Question by skittle_goddess_2525: is it possible to fool oxygen sensor’s to allow more oxygen in the mix to increase fuel efficiency?
for those who thought i was cheating? *L* i’m not cheating i need the info to figure out this stuff. a group of my friends and i are looking into trying the plans for a water powered vehicle via browns gas, as some vehicles have the oxygen sensors and some don’t , i needed to know for the 2 test vans we are building the test units for. my van is the astro, good van but older and so i volunteered it to test the first go round on. my friend has this van, and thus if van 1 works out with this, then her van will get a unit as well. if it doesn’t work? no loss, if it does though that’d be some significant fuel cost savings. worth the effort to try..yeah? i researched browns gas thouroughly before i even bought the plans. 
hence all my questions today about vehicles. CHEERS!
just thought i’d let ya know..:D
the way i understand it ( and yes, i may not have it right!! ) on some vehicles the O2 sensors need to be tweaked a bit to allow the browns gas to be used and mixed with the petrol. i might have asked the answer cockeyed, but i kinda get the reason for the O2 sensors and why it needs be tweaked to use the unit that produces the browns gas.
or am i completely not getting this? *L*
thanks everyone!!
Best answer:
Answer by olz431
yes its possible to fool them, but you wont be increasing efficiency, infact the systems are designed to be as efficient as possible
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in order to lean out your mix? You could add in a resistor to give the computer false values. The amount of resistance would depend on the car and the computers expected signal from the oxygen sensor in a given case. There are also power programmers that allow this type of reprogramming but you have to be careful because lean engines run very hot and run the risk of internal damage.
You have it backwards if you have the oxygen sensor saying that there is too much oxygen then the computer is interpreting that as a lean mixture and is going to dump more fuel into the engine. You need to get the oxygen sensor to tell the computer that the mixture is rich and there is not enough oxygen and the computer will lean the mixture. BTW oxygen sensors are very touchy and this cannot be done.
a oxygen sensor controls the air fuel ratio by adding or subtracting fuel, not air. More oxygen also doesnt mean better fuel efficency, if you add to much air you will have a lean condition and destroy engine componets and actually get worse fuel mileage. If your fuel economy has suddenly dropped there is something wrong.
i think that you are misunderstanding a few small things. the o2 sensor measures the amount of o2 left in the exhaust so that the cpu can fine tune the fuel delivered to the engine. fooling the o2 sensor is possible, but counter active to what you are trying to accomplish. that sensor is a voltage generator, developing about 0-1 volt depending on the oxygen content in the system. fooling it on some of the newer cars would cause the check engine light to come on and the cpu to ignore that sensor.