Sooooo.... I was toying with the idea of converting my gas guzzling V8 to LPG (it's worse than the Z and it's not even fast!) and now the government announces a $2,000 rebate so it's suddenly become a bit of a no brainer. Can people fill me in a bit about LPG and basically what down sides can I expect? I don't want there to be any compromises ideally.... no major loss of power, no new noises, I just want the car to run exactly as it did before on petrol and the only time I ever know it's on LPG is when I fill it up. Is this realistic? What sort of things can I expect with LPG as far as negatives go or what can be done to avoid/minimize them? Can anyone make some recommendations in Melbourne, this will be a customs install obviously. Ben
A lot of negativity associated with lpg, was initially caused by the two very different optimum sparking points of the two fuels, leaving mechanics to find a sparking mid point between the two which only meant the car ran like crap on both fuels, however a dedicated lpg system overcomes this problem and is the best option imho.I hear that over time lpg can dry out the top of the engine and O rings and hoses etc,and I posted last week about e.o.i. for gas injection,as to how to build an lpg specific engine but drew little interest however I will continue to research the subject myself. Goodluck with it.Sorry I couldn't be of more help.
oil injection when you get the LPG fitted you can also get an oil injector fitted which injects minute amounts of oil in with the gas which lubricates the upper cylinder, you just have to remember to keep the oil resevoir full as it is usually situated under the bonnet, cheers, i used to have a nissan patrol with a holden 308 in it, on gas, and it had shitloads of power
Problems MANY people will be getting LPG now. Increase demand, so increase in price. You get approx 30% less km per litre out of it too, so dont be taken in by how much cheaper LPG looks when filling up. Add 30% I guess for approx comparision to petrol (so 60cents will equal approx 78cents). Excise will later be introduced in it to a max of 12.5cents per litre (for now) Polititions will not be putting LPG into their own cars apparantly because its not 'financially viable' Way to lead by example Short term, LPG will be much cheaper for sure but it will be interesting to see how it goes when almost everyone has a car that runs on LPG and what that does to its price. Also, you can get rid of you cat converters too for that bit of extra power I heard You wont be needing those anymore.
Question ok lpg is a valid option, but the question is, What is the V8 used 4 mate, if its a daily driver or just a occasional sucker y not conssider getting some old bunky for like 1 or 2k and save yourself the hassle. With gas u will lose lots of power, u wont get the miles per gallon and im not convinced about the long term effects on the engine block.
Just got to thinking... With everyone going to the LPG bandwagon and the PM saying people can keep whatevers left of the 2K (should there be any), demand for petrol will go down perhaps bringing the cost down, while demand for LPG will go up, raising its cost. Maybe that why John Howard said earlier he can see fuel prices falling steady to $1.15-$1.20 per litre so why the polititions fleet of cars wont bother doing the switch? Another annoying (but highly avoidable) problem with LPG is if you run out of fuel, you cant get old mate to bring you a few litres to fill up. You gotta get towed to a petrol servo. Was caught out driving my brothers car once. 'theres plenty of fuel' he said
On dual fuel cars LPG loses power And thats where it got its rep from. Perhaps depends on the car also but with its 110 octane rating, it aint bad!
hey ben iono if its mentiond but one problem alot of people have said about is if you give it any gas while starting the car, it can leak out and blow up your airbox.
advantage to the lpg tanks is that with the size compared to the amount of Literage you get, you get twice as much as fuel! 120L can fit in your boot, imagine if you had your fuel tank replaced wif a lpg one! hello 200L tank! fill it up one every month or so, sound good?
I had a 2000 model V6 magna on gas full time It was fantastic on fuel and with no loss of power at all(I dont care what anyone says there was no difference in the V6) I would get more from it on gas than what I got when it was on unleaded. The catch is dont go dual fuel and put it on gas full time. The dual fuel setup dosnt let the car have a true state of tune so when its on gas only it can be tuned as such and in return a lot less fuel is used. If the car is unleaded you dont need the upper cylinder lube as this is really only a valve seat protection and unleaded valves work just fine on gas. I have had 3 cars on gas (2 dual 1 full time)and im thinking of going full time gas with my new motor in the 300. They are getting a lot better in the delivery side of gas and I think its now par if not better k's on gas. So I say gas bring it on and now its $2000 cheaper oh yeah, but mind you by 2008 there will be another %15 price increase making it around 70 to 75 cents a litre but unleaded will be over the $2.00 mark so its still a good saving.
