.OUR PROJECT

Our project will be a kit car basically.. Well it will be a couple of cars made into one adaptable rolling chassis like a skateboard, 4 wheels and a thick  10” frame with a rotary engine that will be running on a hydrogen fuel generated system. So it will be self generated gas fuel system with and independent rear suspension, and 4 wheel disc brakes.

Firstly the engine we have decided to use is the wankel rotary engine but any combustion engine can run on hydrogen, but this engine has a large power to weight ratio, and the engine it self only has 2 cylinders, each have 3 sides all processing simultaneously.

The engine is very small infact 1.2 or 1.3 litres and yet has the power of a V6 or even a V8 motor.

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The chassis will be modeled from a 1968 Daihatsu Compagno as this car was designed to have the body removable from its chassis. So this means it was body interchangeable, I only had learnt this when my father started buying 1960's convertibles, a Honda s600 and a Daihatsu Compagno convertible.

It seemed like a great way for us to utilize the chassis base as the complete driving and rolling foundation of the car, much like a kit car or the GM Skateboard. It will be just that a chassis with the engine, suspension, driveline and differential all contained, so with all the extra space we can mount the batteries, Hydrogen fuel system, electrics, and hydraulics.

Modification to the chassis is necessary not just to mount resources but to strengthen the frame to meet today’s safety standards.

We have decided to use the suspension from a Mazda Mx5 as it is setup for Independant Rear Suspension and the assembly is removable from the chassis, this will make the modifications to the chassis much easier and time effective. Strut tower mounts will have to be added to the chassis rails of the Compagno. Some modifications will be completed to the front end to adopt the front suspension and rack and pinion steering.

 Chassis images

Our hydrogen fuel cells are still in a testing, as we are currently testing different plate styles, electrolytes and HHO Brown gas generators.

Electrolytes are required to assist in the current passing from one molecule to another and in the process splitting these molecules between the anode and cathode, so this means if the electrolytes are very conductive it will create more Hydrogen with the se of less energy. We want to get more energy out then we put in so it is efficient.

There are many electrolytes we can use but we have been deciding between Potassium Hydroxide (KOH) and regular old salt water from the ocean. I want to use the salt water because it will be a readily available source of fuel for the future and extremely safe to use. Potassium Hydroxide is very dangerous and it will give you a chemical burn if you come into contact with it, so you can see why I don’t want to use this material.

We will be using the Joe Cell Technology something that was created in world war II to increase the range and speed of the tanks.

> The Joe Cell

 Hydrogen Diagrams and fuel cell Images

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