I have been researching hydrogen fuel cell technology this afternoon. There are books you can buy that tell you how to build one that converts water to hydrogen that is sucked into the intake and mixed with the gasoline. Does anybody know if this would work for an air cooled engine? They say it will let your engine run cooler and much more efficient. T.

 

Recently on Chopper build off a guy built a hydrogen powered, turbo chopper. It ran for the show!!

 

The problems encountered with Hydrogen are numerous, the main one you would encounter is controlling knock (pre-ignition) as the engine gets hot - especially if you travel in slow moving traffic. If you need some details I can forward some background notes.

 

hmmm...hydrogen, hindenburg.....nope, not me........

 

The hydrogen from water thing is still a bit of a myth. It takes way too much energy to create than you will see in return. Right now the most effiecient way to create hydrogen is to split Methane (natural gas). The only public station (that I'm aware of) that is selling hydrogen is in Las Vegas. So, instead of spending the extra energy to split off hydrogen why not burn Natural Gas (cng) directly. It can be bought on the road and can also be pumped at home using a Phill or a Fuelmaker and you get lots of gubmint rebates to do this. Pre-ignition is not an issue with cng as it has an octane rating of about 140. You will have to increase the compression ratio of your motor to make the most efficient use of the fuel and you will have to deal with timing issues as cng burns slower than gasoline. It can be done and has been done.

 

I had a customer tell me that a new car dealer near him was installing the hydrogen systems on cars for about 1500 bucks.&nbsp\\; BS?&nbsp\\; Don't know.

 

We've experimented with making hydrogen where I work, from our tests, in order make enough to run an engine (like on a motorcycle), you'd have to&nbsp\\;pull a&nbsp\\;trailer to hold the hydrogen&nbsp\\;generator to make enough to run the bike. That is just for starters, It gets more complicated that that, but I won't go into detail. here.
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&nbsp\\; G wizz

 

If it worked at all, it would work on an air cooled engine, the challenge is to make it work.

 

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I think that a lot of folks are trying to investigate the&nbsp\\;hydrogen / o2 from water which is mostly refered&nbsp\\;to as Browns gas.&nbsp\\; It is some what do able&nbsp\\;and not complex, that is&nbsp\\;if you call a gas generator, a dc-ac&nbsp\\;converter to power the plates in the&nbsp\\;gas generator.&nbsp\\;&nbsp\\;And assorted hose tubing and&nbsp\\;check valves and that sort of stuff to allow the gas a combination of&nbsp\\;hydrodgen and oxygen mix to be sucked into your intake&nbsp\\;by&nbsp\\;either vacuum or injection.
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A lot of web-sites are making some bucks at doing this, and you can make the products yourself less expensive and save some bucks.&nbsp\\;&nbsp\\;As to effectiveness, that is yet to be determined.&nbsp\\; Its advertised&nbsp\\;to gain 10% or more&nbsp\\;increase in power and save upto 30% in fuel depending upon which site and equipment you use. &nbsp\\;

 

This stuff always pops up when their is pain at the pump.&nbsp\\; It's out there but the technology to do it is way too complicated to fit on the bike as GWIZZ points out.&nbsp\\; Just like them battery cars, load up 1000lbs of batteries to drag around and the Duracell Bunny inevitably needs replaced.&nbsp\\;&nbsp\\; Conspiracy geeks will tell you the the battery companies have some big secret&nbsp\\;&amp\\; Big Oil is quashing it.
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We went through this crap in the 73 oil crisis (oops showing my age).
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