The soaring price of gas is putting a crunch on pretty much any blue collar guy lately and has a lot of us becoming very interested in alternative fuels. There was time not very long ago that I was not happy unless my truck had two fuel tanks and enough power to pull down a house. Now a moped is looking pretty good and I don't even think about picking on people for riding them anymore.

One of the most popular gas saving techniques out there right now is the Water For Gas system where you build your own HHO system. I started trying this system out a few weeks ago and so far I am happy with the progress I have made.

The first thing that I built was one of the HHO electrolyzers which was not very hard but it does require some mechanical know how. If you are the type guy that works on your car yourself then it should be no problem for you to build. Pretty much their whole target audience for the build it yourself HHO products are the blue collar guys that are used to working with their hands and have some mechanical know how.

Installing the Electrolyzer was even easier than building it. Hook up a vacuum line and a few wires and you are done. I did add in a relay so that I could actually power the generator straight from the battery. You just need to find a wire that is only hot when the engine is running and use that to power your relay.

I did not really time myself but after I had all of the parts together it probably took about three hours for me to put the HHO generator together. It took more time running around town finding all of the parts than what it took to assemble it. There is also a variety of different conductors that you can use to make the plates out of. Stainless steel wire or plates works pretty well and is what I use but there are also designs that are using titanium and copper.

With the fuel injected vehicles you also need something to lean out your fuel mixture so that you will actually save gas. There are two ways of doing this that I know of. The first one is a Map Sensor Enhancer and the second is the EFIE, Electronic Fuel Injection Enhancer.

The Map Sensor Enhancer allows you to manually adjust the voltage reading between the Map sensor and the ECU. It is a fairly simple circuit with a couple of potentiometers, switches, and resistors. If you have a little electrical experience and can read a schematic then this thing is not a big deal to make. Using one of these enhancers allows you to manually lean out your fuel mixture.

While I see why this is needed I would recommend that it should only be installed on a vehicle where the driver knows something about engines. There are quite a few people driving around that have no business being in control of the fuel to air ratio for their vehicle. It is also important that the HHO generator is running when this is used. The water vapor that is produced after burning the HHO gas has a cooling effect on the engine and exhaust system. If you lean out the fuel and do not have the additional cooling then you could do serious damage to your engine or exhaust. The major reason that I thing the driver should know something about what they are doing.

The EFIE device is a bit more complex animal. It involves a circuit board containing diodes, capacitors, resistors, pnp switches, and integrated circuits. I was going to try and build one but radio shack did not carry the IC that I needed for it and I have not bought the stuff that I need online yet. From looking at the schematic though you will need a fair amount of electronic experience to tackle this job.

The EFIE is there to perform the same function as the Map Sensor Enhancer, which is to lean out the fuel mixture, but this device ties in with the O2 sensors instead of the Map. I have not installed one of these myself yet but the installation is very basic, just a few splices. It is building the thing yourself that would get complicated.

That pretty much covers the major components of the Water for Gas HHO System although there are a few smaller items such as PCV valve enhancers and fuel heaters that they recommend.