I have to admit I was pretty nervous about pulling that damn cord to start the thing. But you know what they say, no pain no gain... right? -I do NOT RECOMMEND you try this if you are not fully prepared to deal with the possibility of explosions. Be absolutely sure, if you do this sort of testing, that you have a bubbler in place to separate your application end (the engine) from your reserve fuel. I would not want to be in the same garage as the genious who accidentally ignites 1 - 2 liters of Hydrogen/Oxygen. -You have been warned. -BUBBLERS SAVE LIVES! -Or at least ears and eyes etc...

So turned on the gas line and quickly started the engine up with a mighty pull! To my amazement it ran perfectly! Oh my god I thought! -I couldn't stop laughing! It ran for a good 15 seconds before I realized I was about to run out of gas in my reserve tank. I had the needle valve opened up a bit too much, so I turned the valve down slightly and the motor immediately responded with lower RPM and a bit of sputtering.

I thought wow! -It really is running of of the gas to react so immediately like it did to a change in the fuel I was giving to the engine! -With the last little bit of fuel in the reserve tank, I turned it back up and the motor went back to normal running. It ran fine for another 5 seconds perhaps and then I had to shut it off as I was out of gas! I was absolutely amazed. The only trouble is, that no one was there to witness my very first event :( -What is it with us experimenters? We never have anyone there to verify our results?!!? -I should be shot ...right between the eyes.

So ok let's try this again, I let the reserve tank fill up some more and then did exactly what I did the first time. This time however, I could not get the engine started. What on earth is going on. It would sputter and try, but it would not start! -Then my first backfire! -WOW did that scare the shit out of me. A flame shot out of the exaust port and everything! It was not really that loud and it was not like I wasn't expecting backfires, because I definitely had prepared for them... but it scared me nonetheless.

I quickly shut off the gas so that water would not be pushed into the engine. Whenever the gas ignites back to the bubbler you get a bunch of water in the line. To drain that I have to disconnect things forward of the secondary bubbler and shake the hose out. It was about this time that my father came over since I told him what I was doing and invited him to come and see my tests if he liked. He was aprenhensive and actually said he was "scared I'd blow him right out of the world!" -Heh! Now would I do something like that?

OK so I chat with my father a bit while I spend the next hour ripping the mower apart. I decided to try running it directly off of the intake manifold. I removed the carburetor, air filter and even the L shaped pipe leading from the carburetor into the engine block. It resembled the setup at The American Hydrogen Association site.

Why I didn't grab my camera to take a picture of this part of my testing, I do not know. I guess I was too excited and focused on the task at hand to snap pictures. -That is another problem we inventors have. -What is wrong with us?

OK so I had everything torn apart and the gas line inserted into the engine just as it is in the picture I linked to above. My father decided he was going to leave when I asked if he wanted to stick around for the tests. *grin* -Oh well, he was on his moped and the sky was looking very dark. They were calling for thunderstorms so I let him off without a hassle. -Besides, I didn't want to hear any lectures when it backfired again. I didn't tell him that it had already backfired during my first attempts.

So here I was alone again and faced with the problem that I could not RETARD the timing on the spark. That was the main reason I tore the engine down. I was trying to find a way to retard the spark but I could not change anything. There was a "keyway" in the shaft and the coil position could not really be adjusted at all. -Wonderful!

Before I even began, this round of testing, I knew where this was going. I nearly packed it in, but decided I would try some more tests because I had come this far. If you had an electric starter on your system you could probably avoid backfires due to the fact that you'd already have enough inertia built up in the flywheel spinning to stop the piston from being forced backwards. I believe that this engine fires at exactly top dead center and it would be good if it fired just a bit after top dead center for these tests.

Oh well, here goes nothing. I turned on the gas and started pulling. Sputter sputter, nothing. Cough cough ...nothing. Ooops out of gas reserves. I decided to try a little less gas this time so after letting the reserve fill up again, I opened the line a bit less this time. Pull, pull, pull ...nothing but sputters hmmm. Some more pulling ...BANG!!!!!!!!! Damn I don't like those backfires!

OK time to purge the lines again. Allright I have an idea. I bet I can eliminate the problem of backfires going back through my fuel line, if I use my torch (needle) tip! That restricts flow so that I always have a positive pressure in the line, to the point where I can safely burn a torch right on the tip, without it flowing back into the line. I purged the tubing, and ran down to get my torch tip.

This time I hooked everything up again and tried some more tests. Nothing, nothing ...god my arm is getting so sore from all of this pulling. -BANG!!!!!! Well that one didn't go back into the tube at least :) Woohoo! I quickly checked to make sure that I didn't have a 5,000 degree flame burning inside of my engine now. Nope, the torch was not lit ...hmmm I wonder why? -Oh well it probably ignited a pocket of gas near the spark plug but was not close enough to the torch tip to ignite. In fact I'm sure that's why it didn't ignite the torch. I found it very difficult to ignite the torch by a lighter or match, for the reason that the hydrogen is so very light, it is disapating immediately after leaving the torch tip. Even when using a blow torch to try to light the hydrogen torch, it is difficult. You can see it blowing the compressed gasses right through the propane torch flame. You have to try very hard to get it to light when you have some pressure behind your hydrogen torch. That's why the piezio ignitor works so perfectly. It makes the spark jump right at the tip of the torch where the gas is still concentrated. It ignites probably 7 out of 10 attempts maybe 8 out of 10. If you had the electrodes placed just perfectly, you'd probably have a 99% ignition rate on the torch. -At any rate, I'm digressing... so OK I know why my torch was not lit in the engine block, even though I just ignited the pocket of gas in there with the backfire.

