Hydrogen engine cleaning
 

Hi everyone,

I'm just wondering has anyone had their vehicle carbon cleaned with hydrogen & what's your thoughts on it?

My understanding is the use of hydrogen is still classed as "carbon cleaning", but its not the same as TerraClean.

Replies/thoughts are welcome.

They sell kits on ebay to convert your car to run on Browns Gas aka heavy hydrogen aka oxy-hydrogen aka HHO that are claimed to improve emissions and economy. In practice, the energy needed to separate the molecules to derive the HHO is more than you'd get from burning said molecules. The energy to create this HHO in your car comes from the alternator and that gets its energy from the engine - see where i'm going with this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyhydrogen

Obviously an external machine feeding your engine HHO to burn off excess carbon in the inlet tracts, combustion chambers etc will have all the energy it needs but will only clean the engine during the time it's connected.
The engine will start making tiself dirty again as soon as you drive away but for the time it's connected, i doubt it will make a significant difference for any length of time.

Something that i tried (for a different reason) is water injection, a very simple system like a carburettor with a remote reservoir (float chamber) feeding a "jet" to draw water into the intake system to cool the incoming air by evaporative cooling, hence making it denser and more air in equals more efficiency. I hadn't at the time realised the obvious postive side effects - the evaporated water is effectively low temperature steam so helps clean the intake system and also the combustion chambers. Doesn't make a lot of difference to the power/economy on my 760 but on my other beast it does, about 15% more economy and a noticeable increase in power (or more to the point, an obvious drop in power when the reervoir runs out) but that has a more sophisticated ignition system that advances the timing until it detects knock/detonation then retards it slightly. This takes advantage of the main thing about the water injection, being colder the air coming in helps reduce the risk of detonation which is why positive pressure water injection systems are sold for use with modified turbo cars.
My system is very much a Heath Robinson effot but on a n/asp car, does the basic job. If i could force the Bosch EZK unit to advance the timing a bit i'm sure it would improve matters, i thought i had found the method but then discovered that it had been changed on the ECU in mine to another function. :rolleyes:

That said it is a bit quieter after running for some time (months) on water injection, presumably because it's helped clean everything.

If you're looking for a quick "instant fix", assuming your car is petrol you may be better off trying something like Seafoam.

I don't think there is enough information out there about the effects of hydrogen embrittlement and hydrogen blistering of steels from this "cleaning" technology.

Here is a review of the issues with hydrogen in an ICE environment: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...rTHWR2AxWHvMMG

And the concern with Hydrogen and metals:
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0012851

I've read on some HHO sites not to worry about hydrogen embrittlement as they are supplying diatomic H2, not atomic hydrogen. This is like saying don't worry about CO2 emissions, we're just supplying the carbon source and the diatomic oxygen. It's the chemical adsorption of hydrogen onto the Ironoxide that results in the formation of atomic hydrogen. Your car vibrates a lot while in motion and whilst this cleaning might be a good thing for deposits it might not be the best thing for longevity of your engine, so there is that.

Personally you are better off spending your brass on quality/premium fuel (such as Vpower) all the time and best quality oil at service time. Forget the 21st Century snake oil cures.

It wasn't my car that was being carbon cleaned with hydrogen, it was my Dad's (V70 D5, P3 shape). I just wanted to see if anyone on here had it done, but I assume its not that popular judging by the number of replies. He decided to go for it anyway.

Its a simple process really;

-Undo the jubilee clip around the air intake.
-Insert the probe from the machine into the air intake, but the probe must pass the MAF sensor.
-Turn the machine on for 60 minutes.
-Rev the car to 1500rpm & leave it running for 30 minutes with the probe still connected (with a pole/stick on the accelerator).
-Let it idle for 30 minutes with the probe connected.
-After 60 minutes, disconnect the probe & the job is done.

I have to say, the difference is night & day. The car is much more lively, the throttle response is much sharper. I'm very impressed & so is he.

