LPG Conversion

[garethj]

Anyone done one?My Pinto running short journeys through town gets 22mpg, a tankfull of unleaded is about £55. If a tankfull of LPG is £30 (is it, that’s only my guess?) then I’d save £25 per fillup.Anyone recommend a kit or installer who can do a simple installation like this? In my pea brain, if a kit is £250 then I make my money back in 10 tankfulls.I’d rather hear of a recommendation instead of just hitting ebay

[Tayne]

.

[richardthestag]

I have run both of my Range Rovers on LPG.TinleyTech is a great starting point for your investigations. I have avoided e-bay kits as you really don't know what you are getting and LPG can be nasty stuffedited to add - installed the kit myself on the current Rangie. Piece of cake.

[Pete-M]

I'm seriously considering converting the SD1s to LPG. There's room in the boot for a couple of smallish torpedo tanks under the floor.It'd also mean that booting the 4.2 becomes financially viable!

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I once bought a 'Voltran' LPG kit off eBay and it was the biggets crock of shit I have ever encountered.

[Des]

Been using lpg for a fair while, it's roughly half price fuel costs without having to suffer the dismal diesel drive of shame, although because it's cheap fuel I tend to 'rag the nuts off' everywhere I go so I'm probably saving nothing. If you're sensible / responsible you'll save a fortune, if you go simple single point look into the Blos 'carb', clever piece of kit, and close up plug gaps a little for reliability.

[j-j]

Yes, I've done two carby conversions to LPG. The CX runs on the stuff 100% of the time including cold starts.If you're a competent mechanic and not a physics novice then a basic LPG system is not hard to fit to your average shite.If you have a petrol injection car then go for the sequential injection kits. A company named 'Tinley Tech' do these and come with appropriate DIY instructions for each model of car. LPG runs cleaner, quieter and cheaper than petrol on old shite heaps and requires no modification to the cylinder head or valve seats on properly engineered cars (like Citroens) some very old cars will need their valve seats sorted though. Also, I can support what's been said about the 'Blos' LPG mixer - it's like a SU carburator with a moving piston. This makes the performance of a LPG carb vehicle nearly up to scratch. The actual 'MPG' per litre of gas is less on gas but since the cost is half of petrol then you're WINning. It also pisses on hybrids for perceived greenness. Old, extended life vehicle + low carbon emissions = WIN overall.Get gas! it is made for autoshite!

[Tayne]

.

[CortinaDave]

I've run a few cars on LPG, with varying success. The biggest downfall of them is that your engine runs hotter and thus gas converted cars have a penchant for blowing head gaskets.I had a 95 calibra 2.0 8 valve converted with a single point tartarini system and had little issue over 30 000 miles - however at the end of year one the head gasket went.When i'd killed that car i transferred the kit to a 2.0 '95 Ford Probe. This didnt like the gas so much and kept blowing up its MAF sensor and Airbox. Sold the car with the kit on as I got pissed off with it.I also had a 2000 Vectra SRI 140 with a factory fitted sequential kit - this ran very nicely but - surprise surprise - blew the headgasket after only a few months running. There was a reciept in the service history for a headgasket only about 18 months previous as well.I would do it again though, the savings are enormous even with the occasional head gasket repair

[j-j]

Gonna keep an eye on the head gasket then!!!!

[Guest]

My Laurel Taxi is LPG-only and I half-wish it wasn't, mainly because I have to remember to fill up before Morrisons shuts.

[garethj]

Thanks, chaps!

the 'Blos' LPG mixer - it's like a SU carburator with a moving piston. This makes the performance of a LPG carb vehicle nearly up to scratch.

Is performance not as good on LPG? Does this Blos mixer replace the existing carb?Looks like Tinley Tech kits are around £500

[Tayne]

.

[Station]

Thinking of doing this if I get a 2.0 car, there's loads of LPG stations near me. It's Propane (based) isn't it? I read LPG is less efficient than petrol, but it costs less. Imagine spending 60p per litre! It'd feel like 10 years ago! What's the procedure to fitting them (and how much do you usually spend)?

[scruff]

I've had two on gas, and flicking over to petrol on the move was like switching a nitrous kit on. Both went no-where near as well on LPG. Perhaps they weren't set up very well but they ran alright otherwise, did OK on fuel and didn't backfire.

[garethj]

The question is, how often are you using maximum power? That's maximum revs and full throttle at the same time.For me it's not that often, I rarely take the boat anchor past 4500rpm so I'm probably only using 80bhp at most and it's not that often.

[Des]

The performance loss thing is kind of relative, if a cars done any sort of mileage then wear and tear will be accounting for the loss of a few horses anyhow, as said, less energy in propane, then being vapour I think it can take up more space in the intake charge, and no cooling effect, so compared to running on petrol there's a good bit less power, but when running an old shitter, it could be the first time it's seen a vaguely correct stoichiometric mixture in decades so could well be the same or better regards powah! It's a great way of running old grumble, the bigger the engine the better and keep to a simple system so that the only computer involvment is when you order the parts.

