oxygen sensor

[Wan]

Cheers Jr! Thanks the vote of confidence!

[EricN]

Hey Wan. I stand by my original post that you are wasting 5 horsepower to gain .5 horsepower BUT, I will help you out here. Warm the truck up all the way to operating temp. Disconnect the alternator and then try your RPM test. The truck will start and run fine and the RPM will not be affected by electrical load.
You wont find 20amps worth of stuff to disconnect on a diesel unless the lights and heater are on or the glow plugs cycling.

And as for the comments that O2 sensors and Cats didnt show up in Canada untill 1990, that is completely incorrect.

[Green1]

I imagine the L400 is going to be a VERY different story when we start bringing those in.

from what I keep reading it sounds like that's not the case... they too sound to be a very "simple" diesel engine.

And I'll restrict my comments on the electolyzer and hydrogen injection garbage to the other thread....

[marsgal42]

...no oxygen sensors, or computers (which is wonderful!)... Wan

There is a computer in these things, it's just a simple one (from what I've been told). Check with ccautos to learn what the computer is doing; he would have a better idea than most of us.

There is a microprocessor in the glow plug controller (the 40 pin DIP IC). I have no idea what it does, but with no electrical connections to the injector pump or injectors (other than the cutoff solenoid), it can't do much in the way of engine management.

I cannot actually confirm any requirement for Canadian cars to have catalytic converters. However, this is the only available technology available to meet current exhaust emissions standards. All the Feds say is that you must met the emissions requirements. How you do it is up to you. Banning of unleaded gas in Canada is well-documented, and occurred in 1990.

The AirCare folks always do a double-take when they look under my 1986 Jetta with their inspection mirror, but since she passes 1986 emission standards by a ridiculous margin, and easily meets 1991 standards (they changed the test for 1992 and newer vehicles and the numbers are no longer comparable), I don't care, and neither does ICBC. I've been looking in to this at both the Federal and Provincial level in some detail for a project I'm toying with.

Aside: a colleague of mine bought a Prius when they were first sold in Canada. It failed AirCare the first time he took it in. The engine kept stalling at idle.

I refrain from comment on this "hydrolyzer" stuff, except to say that if you don't know exactly what you're doing (and you clearly don't), you probably shouldn't be messing with such things.

...laura

[Wan]

Thanks again Laura. I'll continue to consult with others, but you're helping me feel confident that there aren't too many more factory installed obstructions in way of my project.

Curious to know what your project is....?

And, I'd say there aren't a lot of people that truly know exactly what they're doing at whatever they're doing, but you can't just go on in life acquiring every single last itty bitty piece of information before you make your move... even when dealing with highly combustible gases!!

I feel right at home given all the concern I'm getting from the strangers I'm meeting in Delica land. Unfortunately, many of you choose to assume and fail to ask or find out exactly how much I DO know about what am I doing. I'm not about to waste energy feeding my ego by telling you to what extent my knowledge runs, but at least know I'm not about to blow myself up or ruin a perfectly decent vehicle. The major road blocks have been sorted... it's all in the details now, which some of you are helping me with and I give you my deepest gratitude.

[marsgal42]

Editorial: Frankly, this electrolyzer stuff is 21st century snake oil. And when I see somebody getting all excited about it, I know there are gaps in their knowledge. The thermodynamics just don't work.

Do what you want. It's your Delica. But some objective testing might be in order: a dynamometer, or even some acceleration times under controlled conditions.

...laura

[loki]

People need to be more open minded in my opinion, I recall someone telling everyone that the earth was not the centre of the universe and getting in a bit of trouble for it. They all KNEW that he was wrong!

I'm not saying this will or wont work, I will wait to see the prove.

science is very dynamic, many of the things that we learned even 5 or 10 years ago in school or where ever are now (and actually usually even as we where learning them) are now known to be wrong.

[Green1]

science is very dynamic, many of the things that we learned even 5 or 10 years ago in school or where ever are now (and actually usually even as we where learning them) are now known to be wrong.

The first law of thermodynamics is pretty well established, and the best minds on the planet haven't been able to prove it wrong yet...

not only that, it's just counter intuitive, the energy being produced by combining the hydrogen and oxygen is the molecular bond energy, to get more out than it took to break the bonds in the first place would require a new version of water with a different strength of molecular bonds... this substance simply does not exist.

I'm not debating that hydrogen can be used to power a car, but you can't create the fuel in the same vehicle you plan to use it in and expect it to work. (if you wanted to seperate water in to hydrogen and oxygen at home, and then put them in to the vehicle you might have something going... but not this way)

Every time someone has come up with one of these devices it has at best failed to work, and at worst been proven in court to be a complete and utter fraud.

Nobody has ever submitted one of these miracle devices for independant review and had it survive.

Making this work wouldn't only revolutionize vehicular travel, it would also change our most fundamental knowledge of physics and chemistry.

This isn't akin to proving we're not the centre of the universe, it's more akin to trying to prove we ARE now that we have scientific proof to the contrary.

To believe in this stuff a couple hundred years ago would be understandable, however now that this stuff is taught in every grade school on the continent you would think people would know better.

I feel sorry for anyone who actually believes in this stuff, and I get rather angry at those who would take advantage of people's ignorance by selling them this garbage.

[loki]

As I said, I wasn't saying it would work, I don't think it actually will, but I'm not going to tell someone that they can't do something. I say go for it. The earth as the centre of the universe is just one example there are MANY more where science had proved something was one way and everyone knew it was true only to be disproved later, I agree that the laws of thermodynamics are well established and I think they are correct, but I'm not going to say that there is no chance of things like that changing. With so many things in science still guess work and speculation and how most things are reliant on others one thing that is changed (string theory and the like) can change how we see everything else.

