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Aug 11, 2008 - HHO, HHO, HHO

When prices soared at the pump, you could be sure that the scammers wouldn't be far behind trying to make a quick buck.

There's a lot of buzz about HHO kits. The idea is to use electricity from the car's alternator to electrolyze water into HHO, a mixture of pure hydrogen and oxygen. This mix is fed into the intake air, where it is burned along with gasoline, thereby increasing your fuel economy anywhere from 15 to 100 percent—depending on which Web site you're visiting.

The funny thing is that while you see a lot of anecdotes about someone who tried it and it "seems" to work after a half tank of fuel, or they know someone who knows someone who did it and they say it works, there hasn't been a lot of hard testing on what smells a lot like a scam to me.

Mike Allen at Popular Mechanics is taking on the task of testing an HHO kit and thus far he sees no mileage benefit. But he's being fair and reserving his judgement until he runs more testing on a dynamometer.

It would be great if the idea was true and we could increase our mileage at such a small cost. It also would be great if I could have a flying car simply by "Rudolphizing"  it with the inexpensive kit pictured above.

5:13 am | Categories: commentary, fuel efficiency Permalink | Alert Administrator

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