Z32 Going Green - Gas Convertion for the Z

I've been tossing it up for a while and I'm starting to send out some enquiries to local (and experienced) gas fitters, especially one that has fitted dedicated gas systems to turbocharged cars.

I haven't 100% made up my mind but I'm thinking of installing a dedicated gas system to one of my Z's (quite possibly the drift Z i'm doing at the moment).

Being higher octane, cleaner burning and cheaper; I'm really trying to work out a reason not to do it. It would be a great science project and if it doesn't work out I'll switch back to petrol.

Costs aren't an issue and with the possibility of getting up to a $3000 rebate, it might just be a good way of a greener, cleaner Z32.

If anyone on the forum has had some experience with gas conversion (Dedicated only), I'd really like to hear about them.

Note that I have thought about the possibly internal changes (valve seats/guides) and it's not a problem.

Educated opinions please!

 

I don't have an educated opinion, but I'm really glad to see you doing this Tom! Petrol is only going to keep getting more and more expensive, and gas as an option will be a valuable option to the community

Way to go PZP!


:bow2:

 

I have been thinking about this for a while. I was going to buy a cheap NA zed to use a dailey driver but ended up buying a ute and am putting injected gas on that this week.

The thinking from this end was to go to the wreckers and cut the spare wheel well and a big pce of the boot floor out of a Falcon.

Use a 2+2 as the test mule and cut a big pce of the boot floor out and weld the falcon floor pan in.

remove the fuel tank of course before hand.

This would give you enough room to fit an 85 litre donut tank in the car.

The issue with a TT zed is that the gas injectors are really small volume wize compared to the Petrol injectors.

It may take two injectors per cylinder the get adequate fuel into the engine.

You need to be able to tune the gas ECU which is a piggy back unit on the factory ECU. I found a good one at auto gas 1 in Lilydale here in vic.

The brand is Romano and the tuning suite is free if you buy the ecu.

The approx cost of a kit for the zed is parts wize $3200 which seemed a bit rich. The quality of the kit looked good. But you would be modding the fitment anyway. You could remove all the old fuel rails injectors etc so you would have to block the injector ports. the gas injectors are fed into the plenum via small nipples tapped into the plenum. The injectors sit on top with a feed pipes less than 300 mm to the plenum which may be challenge.

I would love to build a track car like this as 110 octane would be too good to pass up.

I wouldnt be doing hardened valve seats etc till the originals screw up. That may be years.

The factory gas in my new Crewman is costing $4700 less my $2000 gov rebate. Bloody expensive but I will be keeping the car for a long long time.

http://www.amrgas.com/

http://www.go-lpg.co.uk/RomanoN.html

http://stores.ebay.com.au/WTV-UK

 

ay tom, if you can contact "WOG ENGINEERING" in melbourne, they have dont a gas convertion on a z32tt. they should be able to shed some light on it for u

 

Thanks for the links GJ.

Large enough injectors and a tank that will allow the amount of flow required would probably be the two biggest things to look at. Apparently there are legalities over tank flow... Apparently single tanks can flow to approximately 300rwkw, anything over that and the tank lock off valve thinks the tank has ruptured and shuts the whole thing down.

The setup that I have enquired about is very similar to the one you are talking about. I was thinking about removing the OEM injectors and machining the lower plenum to accomodate the gas 'nipples'.

The ECU is a piggy back and can be tuned (free software on ECU purchase too). It all seems to easy!

Oh and I really like the idea of the falcadore wheel well tank!

Also, about the internal work... I see where you're going and it's probably a good idea to keep everything OEM... Just to see what sort of life we can get out of things

 

Thanks a bunch mate, they don't happen to have email do they? I'm going to be half way around the world in a matter of days and would like to get this happening while I'm away.

 

Father inlaw fitted LPG systems for more than 20 years up until he retired not long back.....
Basic rule of thumb he ran was if the car does around the
30mpg on petrol (10K/lit) then an LPG conversion isnt worth it as the 'payoff' takes far too long to actually start saving on fuel.

The next stumbling block is that our thoughtful Govts WILL be adding that wonderfull fuel excise to the LPG costs.... LPG will soon be much closer to petrol prices than it is currently. This effectively shortens the period of re-couping the outlay of the LPG conversion.

