Last week was beautiful and I got Harriett up on Skyline Drive in the beautiful Shenandoah mountains. This last weekend found me driving her to Delaware to see my daughter and visit with some friends. A very relaxing day, all in all.

Well it's not quite spring yet (only 30+ and snowing today) but the daily driver is in the shop so Harriett has been placed into service. I know she is a Triumph and not an MG but she does share the garage with Nemo. To date Harriett has been driven just over 700 miles since her arrival on the US side of the pond. I just wanted to share some fun with other who would appreciate the drive. Thanks for reading.

Fall of 2008 found my thinking about adding another car or replacing the MGB GT. As the girls are getting older, they do not quite fit so well in the back seat anymore. So on to eBay and Autotrader I went. I found a 1962 Triumph Herald that was located in Scotland. I true british car with RHD, built as a saloon it had a 'real' back seat and it had been converted to be a convertible too! The best of all worlds. So I started the negotiation with the wife. Needless to sat a secong LBC was out of the question. My 9 yo daughter was pretty adamant that the MGB GT was not going anywhere. Well during the talks, the car became "No longer available for sale". Well that makes that decision easy. Fast forward a month or so and I am not at my eldest daughters for Thanksgiving. After dinner, she hands me the phone (with my son who is stationed in California with the Army on the other end) and an envelope. They tell me belated Happy Birthday and in the envelope is the shipping papers for the car I had been considering! Mt wife is still not real happy about the second LBC and the 9 yo daughter is still sure the MGB GT will still be around when she starts driving so this next spring should bring some rather lively discusions...

I know this has a lot of people talking so I thought I'd post some pictures of the HHO system on Nemo.

Preliminary testing has produced an increase in mileage of 7 - 9 MPG (340 miles). More testing will be done over the remainder of the summer.

Update:

2nd tank only netted an increase of 1 - 3 mpg (280 miles) however during this tank I had adjusted the mixture to only pull 2 amps and I performed timing and carb adjustments (and some of the timing was pretty ugly 8-)).
During this tank I also installed a period correct JC Penny (Zemco) trip computer (gotta love eBay). This unit displays MPH, Dist, Time, Fuel, MPG (average and current). The above MPG was read from the computer after calibration.

3rd tank (360 miles) netted 6 - 8 mpg increase. 220 miles into this tank I increased the mixture to pull 5 -6 amps again. I had read that 2 amps should be enough but after half a tank, I could tell the mileage was not as good as my first tank. The travel for this tank included 60 miles city (25 - 45 mph), 80 miles highway (70 mph) and 200 mile rural (45 - 55 mph).
The mileage was again read from the computer after minor calibration (computer read 10.6 gallons but I only put in 10.4).

4th tank back and forth to work (only 140 miles total; 40 highway, 100 rural) the computer reads 39.9 MPG! Hopefully the computer won't need too much calibration during the next fill. I'll keep this entry posted....

4th tank updated... Due to bad needle seats both carbs started leaking and flooding the engine on Monday's trip home. I also had a brake partially bind on the way home Wednesday so I ended with only 31.5 MPG. Still better than the 28 - 30 especially considering the problems...

Tank 5 - 240 miles (100 around home 140 to work and back) changed design before the trip to work. I will post pics of the new design soon. Still tweaking the new design but still got 33.5 MPG

Tank 6 300+ miles all rural 32.3 MPG.

I have been working on my sisters 1980 roadster for the past few weeks. After checking my nephew's rebuild of the Weber 32/36 carb and following their tuning directions and troubleshooting guide I had determined that the jets needed to be replaced as I had to adjust the carb to run very rich to keep the car running. Their guide says the idle mixture screw should be 1.5 to 2.5 turns from full in and I had to turn it about 4-5 turns. Their TS guide suggested that this was caused by the needles being too lean. After considering the needle replacement vs installing the correct carbs, I thought since the addition of the HHO kit uses less fuel and required leaning my carbs out I should try putting one on and see what happens. I installed one kit with my new design (which uses 5 - 6" x 5/16" graphite rods attached to a stainless steel threaded rod as electrodes and pulls 6 amps cold). I then adjusted the carb IAW the Weber turning guide and the mixture screw is now out 1.25 turns and it runs great.

This past week-end I moved the HHO kits into the spare battery compartment on Nemo and added two more kits (now running 3 kits). The kits are relay controlled from the fuel pump and powered directly from the battery (power to the fuel pump energizes the relay which powers the HHO generators). I'll keep you posted...

After a long winters nap we took Nemo to Skyline Drive in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park for our 15th anniversary (Vicki and mine not Nemo's). We had a great week-end and really good weather (contrary to what the pictures show). He really enjoyed the 500+ trip.

We moved to Maryland in July and when I looked into registering Nemo I found out that the "Historic" car rules were written with a very broad brush. Not only does the car NEVER have to be inspected or emission tested but while he can not be a daily driver he can "be used for occasional transportation". Then I found out that if you have vintage tags (same year as your historic vehicle) you can use them as vanity tags and keep the historic tags in the car! It took me about 6 weeks on eBay to find the 1972 Maryland tags in good condition. So Nemo is now displaying 1971 Maryland tags with a 1972 registration sticker. Can't wait to see what happens when I drive in neighboring states 8-)