Hydrocarbon Cracking System

[Edostar]

Hello Everyone.

I just registered here and I'd like to share with you as system which is becoming very popular here in Indonesia.
It's known as HCS (for Hydrocarbon Crakcing System) and is very simple and cheap to make and install oneself.
Huge mileage and power increases have been experienced with this system.

It there is already a thread discussing this system or if I have chosen to post this in the wrong section; I hope that someone will correct me.

I should also point out that this system is not patented and is firmly in the public domain.
My own interest in it is completely without commercial aspirations of any kind.

Here is a simple schematic of the system:

There are a couple of minor variations of the system but this one shows it in its basic form.
Air is drawn through a bubbler tank which is about 30% filled with regular gasoline.
As the bubbles agitate the fuel; it partially evaporates and the fuel-rich vapours are then drawn through a 'catalyst' which is clamped to the outside of the hottest part of the exhaust pipe; heating it to around 300 degrees celsius.
At these temperatures; the fuel vapour is cracked into Hydrogen and Carbon and is drawn on into the vacuum intake of the engine.

This schematic shows a Manifold vacuum which is not the best form of vacuum for this system.
The reason being that the Manifold vacuum is strongest at idle and diminishes rapidly as the throttle is opened and the engine speed picks up.

Far better is the Venturi vacuum which increases with the speed of the engine drawing increasing quantities of hydrogen as it is needed.
However; many engines do not have a readily available Venturi vacuum and this is a persistent problem vacuum-operated HCS.

Another way of operating the system is to push the vapours through the bubbler and 'catalyst' and on into the engine.
If pressure is used; the output can be fed into the air filter or the Manifold vacuum which greatly increases the ease of fitting the system.

There are a couple of obvious variable pressure sources available for out purposes.
One is the Exhaust system and the other is the PCV pipe.
Both are beneficial when drawn into the burn chamber of the engine and both increase and decrease with the speed of the engine.
Another benefit of using exhaust or PCV is that they are warm and will greatly aid the evaporation of the bubbler fuel.

Here is an exhaust pressure scheme:


Here is a PCV pressure scheme:


I hasten to add that the pressure needed to push the vapours through the system is very low and pose no danger at all.

I am currently running my Ford 2.5 liter fuel injected petrol car with this system attached.
It is operated by a venturi vacuum that I was fortunate enough to discover.
The run of the engine is much smoother and quieter that without and the power is noticeably greater.
I have experienced a 20% mileage increase in town driving and 40% increase in out-of-town driving.

I also run an exhaust-pressure HCS on my Honda 200cc motorcycle feeding the output into the manifold vacuum.
The run of the engine is smoother and quieter with noticeably increased power.
Mileage increases have yet to be calculated as it is used occasionally on short town runs.

Finally; I run a PCV pressure HCS on my Kawasaki 250cc twin.
The engine is quieter and smoother with noticeably increased power and around 40% mileage increase in regular town driving.

Dan.

[Edostar]

Hello again.

Astute observers will have noticed a difference in the schematic drawings of the 'catalysts' and I would like to add an explanation here.

The system was developed by an Indonesian called Dehari in the town of Jogjakarta on the island of Java.
He did not patent the system but started selling kits at very low cost for people to fit to their own vehicles.

As part of the kit; there was a copper tube which he referred to as a 'catalyst' which was to be clamped to the side of the hottest part of the exhaust pipe.
The rest of the kit consisted of a bubbler tank, a length of heat-resistant rubber tubing, a couple of screw valves, T-joints etc and it was generally assumed that the 'catalyst' was the only part that couldn't be bought in the stores.

I took one of his 'catalysts' apart and found that it contained nothing but a rod of aluminium; whose function seemed to be to channel the vapours closely against the inside of the wall of the 'catalyst', thus ensuring that there were no 'cold' spots existed and that all the fuel vapours became cracked by the considerable heat of the exhaust pipe.

I initially used Dehari's 'catalyst' tube with good results but decided to try a narrower-gauge copper tube wrapped a few times around the exhaust pipe to see if heat alone was responsible for the apparent vapour-cracking or whether the aluminium rod inside the copper tube had a catalytic effect.

The results were exactly the same as with the original 'catalyst' and the only 'specialist' part of the kit was replaced by an easily available length of copper tubing.

In the later schemes; I have drawn the copper tube wound around the exhaust pipe rather than Dehari's original 'catalyst' tube.

