Getting Warmer!!
The thermometer is having a lot of trouble deciding where it wants to settle down for the next little while. It was -10 Celsius last night when I turned in, -12 when I got up, but +1 by the time I came home again. As frustrating as all of this is, it’s definitely a sure sign that car maintenance weather can’t be too far away. I’m trying hard to prioritize just what I want to do with the Roadmaster and the Parisienne to ensure that I tackle the critical stuff and ensure I budget accordingly for the things that I have to buy and the things that I can repair/rebuild myself. I think I’d like to pick up some of my earlier experiments from my Grand Marquis.
A number of years ago I got extremely interested in the potential benefits of HHO gas on a combustion engine. I spent massive amounts of time researching what the gas is purported to do, and whether or not it was likely to work. This turned out to be one of those cases where the Internet didn’t provide me with conclusive data. For every person who can provide significant information on just how effective it is, there’s another person who insists it’s an impossibility. I’ve read countless reports from people who claim that there’s no benefit to introducing Hydrogen into a gasoline combustion system, although they offer few facts to support this. I get more excited by the people who say that they have been successful in dramatically minimizing their emissions levels and even improving their mileage by as much as 70%. I spoke to someone last year with another full-sized sedan similar to my Pontiac that had a 305ci V8 and they claimed to be getting 55mpg. This is something that I just have to figure out for myself.
I built myself a Hydrogen Electrolyzer and installed it in my Grand Marquis. I was partially successful. The engine quieted down almost immediately to the point that I could barely hear it at a stop light and my exhaust no longer had any odour to it whatsoever. Unfortunately, the ECM in the Grand Marquis took some of it’s oxygen readings from the exhaust system. The increase in Oxygen in the engine emissions caused the computer to adjust the fuel intake and my mileage actually got worse. Despite only partial success my findings were sufficiently interesting to make me want to try this out on a vehicle without any manner of computer control. This was the driving force behind the purchase of my 1981 Pontiac. While I so often whine about not being able to work outside in the cold, it’s starting to feel warm enough that I’m getting pretty excited. I slowed down on my Pontiac repairs after getting a new job a while ago that took up a fair amount of my time. The Pontiac really needs carburetor work before I can start my modifications and I think this needs to be one of my priorities both from my desire for challenge and to give me sufficient time this summer for the remaining installation as well as for gathering suitable amounts of data.
It’s my hope to finally get the electrolyzer installed into my Pontiac and document all of the factual data in as unbiased a manner as I can. I would really like to provide solid, useful data once and for all about what benefits, if any, introducing a Hydrogen/Oxygen mixture directly into the combustion chamber of a gasoline engine can have. Stay tuned.