I tried several more times and don't remember if I had yet another backfire. I am beginning to understand what is wrong here. The same reason the torch does not light from a match, is the reason this is not working. My fuel is escaping so rapidly, that I can't force or collect it into the cylinder properly. Hmmm definitely a problem I need to overcome.

OK I decided to put everything back together, so that I could still use my mower, since there was no reason to mess with an engine that I could not adjust the timing on. Furthermore, I was going to have to come up with a better way of not WASTING my fuel, by letting it escape into the atmosphere.

I believe the reason my engine ran so well the very first time, was that I had residual gasoline in the system for the initial startup. This allowed the engine to get up to full speed. At top speed, you're sucking a fair amount of air into the carburetor and it was probably preventing the escape of my precious fuel. I believe that is why it ran so well the first time. I decided to test this theory :)

I spent the next hour putting everything back together. Now I had the exact same setup as I started with. I put a tiny bit of gasoline into the tank and started the engine again. Once started I shut it off and connected up my hydrogen line again. This time if you were paying attention, you will note that I did NOT run the system dry. I thought that I would try making the conversion from gasoline to hydrogen on the fly.

I started the engine with 1 pull and it ran fine for quite some time, I turned my fuel on and after a few seconds the engine started sputtering and caughing. I had to turn the fuel off after a bit because I was nearly out of reserve. Hmmm that did not go so well.

OK more gasoline, started it up and then shut it off. Connected my gas line and tried again. This time I had my gas flowing at a slower rate, and it sputtered and caughed. I did play with the mower's throttle which closes or opens a flap in the carburetor, and this had some interesting results, but not any smooth operation. Then the system backfired once more and I decided I had enough for the day. My arm was sore and I was frustrated. I felt I had failed. So I put things back together, and let the engine run on gasoline for several minutes to avoid any damage to it.

Those tests were 2 days ago and now in retrospect, actually due to my writing everything down, I am starting to realize something that may be very important. My first test, where I ran the system dry was the best success that I had. Why? I now think that it is because that condition allowed gas to flow freely into the piston from the outset. Yes a small amount of gasoline may have been in the system, to aid in starting, but the important aspect was that there was no harsh transition from gasoline to my gas. This allowed the engine to achieve full RPM on initial startup and from that point forward, I firmly believe it would have continued to run smoothly if I had been been producing enough gas.

You see 2 very important but subtle things were working in tandem here. The first was that my gas was reaching the piston from the outset, along with some gasoline to aid in startup. The second was that once top speed was achieved, I was drawing enough air into the system, that my gas was not escaping. I believe that this second point is extremely crucial especially in a hand started system where you are not developing a full vaccuum from startup.

So where will I go from here you ask? I will be working on 2 things. First, I will try some more tests to exactly duplicate my "dry run" conditions on the motor. I think that I will find some very promising results from those tests. Second, I am going to try to design a custom mixing chamber for my little test engine. Something that would prevent the escape of my gas even at lower RPM's (lower vaccuum).

In conclusion of these initial tests. I have to say that I am now very hopeful. I was disappointed 2 days ago, but only because I did not have any theories on the results that I found. Now that I have some clearly defined theories, I will attempt to verify them and move forward. I think that these tests were a very large leap for me. They helped me to better understand some important aspects of running an Internal Combustion Engine on "water" and they helped me to know what improvements or conversions I will want to make before I can try running a vehicle on "water".

I will be happy to answer any and all questions in The Forum. I hope you found my information here to be of interest and helpful to any testing you may wish to conduct. It is a shame that there is not more detailed information available from other inventors who have honestly tried or achieved running an Internal Combustion Engine on "water". At best you find very sketchy or poorly documented accounts. You find half truths and tons of supposed "success" stories. They all say it is so easy and simple to do. -Fine if it is so easy and simple, then give a very detailed and step by step account of exactly what you did! -Don't make us guess at how you got it to work... If you truly did get it to work, explain things in every detail for goodness sakes!

If we are all supposed to be working to better the world, and to solve the energy crisis, then 100% open sharing of all test data and results will be required. If your work can not be duplicated, nothing will ever be achieved. The internet is littered with people claiming to produce vast amounts of gas from water by utilizing pulsed DC current. That alone would be a huge help in this process. Tell us how you did it, EXACTLY how you did it, so that we can reproduce your results. Once we are producing our "Water Fuel" at an Over Unity state, we could use it in an Internal Combustion Engine, or in fuel cells and all of the applications would be Over Unity. We need REPRODUCIBILITY people :) -Plain and simple. Stop giving half of the story and maybe we could finally make some progress!