I don't know about Western prices but I can buy all the component parts of the HCS for a few dollars, fit it in an hour, immediately gain power, running efficiency and fuel savings.

Dan.

[Edostar]

In Continuation:

The main difference between HHO and HCS is that HCS produces no oxygen; only Hydrogen and Carbon.
This makes it considerably safer as Hydrogen will not burn without oxygen.

HHO requires electrolysis to crack the gas from the water and this places a burden on the engine.
Although there has been found to be a net gain; the production is necessarily limited.

HCS takes nothing out of the engine; either to push the vapours through the system or crack the hydrocarbons in the ?heat-tube? and so the production of Hydrogen is technically unlimited.

On the Indonesian forums; people talk about using bubbler fuel at the rate of between 5% and 10% of the regular tank fuel but I have found that I use less than 5%.

The system that I have running in my Ford 2.5L petrol injection rig actually uses two bubbler tanks in series; the vapour from the first bubbler passes through the second bubbler before being cracked in the heat-tube and drawn into a venturi vacuum inlet.
This double-bubbler set-up produces a richer vapour and therefore (I assume) more hydrogen at any one moment.

I was actually very disappointed in the performance of the Ford when I first bought it as it seemed somewhat underpowered (like the engine was just too small for the car).
Initially I fitted an HHO booster and this improved things somewhat (smoother run to the engine etc) but I felt that it still lacked power.

When I heard about and fitted a simple HCS to the car (in addition to the HHO) it started to run so much better.
It feels more like an electric car as the noise and vibration are way down and the gear change seems happy to bump up into higher gears at far lower revs than before.
This is empirical evidence of the increased power offered by the HCS.

Another feature is that this system seems to offer is a significant reduction in tailpipe pollution.
I haven?t tested in on a Dyno yet but there is no noticeable smoke coming from any of my vehicles (even if revved sharply) and all that seems to come out is a little water vapour.

I see that a few people have viewed this thread but nobody has yet ventured to reply.
I hope that this means that my explanation and diagrams are so clear that the reader can just go off and put one together and try it.

I?d like to emphasize that my motivation for sharing my experiences of this system is entirely altruistic and non-commercial.

Internal combustion engines (as we are all painfully aware) work very poorly; converting much of the calorific value of the fuel into vibration, heat, noise or simply dumped out of the tailpipe unburned.

It is my hope that you will try this little add-on that has produced such impressive fuel savings for so many here in Indonesia.

Dan.

[theclencher]

No thanks, I don't do crack.

[Zarko]

Originally Posted by theclencher

No thanks, I don't do crack.

Give us at least one reason why you wouldn't even try it?

[Sludgy]

Hard to tell whether ant one the three systems would work as a gas saver from the diagrams.

All of the diagrams show a carburetor. Very few cars in North America now use carburetors.

The PCV and exhaust pressure versions will richen the mixture. This usually hurts uel economy.

None of the diagrams show catalytic converters, so there is no way to know whether the cars have O2 sensors and feedback control of the A/F ratio.

When doing the FE calculations, are the experimenters counting the gasoline evaporated in the "catalyst"?

Finally, fuel "cracking" can produce soot. The soot might coat the intake valve, and I have no idea whether soot (carbon) particles would combust in the cylinder. If soot doesn't combust, then FE should get worse.

So, I think the jury is out on whether the system will work.

[Edostar]

Originally Posted by Sludgy

Hard to tell whether ant one the three systems would work as a gas saver from the diagrams.

All of the diagrams show a carburetor. Very few cars in North America now use carburetors.

The PCV and exhaust pressure versions will richen the mixture. This usually hurts uel economy.

None of the diagrams show catalytic converters, so there is no way to know whether the cars have O2 sensors and feedback control of the A/F ratio.

When doing the FE calculations, are the experimenters counting the gasoline evaporated in the "catalyst"?

Finally, fuel "cracking" can produce soot. The soot might coat the intake valve, and I have no idea whether soot (carbon) particles would combust in the cylinder. If soot doesn't combust, then FE should get worse.

So, I think the jury is out on whether the system will work.

Hi Sludgy.

Thanks for your comments.

You are right that all three diagrams show a carburetor but carbs are not at all necessary to the system (my car has a fuel injected gasoline engine).

