to say this guy is pretty far out there. He's been on the race crew for one of the airplanes at the Reno air races for several years, he used to make his own biodiesel and he has an injection system (and some other esoteric mods) on one of his cars and is claiming outrageous mpg. He said there is little danger of messing up the engine.
Any more thoughts?

the_experience03 · 08-01-2007, 11:23 PM

MY thoughts are that someone had to try WVO first and I'm sure there were plenty of nay-sayers then...now look at us! Give it a shot. Just be careful as you do it and pay close attention. If you start hearing some not-so-good noises it's time to turn the system off NOW because you might be injecting too much liquid.

Good luck and report back with results!

Elliot Naess · 08-02-2007, 01:54 AM

OK, a thought.
I believe that black smoke from a diesel engine must mean that there is more fuel being injected than there is air (oxygen) available to burn that fuel. With a turbo charger this becomes slightly complicated, but without a turbo it should be quite straight forward: Your foot may be too low in relation to your tach. Try feeding in the fuel gradually as revs climb, rather than flooring the pedal the moment the light turns green.
As for experimenting with propane and water and other trickery, I'm interested, but I would probably experiment with this a bit closer to home!
Keep us posted!
Oh... where in California are you going?

boojiewoojie · 08-08-2007, 09:21 PM

Well, we made it home and had absolutely 0 mechanical problems. I love traveling in a bus conversion! My wife wants to sell our other cars (except one) and really fix the bus up. I love it!!
I couldn't get any results out of the water injection. It didn't seem to make any difference at all if I had it on or off. After I had it on for a couple of minutes and then turned it off the engine did seem to run stronger for about 30 seconds. I'm not sure if I was imagining it or not. I talked to my boss here at the bus garage since I got back and he said that water injection is a viable option when it's set up right to make the air mixture denser. He also has a friend in the industry that's experimenting with hydrogen injection to lower emissions. So, I might mess around with it some more. Jim, my airplane friend in Reno thinks I'm not atomizing the mixture enough.
Elliot, we made our way to Ferndale and enjoyed the visit to the kinectic sculpture museum. Maybe one day we'll actually get to see a race!

Elliot Naess · 08-08-2007, 09:39 PM

Alas, the Kinetic Museum is only a shadow of its former self. Five or six years ago, most of that entire building was filled with Kinetic Kontraptions! But the building became "too valuable" to just sit there like that, so the museum keeps shrinking as the owner finds paying tenants. Oh well. Glad you enjoyed what was still there!

The race is always on Memorial Weekend -- last weekend of May. Next year will be the 40th Anniversary, so it should be a good one.
http://kinetickingdom.com/

And sure glad you had a trouble free trip!

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