LPG Conversions?

[dieselfan]

Been spending too many early hours on OZ forums, anyone here done a LPG conversion? If so where and whats the feedback like?

Also what is the price?!
http://www.energy.gov.za/files/esources ... ations.pdf

Confused me

[tour de frans]

I built a gas regulator to supply LPG to the engine. dont have many sucses with it. The nozzle freeze up, also haveing trouble regulating the flow.
I allso built a hydrogen sell, problem with that, the BTU are to little to make a big differance.
At the moment I have great fuel saving on a big rig. Still under test...
Rdgs

[Ross]

I did an LPG conversion on the 2.4l Nissan Sani that I owned before I got my Trol.

I did the conversion back in 2005, and ran the system until I sold the vehicle in 2008. The system fitted was fairly simple, and I believe far more sophisticated kits are available now. The company that did my conversion here in Cape Town are no longer in business, however I believe that Bulgas are still doing conversions.

The overall idea and theory is good...lower costs and cleaner emissions, but here are some of the practical difficulties that I experienced:

1. Availability of filling points is fairly limited (in Europe and Aus many petrol stations also have an auto gas (LPG) filling point). This means that unless there is a filling station that has an LPG point near you, filling up can be inconvenient.

2. At that time (and I assume it is still the case) the differential between the cost of LPG and the cost of Petrol was not that big (seemed to vary between 20 -30% cheaper...however because LPG has a lower calorific value than Petrol, consumption is higher when running LPG so overall savings were rarely better than 10%)

3. Related to point 2, Afrox has a virtual monopoly, and although most Afrox depots do have Auto Gas filling points they are not interested in you unless you have a fleet of vehicles...therefore the individual gets ripped off with ridiculous pricing that makes running LPG unfeasible unless you can find a more competitively priced supplier.

4. Positioning the LPG tank can be a bit of a hassle, in the sense that you loose that amount of packing space within the vehicle. I have subsequently seen tanks that can mount underneath the vehicle, however I still feel on an off road vehicle this would be somewhat vulnerable to damage, and also finding space for a tank that could give you any kind of sensible range is difficult.

5. With the demise of 97 Octane petrol I found it was increasingly difficult to find a timing setting that suited both Petrol and LPG. When the engine was timed for optimal performance and economy for LPG (timing advanced to take advantage of LPG`s higher octane rating), it would ping like a bastard when running petrol. Like wise if the timing was set for optimal petrol performance, LPG performance and consumption would suffer. If LPG was sufficiently readily available to make running on petrol a fairly infrequent occurrence this wouldn`t be so much of an issue, however the reality for me was that with an LPG range of only 350kms and limited convenient refueling points, some running on petrol remained a fairly frequent occurrence. I suspect this would be less of an issue with a more sophisticated gas installation and modern computer controlled EFI setup, as you could just run two maps.

6. LPG did not enjoy receiving airflow through the snorkel. I think this is because the air intake pressure varies with forward speed which in turn messed around with the mixture. When running LPG I eventually had to disconnect the snorkel from the air box.

So while running LPG was an enjoyable experiment and gave me the satisfaction of doing things a bit differently to most, I wouldn`t rush out to do it again.

My 2c

[Grant]

[dieselfan]

Thanks Ross! I appreciate the effort you took to reply.