Take a look at this article

[kjoiner]

Hello,

I was handed a magazine the other day with an article about a guy who is putting Duramax diesels etc. in Hummers and using Hydrogen injection to create some astronomical performance figures in power, fuel economy and emissions. I'm an M.E. and read this forum for personal interest so I thought I would post the link to see if these numbers seem realistic. Also, with a supposed 2000 ft-lbs of torque, what transmission and drivetrain will take that?

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/120/motorhead-messiah.html

Kyle

 

[BrianPetersen]

It's a load of bunk. Hydrogen injection doesn't work miracles. In a diesel engine, I'd be concerned about preignition with fuel delivered into the intake stream (same issue as propane injection can have).

"If it sounds too good to be true ... it probably is."

 

[kjoiner]

Brian,

I've seen some recent posts about propane injection and the hydrogen injection raised my attention.

Also, I was wondering about straining the cooking oil. All of the applications I've seen (usually on TV) involve separating the glycerin and doing a titration process. I don't recall seeing blue jeans as a filtering media.

Kyle

 

[BrianPetersen]

That's a bit of a different subject. If you want to use vegetable oil in a diesel engine there are 2 different courses of action.

1. Chemically react the vegetable oil with methanol and catalysts (lye, in this case) to transform it into biodiesel, a fuel which has viscosity and ignition/combustion properties not much different from standard diesel fuel. This fuel can be used in any standard diesel engine, although it appears that its use is frowned on in newer engines with Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF). I use commercially available biodiesel in my 2006 Jetta (without DPF). It's not a miracle fuel ... the engine runs the same on biodiesel as it does on standard diesel.

2. Make extensive changes to the fuel system of the vehicle so that the vegetable oil can be used without chemical transformation. The thing here is that vegetable oil has much higher viscosity, so it has to be heated in order to work, and even then it is an ongoing discussion about whether this is really a good thing to be doing in the long term. The engine failure rate seems higher than normal based on anecdotal evidence. In one "bad" sequence, vegetable oil doesn't atomize properly in the injectors (injecting too cold, etc.), reaches the cylinder walls, washes down into the engine oil, then chemically reacts and "polymerizes" in the oil, which wreaks havoc, engine goes boom. Systems like this are unproven with the new high-pressure common-rail, emission-controlled and DPF-equipped engines.