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Mother’s Alcohol Fuel Seminar
© The Mother Earth News, 1980
Ron Novak's Do-It-Yourself Water Injection System
One of MOTHER's seminar students gave a few lessons of
his own!
You can improve your car engine's starting ability,
pickup, and fuel economy by constructing a homemade
water injection system -- for a total cost of under
five dollars! And you'll spend that small amount of
money (heck, it takes more cash than that to buy one
tank of gas nowadays!) entirely on parts -- because
all the information you'll need to "inject" your own
auto is right here in this article!
MOTHER's staffers have installed and tested one of the
"engine aids" (and, by jeepers, the thing works!), but
we can't take the credit for inventing the
build-it-yourself device. Nope, all the know-how for
this half-hour (or less) shop project comes from a
very generous -- and clever -- visitor to this
magazine's seminars ... Mr. Ron Novak.
Ron openly shared his under-the-hood "secret" during
the July Mother Earth Week with everyone who was
interested. (And once the word of his brainstorm got
out, the inventive fellow spent as much of his visit
teaching as he did studying!)
Actually, Mr. Novak made two improvements to his 1978
Honda CVCC station wagon before he started the long
trek from his upstate New York home to MOM's western
North Carolina land. The traveling seminarian's major
modification was to install a homemade water injection
system that feeds a 4:1 H2O/alcohol mist into his
vehicle's carburetor ... but he also added a
drag-reducing "air dam", under the Honda's front
bumper, to further improve his car's gas mileage.
[EDITORS NOTE: MOTHER's ever-busy researchers are
hoping to report -- in an upcoming issue -- on this
second (the "fender extender") idea.]
Ron got the notion for his water injector from some
automotive magazine advertisements that offered a $50
fuel-saving device. The canny Nor'-easterner carefully
read the literature about the expensive accessory and
realized that the mileage-extender consisted of little
more than a bottle (partly filled with some "miracle"
solution) that was rigged with [1] an underwater air
intake line that bubbled air through the liquid and
[2] a mist-grabbing outflow tube to feed the
"foamed-up" vapor directly into the engine's
carburetor. The wet air was reputed to help produce
more efficient fuel-burning (by "atomizing" the
gasoline droplets and lowering the fuel's temperature)
and to improve the power plant's overall performance
and life span (by cleaning out the engine's carbon
buildup).
Novak figured that he could make a similar fuel-saver
himself ... if he could solve one problem: What
"gadget" could he put on his underwater air tube to
produce those myriad tiny air bubbles? Well, the
tinkerer tried just about every device he could think
of (including the pinched end of a cigarette holder),
but - in spite of his efforts - the bubbler had him
stumped. For lack of one simple piece, Ron couldn't
get the whole dang system to work!
Then one day, while the New Yorker was running an
errand in a pet shop, he noticed a small aquarium "air
stone" that was (what else?) busily breaking an
incoming oxygen supply into tiny little bubbles ... to
mix air into the fish tank's water. Ron bought one of
the low-cost objects, attached it to his homemade
injector's underwater tubing, and - eureka! - he was
in business!
The entire installation procedure was easy,
inexpensive, and legal (Ron didn't fiddle with his
car's EPA emissions devices). And Novak's "new"
water-injected Honda ran better -- and further on one
tank of gas -- than it ever had in its life!
Since that first attempt, Ron has installed his
"bubbling bottles" on all sorts of vehicles ... from a
BMW R60/2 motorcycle ... to a 1973 Opel GT ... to a
1968 Cadillac. In each case, gas mileage improved
dramatically! So, folks, there "ain't no reason" why
you can't get better performance and gas mileage by
building your own water injector ... no matter what
form of gasoline-engined transportation you're
driving! All you have to do is read this article's
sidebar, head off to the nearest pet store for your
"auto parts", and then get to work!
EDITOR'S NOTE: People who read about Pat Goodman's
water injection system (see "Water Injection Wizardry"
in MOTHER NO. 59, page 46) may wonder about the
differences between Ron's homemade "carburetor
squirter" and Pat's more sophisticated - and, of
course, more expensive - device.
The most important functional distinction between the
two is that Novak's injector "bubbles " most rapidly
when the car is idling and least intensely when the
vehicle's under full throttle. Goodman's smog
pump-controlled instrument, on the other hand,
increases its vaporizing activity with higher engine
output. Pat's "mistifier" will therefore produce a
much greater overall boost in gas mileage than the
do-it-yourself device does ... but can only be added
to a car that already has a smog pump. Ron's homemade
system can be installed on just about any vehicle on
the road today.
Water Injection: 6% Gas Savings and More Power - For
As Little As $3.72
Installing a hydro-atomization system on your car -- a
modification which adds damp air
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