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Molly Alcott (left) shares her notes about her gas mileage with mechanic Steven May at Lee Hill Auto Service.
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Eric Dawson (right) monitors the oxygen sensor on a car outfitted with a Brown's Gas fuel saver (silver box, left). |
By RUSTY DENNEN
Like millions of Americans, Molly Alcott wants to find some way to squeeze a little more gas mileage out of her car.
Alcott, 68, who lives in Orange County, had already done the obvious--changing filters and oil regularly, maintaining proper tire inflation and doing scheduled maintenance on her 2004 Subaru Forester 25X.
But she wanted more. She was interested in stretching each gallon of gasoline.
"I was looking at a hybrid, but I wanted to keep my Subaru," said Alcott.
She went online and was intrigued by a kit she found on the Internet, promising significant mileage increases using a system known as Brown's Gas.
It's named after Bulgarian inventor Yull Brown, who
The hydrogen-oxygen mixture is cooled and then mixed with gasoline before combustion.
Alcott did more reading on the controversial system and decided to try one, buying a kit online for about $1,200.
She called Lee Hill Auto Service Center on Lee Hill School Drive in Spotsylvania County to see if technicians there could install it.
It happened that Steven May, the shop foreman, was experimenting with a homemade Brown's Gas system on his vehicle, a 1993 Ford Bronco.
"I was working on this on my own and talking about it at the shop. A few days later, Molly calls," May said.
May had to build brackets to secure the unit to Alcott's car, and the shop charged her about $300 for the installation.
Alcott had been getting about 24 miles per gallon in her Subaru. After a week of driving with the system, her mileage was up to about 26. She brought the car in again last week for May to tweak the system after she noticed her miles per gallon had decreased.
"If I can get a 5-mile-per-gallon improvement, I'd be very happy," she said after that visit. She figures that 30-plus miles a gallon would pay for the unit in less than a year. She drives about 20,000 miles annually.
Alcott, who has a doctorate and says she was raised on the scientific method, keeps track of her mileage per tank, and on what's being done to improve the system for better performance.
"She has definitely done her homework," May said. "If you do this on your own, you need to do research."
The jury is still out on Brown's Gas--some hail it as a Holy Grail of fuel efficiency, while others contend it doesn't work, or produces minimal results.
"When you say you can run a car on water, no one pays attention, least of all me," said May, a certified mechanic. He says his limited experience with his Bronco and with Alcott's car is promising.
"It doesn't replace gas, but makes it burn more efficiently," May said.
Alcott's kit has two components--an electrolyzer tank to create hydrogen and oxygen, and a bubbler where the gasses are cooled before being mixed with gasoline and fed into the engine. She and May have been adjusting the system each time she visits the shop.
There are other technical issues. Vehicles now have computers that control air and fuel mixtures, and oxygen sensors that detect the amount of oxygen in exhaust.
Brown's Gas increases the amount of oxygen in the exhaust, and the sensor tells the car's brain to add more fuel--when less is actually needed.
"There are ways of getting around that," May says, to fool the oxygen sensor to allow the system to work properly. Older vehicles with carburetors don't have oxygen sensors.
May says he has gotten slightly better mileage so far in his Bronco.
"I'm going to be running it 100 miles with it on, 100 miles with it off, and compare," he said.
Alcott says the next few weeks will tell her whether the system is a success. She's not sold on it yet.
"I'm just a consumer seeing if it works or is it too good to be true?"
Lee Hill Auto Service owner Mark Tures is having a Brown's Gas system installed in his 2001 Chevy pickup.
"We're looking into becoming a distributor" for Brown's Gas kits, "but we're looking into getting any bugs out before we go with it," Tures said.
Rusty Dennen: 540/374-5431
Email: rdennen@freelancestar.com
| There are two components to a typical Brown's Gas system--an electrolyzer tank and a bubblerl.
The tank contains more than a quart of distilled water and a small amount of baking soda or lye, which makes the water a better conductor for electrolysis. An electrical current flows through the solution to create the gasses, breaking the water down into its molecular components. The gasses flows through a clear plastic tube to the bubbler. There the oxygen-hydrogen blend is fed into the car's intake manifold. Alcott's commercially made tank is about size of a shoe box, and is mounted on the fire wall in the engine compartment. The smaller bubbler is located on the driver's side of the vehicle, near the intake manifold. --Rusty Dennen |
