Water Sparkplug

[Robert E.]

Put pictures back

Jetijs, Thanks for the welcome to the group.
The spark plug I used is a long reach 3/4 inch plug NGK BP5ES with no resistor. This is what I needed for the Dodge Raider. I was learning so I used 4 - 1/4 circle segments to build the plug. I may be able to build one whole half circle ground now. Here is pictures if I can make it work. Robert E.

[gmeast]

timing advance

Greg,
Does your VW have centrifigal or vacuum advance? or both? Of course, if it's vacuum just unplug the diapragm. It would be interesting to test on a dyno to see if the plasma ignition power curve is like without advance vs with.

Xack

Hi Xack,

It used to have vac advance but the stock dist. is now hard to find points for ... the points are 2-piece. I upgraded to a centr, advance. Now I have no choice other than to go in and disable the fly-weight mechanism. I have been fiddling with the timing and I think I am close to landing on a spot that lets me go freeway and around town but obviously not at similar efficiencies.

Since I re-jetted and leaned it out it is very touchy on the timing. I have also gone from 1 uF to 2 uF on the CDI Cap (C1). I'm pretty sure now that the centr. advance moves me out of range at higher RPM. I'm adjusting for 3000 RPM ... that should work for the next test.

We'll see. Thanks for responding,

Greg

[Jetijs]

Hi Robert and welcome to the forum.
Are your spark plugs resistorless? And do you perhaps have a picture of them that you could post here? Thank you!

[Robert E.]

DIY firestorm plugs. I have been reading and working for a long time here and it is so good to see the great work all of you are doing.
I bought a tig welder and learned to weld with it. I took a piece of steel about .060 inch thick and 1/4 inch wide and 1 inch long and drilled a hole in one end the same size as my sparkplug center electrode. I jammed this onto the center electrode,(after cutting off the J ground), I then put my welder ground on the end of the 1 inch long piece and tig welded with tig rod to the center electrode to the steel and building a puddle up. I then cut with my dremel the 1 inch piece sticking out past the end of the plug. I put the plug in my lathe and with my dremel and cutting disk,(which is attached to my lathe), I grind a ball on the end of this welded up mess. I then put my plug in a vise and attached the ground of my tig welder to the base and weld a tig rod about .065 inch thick,(after curving it to give .078 inch gap from ball to this curved ground,) over the ball center electrode. The distance to the ball is not perfect, I wish it was and maybe I can do better. I then put 4 of these plugs in my 1988 Dodge raider with a bad carb,(electronic controled by computer and 0-2 senser,) I got 30% better mpg,( 15 mpg to 19.5 I also put 4 in my Toyota 1987 pickup motor home and got about 14% better mpg,(from 14 mpg to 16mpg,) I am now working on the plasma and hope to have it installed soon. Robert E.

[Xack]

VW advance

Greg,
Does your VW have centrifigal or vacuum advance? or both? Of course, if it's vacuum just unplug the diapragm. It would be interesting to test on a dyno to see if the plasma ignition power curve is like without advance vs with.

Xack

[gmeast]

what's a vw

Might need to install stiffer springs to keep the total advance down. What's a VW?, 25deg?

Hi carbide Tip,

If you're referring to the static timing advance then for my '64 it is between 7.5 deg and 10 deg advanced ... depending on fuel octane ... stuff. And yes, I did not think about the possibility that a stock centrifugal advance could move us out of our desired range for this research ... thanks!

Greg

[carbideTip]

Might need to install stiffer springs to keep the total advance down. What's a VW?, 25deg?

[grizli]

Greg, this sounds great. With a timing near TDC, you should be able to get even more fuel ecconomy than in your first tests. After you are done making all that steam parts, please do another fuel ecconomy test, the results should be mindblowing

We are awaiting SUPER BUG

[Jetijs]

Greg, this sounds great. With a timing near TDC, you should be able to get even more fuel ecconomy than in your first tests. After you are done making all that steam parts, please do another fuel ecconomy test, the results should be mindblowing

[gmeast]

temp

Hi Aaron,

The temp data is next. I tuned for feel to start with. Before I get into the next testing phase I will insert a thermocouple fitting right at the exhaust port on #2 cylinder and seal in a TC. There are no penetrations, holes gaps or anything to corrupt the data. Everything will be welded or pipe threaded tight.

Thanks for reading my update,

Greg

[Aaron]

tdc and temp

Hi Greg, that's incredible on the TDC!