Dont get me wrong here, I love LPG and currently have 3 vehicles running on LPG, one of which is dedicated LPG whilst the other 2 are duel fuel...... My first car that I converted to LPG was a sigma back in 1981, since then I've saved thousands of dollars on fuel. My bash car ( V8 engine ) is duel fuel and its running costs for our charity runs are usually around 1/2 of what non LPG users pay to do the same run.....

Gas injection rules :bow2:
Its a very simple setup and could easily be done to a zed.

As for the 300rwkw and the valve shuts the flow off....... coughbullshitcough
The usual problem is the supply line iceing up and or poor insulating of that line. This 'problem' is usually on motors developing more than 700HP !


My 340HEMI ( dyno'd @ 850HP at the crank ) runs twin 650 Holleys, it runs a 25mm insulated supply line and has never managed to freeze the supplyline, lockout valves , converters or mixers.... its run a 10.1sec pass @ Sydney on LPG........ this engine will eventually get injected LPG
:biggrin:

 

The upper tax limit on LPG isnt reached till 2012 then it is 12.5% which is still way way lower than the exise on petrol. By 2012 this car of mine will have easily recovered my costs.

Basically You need to spend the money NOW rather than later so you get your payback earlier to maximize your savings.

Injected GAS from my investigations maintains the existing levels of power if tuned correctly and has a 5% increase in consumption over petrol.

Old gas emitter systems are basically rubbish and I dont understand why anyone would bother.

 

This idea has also crossed my mind of recent, and the two biggest hurdles i come to were the tank and injection aswell. The injection setup i was thinking of would look something similar to Greg D's DI NO2 Setup on his plenum. I have actually welded up high pressure tanks before(other uses, Farm stuff etc), and cannot really see why a gas tank cant be fabbed up in the same shape as the original fuel tank and just swapped over,Also could still run a sml tank in the boot if needed etc. Because after cutting out rusted old falcadore boot pans etc, wouldnt it have been easier just to fab the tank to fit? GB on Z32 Gas Tanks anyone?

Also an evil side thought, CNG!?
some will know what i mean others no idea. Thought it was a bit of a no-no but after a couple of minutes googling apparently there are a fleet of diesel trucks with the melb council running on it atm!

 

try 25%

 

Ahhh NO, 25% for old style emitter gas systems , Injected gas is only about 5% more consumption

 

i will get in contact with them and give you there info.

 

been thinking about it for some time too, there's direct injection options out there designed to replace your petrol injectors but surely it'd be better to inject lpg straight into the combustion chamber.

I mean if it's pumped in after the intake stroke at 160 odd psi with an AFR of 15:1 then you should have 160 / 15 = 10 psi of ice cold forced induction for free.

 

Interesting Idea

I'll be following this thread to see how it goes

What options are there for those wanting to push more than 300kw?

 

Im definitely keen on following this, I wanted to run my 1JZ on dedicated LPG.

 

hate to be a downer but i know the z32 runs rich from the factory presumably to me more tolerable to lower quality fuels as well as adding extra cooling.

now since gas burns hotter and it doesnt cool down the cylinders the way petrol does would you have to make extensive modifications to the cooling system?

 

hmmm.....good to look at the bigger picture, and truely an important point as the zed does get a bit hotter than other cars.....

yeh sorry i just posted a thread as i am currently thinking of doing this to my mums audi a6 which is a V6 2.8L........i doubt its a petrol muncher but as we are planning to have it for over 5 years i thought well its definatly something to think about......one of my mechanics on the central coast says normal convertion(old skool) is 2500 while direct injected(dedicated) would be around $4000 with a tune etc....i know i can recoupe the money and hopefully slightly more power gains......As for removing the old petrol tank and replacing with LPG( well not sure if it can be done on the 300zx as there is a law as to how low to the ground the tank can be)......

Does anyone recommend any place i should go to in sydney/ central coast.....i always like to get a few opinions so im sure its not some retart that has a biased opinion...

cheers

 

Dont you have government rebates? Over here its like 2k for gas install and then government pays like 80% or something, i think..

My mate ended up paying only 500$ to convert his ford fairmont to gas.

Also, in a Z where is the gas tank gonna go? in the boot or ?

 

where the current petrol tank is...

 

Oh i thought he was keeping it petrol and gas.