[j-j]

Yep, I can only agree with the last few posts.

I read LPG is less efficient than petrol, but it costs less.

It's not less efficient - in fact it burns more completely than petrol and so you could say it's more efficient (part of the reason it's 'greener' too) but the trouble is that further to what Tayne and the guys have said, the compression ratio of a petrol engine isn't best for the higher octane and slower burning of the gas (though it's hardly well off the mark - just not optimal)Honestly, the running of a carburetor petrol on LPG is fine - I can still reach the magic ton in the CX (air field obviously ) but the engine sounds like it's working a little harder at the top end - between 30 - 70 mph it is the same for petrol for my car's motor at least.The reason the Blos type gas mixer is best is because the standard ring mixer has a set venturi size that's chosen for the engine's size. This tends to be only ideal for a certain range of engine demand and tends to be narrower than the air intake to the carburetor and so can be restrictive at higher speeds.The Blos mixer has a variable internal bypass controlled by the manifold air pressure. It means the Blos mixer can be much wider than the air intake but at idle speed, the inner piston of it is mostly closed the air flow is lowest and the gas damand matches it. Open the throttle and the piston of the Blos thing opens to expose more of the gas nozzle and greater air flow so that there's none of the restriction associated with standard mixers. Trouble I find is that the Blos mixers are difficult to find for sale.. The carburetor remains in the car for two reasons: one, the throttle valves of the carb are still used to control the demand of gas from the regulator - the LPG flows from the mixer and goes through the carburetor. Second, coz you still want to run on petrol at times and would need the carb to remain. My next fuel project will be to do a more modern sequential injection LPG system fitted to a petrol injection car - these can be set up to run very efficiently whereas the crburetor+ mixer set up takes weeks of trial and error to get the best performance/economy Still worth doing IMO

[Guest]

Another point worthy of mention is that when I fill up with LPG, it makes my fingers stink for a good half hour.

[Tayne]

.

[Guest]

Well, it does.

[richardthestag]

Well, it does.

I fill up twice a week. I'll check thout out next time. Later EFI Range Rover Classics (no flap in the airflow meter) run great on single point LPG setup and only really back fire if you have ignition faults (even air leaks to the plenum don't seem to faze mine). I make sure I have original Lucarse cap and rotor, qwalitee leads and good plugs. I leave the clip on the airflow meter - plenum air pipe loose so if it does backfire (and it hasn't for neary 20k miles now) it just pops the pipe off rather than turning the airfilter inside out.When I put mine in -£700 all in kit from TTech - I was told that there is no real advantage to the full sequential system for the RV8 in the RR Classic and that for the greatly inflated cost I wouldn't see any better return on my investment, nor any significant increase in MPG. The exact opposite is true of p38's or anything with coil packs and more complex ECU controlled engine management. To be sure check with Tinleytech.As for performance, it runs as good on LPG as it does on std unleaded. Not quite as economical but at 15mpg on lpg I am happy. gets up to 17mpg on a long run. I tried driving like a giffer but it made no difference so I generally drive like I stole it. I have had this Rangie for nearly 3 years and thrown 45k miles at it with only one backfire - service was a bit overdue and the plug gaps were a bit on the big side.Another advantage is that my oil change intervals are stretched from 3k to 6k. When running on petrol the oil turns into black water at 3k miles. On LPG and even at 6k miles the oil is still clean and quite thick. Largely due to lack of petrol contamination. My RV8 prefers 20/50 Multigrade.Other advantages are;Car sails through MOT emissions tests - my tester thought his analysis machine was broken a few years back.You don't need CAT on the exhaust, mine are still fitted but only because I cannot be arsed to fit the new downpipe section and tune resister that I have already for the job. I might get around to this yet and liberate a few more horses to play with.Lastly when some holier than thou little twat in his Toyblowta Pious starts ranting at me in my planet killer, I can tell them that it runs on a waste product unlike their shit box of tricks before telling him to feck off to google all about nickel mining! they can then cry into their now exhausted bank account that it would have been better spending hard earned wedge on shite and converting to LPG if they had the slightest concern about the environment hahaha.

[scooters]

I had an XJ40 on LPG. The big jag engine was never entirely happy with the stuff - also - the fitters had neglected to fit a backfire valve and the car did tend to back fire on LPG - destroying the airbox totally - I went through 3 airboxes until I fitted a valve.I had a 240 on LPG and it ran like a dream -

[Lankytim]

Ive been running my LPG Audi for a couple of years now and its great. Granted, you do have to tinker a bit more to keep things in fine fettle but its much cheaper to run than petrol. Its down on power compared to petrol (but not by much) and certain rev-ranges and engine loads can cause the mixer to "stall" slightly meaning you have to change down a gear (probably not set up correctly TBH) but, who cares? 50PPL fuel!The engine oil doesnt get contaminated by burnt petrol either meaning that after 10,000 miles its still golden in colour. The inside of the Audis engine looks brand new.

