My Wife and I own a small trucking company, located in the Eastern Washington/Western Idaho Panhandle area. We have a 2006 Peterbilt with a 3406 550 hp Caterpillar Engine in front of an 18 speed Eaton transmission. We had Terry's Truck Center in Spokane, Washington install the OxyHyGenator (HHO Injection) unit in June of 2007. At that time, we also changed the oil. We use Schaeffer's Oil exclusively in all parts of our truck.
Fuel Mileage: Our fuel mileage for the six months preceding this was 5.24 mpg. The remainder of the year, our average was 5.68 mpg. This is a bit less then the advertised increase of 10% (it is 8.4 %). However, there are many things one must take into consideration when tracking fuel mileage.
The biggest issue with fuel mileage is the rate of forward motion that a person maintains... i.e. How Fast do you Drive? :-) I noticed a big increase in power and used it. I was able to go up hills 2 or 3 gears higher than before! YA!... We saw some increase in mileage and, frankly, I enjoyed eating those hills up like they weren't there! Yes, I use the cruise control most of the time, including on the hills.
By fall, fuel was increasing in price almost daily.This issue pushed me to visit our mpg, and I saw that we needed to improve it more. We had the unit checked and it was working fine. Funny how money makes us pay more attention to things! That is when I began to realize that I was going up the hills WAY FASTER than before. RATS, I hate giving up the speed.... but something had to happen. So, I forced my self to start slowing down, both on the flats as well as the hills. I must admit that a tight schedule does little to improve fuel mileage... I'll slow down next trip, when I have more time... seems like it never happens...:-)
I have seen big differences when I do slow down. The other day, I fueled in Pacific, Washington (Seattle) and headed down Interstate 5 to San Diego, CA. I topped off the tanks in Lebec, CA (bottom of the Grapevine). My average was 5.98 mpg. I drove around 60 most of the time and dropped at least 2, sometimes 3 gears on the hills. (I use the cruise control alot). Still going up the hills at least as fast as I was BEFORE we added the OxyHyGenator.
Oil Contamination: Typically, Big Rig's do Oil Changes every 10-12,000 miles, at a cost of approximately $350.00 each time. We have not changed our oil since we installed the unit, around 70,000 miles or so. We just sent in another oil sample for analysis(there is no charge for these samples). We figure to change out the oil around 100,000 miles or so, as long as everything looks o.k. We use a pair of 1/2 micron by-pass oil filters made by Amsoil. This effectively removes anything from the oil that will cause wear in the engine.
Here is the plain and simply breakdown regarding the lack of oil contamination according to me. :-)
Hydrogen Hydrogen Oxygen (HHO Injection) will burn (flash point) at a lower temperature than diesel fuel does. According to research than I have done, only about 90% of diesel fuel actually burns in the combustion chamber, the rest is soot, and other impurities that end up contaminating the oil and producing pollution. If you don't know, diesel's do not have spark plugs, like conventional gasoline vehicles do. Diesel ignites by increasing the pressure in the combustion chamber (via the pistons) until so much heat is created that the fuel burns or explodes. When HHO is introduced to this process, the HHO flashes off or burns just before the diesel does.
This has two major benefits. The first is that this 'ball of fire' allows vitually ALL of the diesel to burn, producing more power, and removing most of the pollution, including the soot. This results in much cleaner oil. Oil doesn't wear out, it just gets contaminated. The second is that it produces a slight increase in ignition timing. Why does that matter? Engine manufacturers, in the last couple of years, have been scrambling to meet the new emission regulations. One of the ways to do this is to reduce the ignition timing, thereby increasing the heat in the engine, thereby increasing the amount of fuel that is burned, reducing the pollutants. The problem with this is that it causes a reduction in power and fuel mileage. Less efficient engine, but also less emissions.
Conclusion:
Are we happy that we bought one of these units? YES!
Would we buy another one? YES, we are thinking about adding a second unit. The numbers will double, both mileage and power. Research, according to Con Lee, the inventor, is that if you double the HHO, you will double the results. I asked him if three units would give you triple the results... he said no, but nice try. :-(
If you are familiar with older trucks (and you probably are or you wouldn't be reading this stuff), back in the late 70's & early 80's, CAT made an engine they called the 3408. 550 smoking, fire breathing horsepower! And I do mean SMOKING! The fuel systems that CAT used in those days were only slightly modified from their use on Road Graders. The Environmental Pollution Agency (EPA) was not what they are today and most folks just looked the other way. Smoke seemed to mean POWER! Con Lee shared with me that he put TWO UNITS on one of these monsters and virtually removed ALL OF THE SMOKE! WOW!
Would we recommend it to anyone else? Absolutely!
How long did it take us to pay for this unit? We paid for this unit is less than 7 months of use. We average about 10,000 miles per month. At the beginning, we were getting 5.24 mpg. After installation, it went to 5.68 mpg. This computes to 1908.34 gallons a month before installation. After installation, we used 1760.56 gallons per month average. This is a difference of 147.78 gallons. At fuel prices today (average on west coast is about 3.45 at the time of this writing), that is $509.84 a month. Based on an install price of $3500.00, that makes the payback 6.86 months. Remember that our fuel mileage increase was BELOW AVERAGE, due to my BIG FOOT! Here is the spreadsheet numbers showing what we ran and the amount of fuel we consumed.
If we had been at the typical average of 15%, this would read like this. New fuel mileage would have been 6.03 mpg. That would have made us use 1658.37 gallons, instead of 1908.34. The difference is 249.97 gallons. Again, using today's fuel prices, that works out to be $862.40. That would make the payback only 4.058 months instead of the 6.86 months. Really is too bad that speed cost so much, eh? :-)
Guess what I forgot? Yep, savings from the Oil Changes we did NOT do! Using the 12,000 mile number (typical mileage between oil changes) and using 75,000 as actual miles between our oil change, we have saved 6.25 oil changes. At approximately 350 each, that would be $2187.50 SAVED! Of course, that takes us 7.5 months to run that many miles. However, for the sake of calculations, let's do the math again on the payback period. We saved 862.40 on Fuel (per month) and 2187.50 (75,000 miles) on Oil Changes, making our payback period... are you ready for this? 1.52 months! YES!
How much is Montana Hydrogen Company paying you for this testimonial? NOTHING, not one red cent! Fact is, I believe in this product so much that I built this web site for them at no charge and they did NOT solicit me to do it!
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