Using Water For Gas?

I’m sure we’ve all heard of someone running their car on water. In fact, I think I even remember seeing a local news story about it. Of course, gas was a dollar a gallon back then. It seems like a distant, happy memory now. Oh wait, it is. With the price of gas quickly approaching $4 and most likely $5 a gallon, the idea of using water for gas is becoming very appealing.

In fact, there’s a commercially available product that claims to increase your fuel economy by %50. It uses electricity to turn water into hydrogen. Sound too good to be true? Well, it depends on your vehicle and your driving habits.

Thanks to some research done by a professional mechanic and fellow blogger, we can get unbiased information on this interesting product. His findings are broken down into two articles about the product known as water4gas: Part 1 , Part 2

I’ll leave the details to him, but the simplified results are as follows: it works, sorta.

Let me explain: the product does indeed turn water in to hydrogen, and this does result in improved fuel economy. The problem is, the best results are attained using vehicles with small engines, and during extended highway travel. So, if you have a fuel efficient car with a small engine and you tend to drive on the highway a lot, you could see a %25 increase in your gas mileage.

Microjoule Gets 8,923 MPG: Your Prius Is A Joke

The French built Microjoule has been winning Shell’s Eco-marathon every year since 1992, breaking the world MPG record six times since then. The best part about it is that the Microjoule doesn’t use any fancy tricks to achieve this phenomenal gas mileage- it uses aerodynamics and light weight to get this fuel economy with a normal gas engine.
Source: Dvice

376 MPG… in 1973!

In 1973, a car managed to get 376 miles to the gallon. That was 30 years ago. Using a car that was 20 years old at the time- and was put together by a couple of guys in their garage.

Of course, this car is highly modified for efficiency. The rear wheels are both in the center of the car. It only seats one. There are no headlights.

Even if some creature comforts were added and this car was only able to perform at half the efficiency that it achieved in 1973, it would still be a car that got 188 miles to the gallon.

The secret to this great fuel economy comes mostly from superheating the gas before it reaches the combustion chamber, making it essentially fuel vapor. Other factors are more obvious- weight reduction, hard tires providing lower resistence (roughly %25 of energy is lost to soft tires).

This car was listed in Guiness book of world records in 1975. It was the winner of a fuel efficiency contest sponsored by Shell in 1973, and until recently, it has been sitting in a museum at Talladega raceway.

Shell still sponsors the eco-marathon that this car won in 1973, and the results of last years competition were incredible. Vehicles are getting upwards of 1900 MPG.

Sources seattlepi , race-cardrivers