[TheScrapman]

Ooh, hello, not be around these parts for a while...Anyway, I've fitted LPG to many cars - carb, k-jet and sequential. The only one I've struggled with was the k-jet (could never cure the blow back problem and got one backfire that destroyed the fuel distributor - expensive mistake).The sequential kits are fantastic. I used a manufacturer called Romano. It came with a piggypack ECU that only needed inputs from the petrol injectors and an ignition pulse. Once you pluck up the courage to drill and tap holes in the inlet manifold for the additional injectors, it is simply a matter of plugging it all into the new loom, pluggin it into your laptop, and allowing the software to configure or calibrate it all. Easy peasey. I noticed no lack of power (the ECU allowed the system to put up to 15% of petrol in as well when you really booted it) and of course much cheaper fuel. MPG was probably down some 10%.I currently run a 5.9 litre v8 American camper (as my daily ) on the stuff using a very restricting mixer ring over the top of the carb. Power is significantly less than petrol and power on petrol is much reduced too due to the air inlet restriction. I have started looking into this BLOS system, but I think it will be a lot of work making up plumbing to fit it to single 4-barrel downdraft. Not seen anything on the web about it, but someone on here might be able to point me in the right direction?Cooling - Yes, LPG does burn a bit hotter, but as said it also burns more cleanly. So long as your cooling system is working efficiently, I don't see how this would cause these frequent head gasket failures that are reported above? I have a large LPG regulator on my camper setup, which is heated by the water system (plumbed parallel to the heater matrix). Before LPG, if I sat in traffic, the temperature needle would slowly rise. When on LPG, the regulator takes so much heat out of the coolant, that the gauge now drops under normal operating temperature after half an hour or so of idling in traffic. Brilliant!Fuel propertiesI was interested to see on filling up at a station in Austria last week, there was a sign saying that their LPG is a 40/60 mix of butane and propane in the summer and 60/40 mix in the winter. May account for the different numbers quoted about it's properties...Calorific value is lower - 10-15% depending on where you are looking, and it burns slightly slower. As such, pulling your ignition timing back a few degrees (10 on the camper) can make a world of difference on a basic carb LPG system. However, octane rating is higher - again, I've seen numbers quoted between 106 and 130. I think 112-115 is realistic. This means that the compression ratio of standard engine is probably a bit low. A friend is currently playing with his Bentley Mulsane turbo R. He will have two sets of injectors and a custom fuel/ignition map for each fuel type. On LPG, he thinks he will be able to turn up the turbo (effectively increasing the compression ratio) and produce more power on LPG than on petrol. He is looking for 500 hp+! He seems to know what he is talking about, so it will interesting to see the results!Ooh, crikey, I appear to have waffled on again about LPG. As you can probably tell, I think it is marvellous stuff, and is currently reasonably cheap. I live in Germany, and they have a price freeze on LPG until 2014, which is nice...

[gurnsimps]

My everyday shite is a 1500 12 valve mitsy lancer,its cheap on tax,insurance and fair on petrol but I have been thinking of lpg'ing it,I had a Granada 2 litre twin cam ghia that was plg'd and it was cheaper on fuel than My Hillman Imp!!!

What system do you guys recommend for this engine?

[Rocket88]

I've got a Merc 300 te running on gas. It does tend to run a little bit hotter, but apart from that, nothing but good news

[TheScrapman]

I now have a BLOS carb sat on my bedside table waiting to be fitted to the camper. I need to make up some sort of manifold to connect it to the huge downdraft carb, but no doubt a morning with my welder, some noise and some beer should have something knocked up.

 

I will post up some progress pics when I can be arsed to fit it.

 

Oh, a guy on eBay with with username PMXPL can supply the BLOS. He is in Poland, but is a regular on the Land Rover forums. He was very helpful, and the BLOS turned up here exactly when he said it would. Cost me £120 delivered to Germany.

[j-j]

I think I got my BLOS thing from that guy too.

 

I had to make up adapters for the BLOS thing as it is hugely wider than the CX's air intake. One thing to note though is that if you make a reducer type thing for the BLOS, make the fitting on the other side of it the same step so that the air flow is constant through the BLOS thing to ensure the variable piston moves correctly for the different air flows via the throttle.

 

BLOS thing is great as there's a lot of adjustment on it (in addition to the mixture and throttle response adjustments on the LPG regulator)

[Lord Sterling]

My old Rover 827Si ran on a single point Tartarini system with a 100l tank. Never saw any difference in temperature. Only the difference was in performance, slightly less power on LPG.

 

I've still got the kit, took it off my car when it got crashed. Not sure what I want to do with it.

 

I'd have another LPG kitted Rover 827.

 

Having seen what most people said here about blow-back, I noticed when I got my car home from mainly motorway drive, the car idled wildly, upon investigating I noticed that the plastic around the air filter had shattered, which was probably caused by blow back.

 

Another thing learnt on Autoshite today