Diagram one shows a vacuum-operated HCS but as I explain in the text; a venturi vacuum is needed to run the system effectively.
A manifold vacuum is strongest when the engine is at idle and fades as the engine speed picks up.
If you don't have a venturi vacuum; then the 'pressure systems' are most effective as both PCV and exhaust pressure increase with the engine revs.

The two pressure system digrams (PCV and Exhaust) show the cracked hydrocarbons feeding into the air filter so will work with both carb and FI engines equally well.

The fuel efficiency figures are reported by users across Indonesia and I can't vouch for the accuracy of their testing methods.
The bubbler fuel is generally added to the fuel consumption and not ignored in the equation.

If you're really interested to know whether your misgivings are well-founded or not; the best way it find out is to try the system yourself.
It's cheap and easy to cobble together in your back yard and the effects should be pretty immediate.

You should notice that the engine is more powerful and runs more smoothly and with greatly reduced noise and vibration.
The reason for this is that more of the calorific value of the fuel is being converted into forward motion and less into noise, vibration etc.
There will be virtually no smoke from the exhaust pipe and you should achieve around 40% extra mileage.

I've been running HCS on my car for two years now and there are no harmful effects so far.

Dan.

[Edostar]

Many of you will be conversant with the term 'expansion mediums' but for those who aren't; here's a short explanation as it relates directly to HHO (and it is equally relevant to HCS of course):


Gasoline contains chemical energy, which is of little value by itself when attempting to propel a vehicle. To accomplish useful work, the chemical energy must be converted to kinetic energy. Again the quandary lies in said fuel's inability to efficiently deliver such a direct conversion. Internal combustion engines, therefore, rely on a 2-stage conversion process:

Chemical-> thermal-> kinetic

The fuel is first burned to generate heat.

Chemical-> thermal

From a hot-rodder's viewpoint, this is where high compression and potent ignition systems get to show their stuff. Now a new problem. Heat can't power our vehicles any better than the liquid gasoline we started with. We need yet another conversion,

Thermal-> kinetic

As the fuel burns and generates heat, it heats up the nitrogen, water vapor (either water injected, ambient humidity, or a byproduct of combustion), and carbon dioxide (combustion byproduct). The nitrogen is present in the incoming air charge. Some of the water vapor and pretty much all of the carbon dioxide are results of burning the fuel. The water, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and other elements that expand in the cylinder when heated are called the Expansion Medium.

An expansion medium is required to accomplish the Thermal-> Kinetic conversion. Without an expansion medium, you just heat up (or burn up) the engine. Furthermore, the different gasses have different thermal expansion coefficients. Stated in simpler terms, water expands at 12 times the rate of nitrogen, and carbon dioxide is more expansive than water. To get more power from the same fuel you could simply switch from nitrogen to a more potent expansion medium. Taos is not practical, at least not entirely.

Let's consider how water injection can be expected to perform under this model. If the water is injected into the air stream in an aerosol (like from an injector or mister nozzle), it will first undergo a phase change from liquid to vapor. This involves Latent Heat of Evaporation principles; similar to a swamp cooler operation. Some of the thermal energy in the combustion charge that could otherwise act on the expansion medium is consumed vaporizing the water. My practical experience is no net gain or loss in mileage.

If the water is fed into the engine in a vapor form, then the available thermal energy acts upon the water vapor as an expansion medium, but without the parasitic losses associated with the vaporization process.

Now onto EGR. Exhaust gasses typically contain 13% CO2, 18% H2O, and 69% nitrogen. Aside from the effects on combustion rate, exhaust gasses make for a very potent expansion medium. Now factor in the effect on the burn and you net a slower and cooler burn with the presence of inert exhaust gasses. EGR contributes neither as a fuel nor as an oxidizer.

Finally, add some HHO and see how it purrs. At atmospheric pressures, gasoline burns at a rate of 41.5 cm/sec. In contrast, bottled hydrogen burns at 237 cm/sec. This is over 5.6 times as fast. Now for the "boot to da head": HHO has been recorded to burn as fast as 240,000 cm/sec!! It depends on several factors as to the precise speed of HHO, but it is many factors faster than even bottled hydrogen. Do you suppose a little HHO could more than offset the negative effects of EGR with a net gain in power and efficiency due to the improved expansion medium?

[mrbillhf]

This makes sense.

[eric_haakenson]

Greetings & Thank you for this informative thread.
What heat resistant tubing do you recommended for connecting to & from the copper tubing (catalyst/Heat tube)?
TIA(Thanks in Advance)