The oil is changed every year without fail, even though its not doing anywhere near the 18k service interval specified by Volvo, at present anyway. Quality parts & fluids are used when servicing, plus the fuel filter & air filter are changed regularly too.

For what it cost to have the hydrogen carbon clean done, it wouldn't even put a single half tank of VPower in the car. As its a workhorse with just shy of 160k on it, using VPower isn't really viable. Maybe the odd treat every now & again, but he certainly won't be filling it every week with VPower fuel. Diesel is dear enough!

My Dad has a fleet of vans, all of which do big miles. Not one of them gets VPower fuel or premium fuel because its not viable. He has a business account with Texaco & every vehicle is filled with ordinary diesel from Texaco only (nowhere else).

Not one van has had a drop of VPower or Texaco premium diesel... never had any issues with just the "ordinary" fuel.

I do treat my car to the odd sup of premium fuel, but certainly not on a constant basis.

Assuming the process cost £50 that would pay for the additional cost of Vpower over standard fuel for at least 350 litres (80 ish gallons) or about 5-6 tankfulls, probably more. The only way you can say with certainty the process works is by running a comparable car through the same cycle but without the probe. However you would also have to make sure both engines were in the same internal state. I am sorry to pour cold water on this process but if it is such a fantastic process i do not understand why it is not used more widely and by main dealers workshops.

The cost benefits of premium fuel on a fleet are different and my guess is the vans are replaced at 3-4 years old so very high milage problems dealt with by the next owner? I can only go by my own experience of driving an average of 20k miles for 45 years of which the past 35 have been in diesels.

It was £40.

If I was to go into Texaco & get £40 worth of premium fuel, I’d get just over half a tank (providing the car was low). So I don’t know where you think I’d be getting full tanks from for £40?

You’re basing it off say x amount extra for premium/V Power over what you’d be putting in anyway (normal diesel). I’m not counting litres at x pence per litre, fuelled up on such a date etc. Its a simple case of the carbon clean was £40... £40 of premium diesel (what was paid for the carbon clean) or V Power won’t get me full tank of fuel... no where near it.

Yes, vans are sold after 3/4 years. Any vehicle that has been sold never had problems with EGR’s or DPF’s though & that’s using “ordinary” diesel.

There’s plenty of establishments offering carbon cleaning services, albeit with different cleaning processes (some hydrogen, some don’t etc). In essence, the process is very similar. TerraClean for example are based all over the UK. There’s even mobile cleaning services that will perform the process on your drive.

Dealerships won’t use carbon cleaning, they want you to buy a new car & not keep your old one running. There’s plenty of garages that have carbon cleaning equipment & if they don’t, there will be one not too far away that does.

Time will tell, but so far, I’ve noticed a big difference so far in throttle response & smoother idling. That in itself is an improvement.

What mileage did the car have on it when it was hydrogen cleaned?

When i started reading your reply Kev my first thought was "you've missed the point he was making" but the second paragraph shows you didn't.

However, the Ultimate/Premium version of fuel is roughly 8% dearer than the normal but generally gives better economy (i've known up to 50% inprovement over the base figure on supermarket 95 unleaded) and the £40 as 8% of a total fuel budget would give a £500 fuel budget.

Where i used to live, my neighbour had an XC70 from new with the 163bhp D5T engine. When he was short on money towards the end of the month, he'd fill up with Tesco diesel and then complain he was only getting 28-30mpg according to the fuel computer built in. When he got paid, he would use BP Ultimate and then be happy because he was getting 45-47mpg from it again. I pointed out it would be cheaper in the long run (and better for his car) to permanently run it on Ultimate but he couldn't see past those extra few pence per litre.

Not only do the premium versions give improved performance and economy, they also help keep the fuel system cleaner and the engine as a result.

Bottom line is that £40 would pay for the extra cost of premium over normal diesel (or petrol) for a lot of fuel and factoring in the economy savings it provides, even more.