What do you use for exhaust gas temp? Is it drilled directly into your exhuast manifold? Was there already a hole or did you make one? Are there any external ones and if so are they trustworthy?

[gmeast]

mixture and timing

Hi all,

I just got surprised out of my wit. All along people here had asked me how much I had retarded the ignition timing. I think Aaron and Luc were the first to ask me that. I had adhered to the stock timing for my initial testing which is 7.5 to 10 deg advanced. Things ran fine and I got good results.

I have been trying to refine my steam generation a little and partly accomplished my goals on that. Then I decided to lean the mixture somewhat because adding an inert gas (in this case steam) displaces some air 'oxygen' resulting in a richer mixture. I re-jetted to 0.0465" which is mid way between "stock" and "it ain't gonna run". I took it for a ride and it bucked, hesitated and so on. I check the electrical, scoped the VexUs system, checked the plugs ... bummer - nothing.

It was the timing. With a lean mixture and the water, the speed of combustion must be tremendous! I set the timing to 0 deg TDC and it was better and then 5 deg retarded and it feels great there. Now I can speak to the timing issue first hand.

I would say that plasma initiated combustion is much more energetic than the standard combustion by a considerable factor.

I am going to refine my take on the timing issue, try several points and then get back to testing. I am able to aspirate 50% more steam than before with the simple I.V. drip system ... so I'll keep that. I am taking in only part (not all) of the air through the heater box ... a change away from what I was going to do. I still may have to cool the bowl.

Thanks for reading this,

Greg

[little_old_lady]

Hi little_old_lady,

If you are referring to this thread's 'water spark plug effect', you should have gotten a very substantial effect with 4 uF and 240 VDC. A booster cap is a storage device and can make up for either/both the battery, power supply or wires being insufficient.

My system in the Bug uses just 1uF but also 350 - 400 VDC and it's a scary good explosion.

Good luck building and testing,

Greg

I tried 1 uF and 4uF and the spark is little different than when I don't have the diode connected. Could the polarity of my coil be backward? How would I test for that? As a side note, a direct capacitor discharge is louder than going through the coil & across the gap. I think someone mentioned that in the thread... I will have to go back and find it (unless someone happens to have the link handy).

[ashtweth]

Hi Guys, up to almost a week now with Robins plugs, starts first go and no problems with the hydroxy ATM Made new script for the new water spark re loaded vid , it coming with some new test by us and all.

I am gonna make sure Kupra see's the groups research and Robins efforts with our TV appearance on the up and coming farm we are converted to RV/GEET/Solar Bedini and more...this year. Robins plugs will be there, ow hell yeah. Thanks a lot for being so dedicated guys . This thread is really some thing.

Sincerely
Ash

[gmeast]

?

In my own tests, a 4uF cap charged to 240V w/out a booster cap barely produced the effect. 8uF was a little better and 30uF was very obvious.

I had never heard of the marx generator, but it is in a similar vein.

Due to the complexity involved in such a setup it hardly seems worth it. Perhaps with a low impedance battery we could dump HV discharge into we could recover power without reducing amps. The question will become can a battery handle the HV discharge? If there is cold electricity involved, will it manifest itself like the Bendini SGG (which I have also replicated) with improved battery capacity? Perhaps all of my concern with recapturing input energy is misplaced at this point in time. If we are seeing unusual "power" from the diode setup then all of my assumptions about the efficiency of "exploding water" can go out the window. If we can truly run an engine on water and produce 10x or more output power than the input power then simplicity wins the day!

I remember in one of the original videos on the WSP someone was using telephone wire and was unable to measure what should have been very high currents flowing through his wire to the spark gap. At times he had "negative current" coming from his source battery and his wires never got hot.

Perhaps I will take some time and do a study on the effect of different resistances on the spark. So far it seems like we want min resistance. Perhaps a carbon resistor could magnify any "cold electricity".

Any suggestions on how to quantitatively measure the "power" of the effect?

Perhaps a light & sound sensor? Hopefully something that would be cheap enough for everyone to adopt.

This would greatly help us benchmark different techniques. Enough theory on my part... time to do some tests and get some more data points.

Hi little_old_lady,

If you are referring to this thread's 'water spark plug effect', you should have gotten a very substantial effect with 4 uF and 240 VDC. A booster cap is a storage device and can make up for either/both the battery, power supply or wires being insufficient.

My system in the Bug uses just 1uF but also 350 - 400 VDC and it's a scary good explosion.

Good luck building and testing,

Greg