Again, not saying anyones ideas are wrong, I just don't think people should think that they know best when it comes to these types of things especially when you don't have any details at all.

maybe this system will work because the alternator is already producing way more power than needed, that being said you might be able to get better results by putting a smaller alternator on so there is less drag on the engine. what ever, I say have at it, just don't blow up my van :)

[marsgal42]

I don't need details to know that any device that violates well-established scientific principles is a priori bogus.

Open-mindedness has nothing to do with it. There are genuinely contentious areas in science where I follow developments with interest, like Unified Field Theories and mysterious results in cosmology that are currently sort-of-explained by dark matter and dark energy. What's happening under the ice on Europa? What's in that slush on Titan?

Thermodynamics? Contentious? Not on this planet...

Can we talk about Delicas now?

...laura, B.Sc., M.A.Sc., card-carrying Member of the Scientific Establishment

[Wan]

[mararmeisto]

Would all the members of the Flat Earth Society please raise their hands as they move a bit more to the left... more... just a bit more... sorry, too far. Now you're all out of the shot.

I'm almost sorry I asked Wan what the issue was... almost, but not quite.


This has been a VERY interesting thread to read.

[loki]

Also many great inventions have been discovered by accident while trying to do something unrelated that was deemed impossible so, again, not saying anything for or against any ideas, just trying to point out that different theories and ideas are important, and I think that we should offer opinions and help equally, warnings if you think safety is a concern but shooting them down with no details is not cool. As for "well-established scientific principles" that was my point with the centre of the universe example, that was well established as well as my other things that later came to be known as false, hell I have seen things that where true, then false then true again.

Anyways, I'm not trying to start a fight here just trying to get people to see past the barriers that have been built up around them by the things that they "know" to be true. Odds are they are true but with some much still unexplained the puzzle is no where near complete so we will likely never know what that truth is. Crazy enough for you? BTW your thing-a-ma-jig isn't going to work ;)

[Green1]

shooting them down with no details is not cool.

I'd hardly say this was with "no details"
I have explained in detail the exact reasons why this could never work, which scientific prinicples prove the point, and why it is bad for:
- the environment (increased fuel useage)
- the vehicle (possible engine damage)
- the wallet (thousands of wasted dollars)

Would you not want to know if you were about to waste thousands of dollars on something that is an extremely well known scam? or would you rather nobody told you and let you throw your money away? (if so, I've got a bridge to sell you!)

[mararmeisto]

shooting them down with no details is not cool.

I'd hardly say this was with "no details"
I have explained in detail the exact reasons why this could never work, which scientific prinicples prove the point, and why it is bad for:
- the environment (increased fuel useage)
- the vehicle (possible engine damage)
- the wallet (thousands of wasted dollars)

Would you not want to know if you were about to waste thousands of dollars on something that is an extremely well known scam? or would you rather nobody told you and let you throw your money away? (if so, I've got a bridge to sell you!)

Okay, I want to have a whack at this with my science stick:

It's not so much that a hydrogen enhancement system in a diesel engine WON'T work - it's that it's not very efficient (actually, from different perspective, it's thermodynamically TOO efficient). One of the reasons the hydrogen infrastructure for the automotive world has not taken off is because hydrogen is very expensive to produce (on a cost comparison basis with petroleum). Hydrogen is an energy conservative when compared to oil.

In order to extract hydrogen from water, large amounts of electricity are required to break the molecular bonds between it and the oxygen. This is why Wan is looking for a 20 Amp or greater load capacity from vehicle. Hydrogen is an excellent example of the conservation of energy - nature didn't put any effort into trapping large amounts of hydrogen by itself, so we have to put energy into extracting it from the water in which it is trapped.

Oil, on the other hand, is already trapped in a near-useful form (nature did all of the work trapping it millions of years ago when it compressed biological materiel into the ground), and the amount of energy put into producing diesel fuel, then gasoline, then jet fuel (in the various stages of greater and greater refinement), etc is less compared to the amount of energy gained from the refined substance.

In short, whatever is developed in boost from adding hydrogen to the combustion chamber, an equal amount of energy has been lost from the electrical system in the production of the hydrogen in the first place. And whatever is not spent as an energy load by the engine, is instead put into the vehicle through other 'costs' such as electrolytes or alternative driving habits (see the projected savings page on this system: http://www.hydrogen-boost.com/save-how-much.html). I especially like the second sentence in the disclaimer paragraph - considerable savings of 5%-10% from installation of the system alone?

One can gain those kind of savings of 5%-10% simply by monitoring the pressure in their tires and changing the air filter: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/maintain.shtml). And these saving are not by adding anything to the system (other than the cost of the replaceable items), but instead are reducing the losses inherent in the system (due to friction, primarily).

Here's another way of looking at it: two rocks of relatively the same size (oil and hydrogen), one at the top of a hill and the other at the bottom. The rock at the top is pushed with a little effort and rolls down the hill to a distance 50m from the bottom of the hill on a level surface. The rock at the bottom is pushed, and has to keep being pushed, to reach the 50m mark. The 'extra' energy in the oil-rock (at the top of the hill remember) is there because nature trapped it there at the top of the hill (a little kinetic energy induces a lot of stored potential energy). The 'extra' energy in the hydrogen-rock is coming from the individual pushing the rock - nothing 'extra' comes from the movement of the rock itself (the amount of kinetic energy used to move the rock is nearly equal to the amount of potential energy stored in the rock).

I don't have any pieces of paper on my wall to indicate that I know how to describe all of that - I'm still attending the University of Life and it doesn't award academic degrees - but I can read and think for myself. I wouldn't put this kind of system into my vehicle.

In closing, I notice plenty of these 'kits' are selling on kijiji and ebay...