The motor needs to be setup for the gas to work correct... Gas on EFI car's need to run its own computer just like unleaded does... at 100,000kms you got more work to do on a gas powered car then on unleaded.. Ben what kind of V8 do you drive?? If its carbie yeah no worrys change it to gas but efi dont bother you will slowly kill the motor... holden even states do not use LPG on any of there V8 car's... The top end of the fords which are gas only is different to the top end of the unleaded version... gas burns hotter so under bonnet temps are higher and converting back and worth from petrol to lpg is not worth it in the long run... My dad works for himself and drives every single day... delivers brakes and cluches etc and does almost 400kms a day... since owning it he is over 70,000kms already and i have had my zed the same amount of time as him and i have only done 6,000 LOL but yeah he wont goto gas its not worth it in the long run... But yeah if people go gas they will most likey put the price up on gas too.. I remember the days when it was 15 cents a litre! Nath
You dont need to do anything different to EFI cars and it wont kill a EFI car I dont know who told you that but its way off the mark I did over 190,000 in the 3.5 V6 magna and still was just fine at the 100,000k service ,even the mech said it was great for that amount and thinks there was a positive gain from GAS and it also rans cleaner than unleaded so really there was less to fix and compression was perfect after 190,000. There is nothing extra to do at the 100,00 service ,but yes there is a different computer that works with the original and costs about $170 and I cant quite remember but I think gas runs cooler not hotter I have had a car coverted to full time gas and it was the best money I had ever spent on it
My OWN Experience LPG Hi, I drove Taxis for over a decade with LPG and no problems the engines are still ok after 600,000 kls then they sell them for around $3,000, I also have a VS commodore on LPG and Petrol, the reason being i can leave the car sitting for a week without starting it, I them select start on Petrol and the car starts first time everytime i dont even get in the car, then i go back inside and have a coffee and allow 10 mins for VS to warm up, once i am on the road i switch over to GAS at 60 -70 klm ph the car runs nicely, the only difference you loos is approx 5-10% percent of power this is barely notiable, the other thing i have noticed the car has a more pinging sound, like if your advance is set a little to far forward.... as long as you keep the oil and water topped it will run fine, if the temp gets too hot example empty radiator or bad circulation and Temp gauge is on HIGH the car will stall and under the bonnet will be an block of ice as the gas come out frozen.... If you get a good qualified conversion done i dont see any problems, i was also looking at a lpg site and they say that it is cleaner for your engine with heaps less deposits building up on plugs ect...... If you converted i would reccomend Duel Fuel as a dedicated system if left cold for a day or so your engine will have to be turned over for heaps of times to get it started, which everyone knows is not good for a cold engine, so at least with Duel fuel you are perjaps prolonging the life of the engine, i am speaking from personal experience, most cabs never get a chance in thire lives to start cold as the engine is always warm as a new driver starts a shift, so basically a cab is running non stop 24/7, less engine wear damage, no cold starts, i suppose 95% of the cabs are thrashe to the shithouse specially on the night shift and weekend cowboys, was alos wondering that if we all went LPG, what actually will happen to prices, At the moment they say LPG is just under a half of the price of petrol, yet back in the 70S I remeber it was Promised LPG would ALWAYS remain just a little over 1/3rd the price of petrol... Most LPG is a bye product of Petrol, meaning that LPG is the left over waste when making petrol and is is/was usually burned away...but the government will have every one think that ALL LPG comes from Bass strait and is ALL manufactured from that source only... i just returned from a trip to Sydney and back and the VS costed me $153.00 Return, ( remeber) my VS is really well looked after and rarely goes over 3000,RPM on most trips anyway if you think of a conversion perhaps the best bet would be to cover your ass and go Duel Fuel, most related to above reasons, who knows what will happen to LPG with if there is a higher demand than petrol, at least you can have the best of both worlds choose what you want to run on for the trip and take advantage of both LPG and Petrol Cost, also less wear on start ups.. Remember i only speak from my own personal experience hope i have been of some help to you.
very nice read i must say... But taxi's are driven pretty much nonstop all day every day and dont get as cold as your own personal car... Plus they always do heaps of kms like you said and they do go strong... Also forgot to add not every car can be converted to gas... Its something which mechanics need to tell people... At the end of the day it depends on the person who wants to convert there car to gas... I am not a big fan of gas... If i had a motor that was rebuilt to specs so gas will not destory and run gas only not a dual system... hehe oh wells got the zed i dont cry over the fuel if i need it i need it no big deal...
This is not true on full time gas systems as they prime and start first turn of the key ,well thats what my car was like
You also use twice as much (or more) because the fuel consumption of LPG is much worse than petrol. Added to that is the fact that you can't get you Zed converted anyway, because there is no room to fit a sufficiently large enough, legal, gas tank in the space currently occupied by the petrol tank, and it is categoricly illegal to place an LPG/gas tank in the passenger capsule of a vehicle (we do not have a "boot" as defined in the Act.)
Thanks for the feedback The car is a Toyota Celsior running a 1UZ-FE 4.0L V8, it's a modern quad cam (same as in various Lexuses, Soarers, Landcruisers). Yes it's a daily driver, and it's a fat luxury car so I don't want starting problems or anything like that, going fully to LPG would be fine with me if there are no problems, hell it would be nice to save some trunk space anyway. Ben
Ahhh yes... Just to let you know the landcruisers do suffer more when on gas... At the 100,000kms service they get a heap done to them then on unleaded... I work at toyota but yeah we were all having a talk about converting to gas and alot said no... Toyota even says do not dual fuel any of our car's the hi aces do get done but are sent off site to get done the right way... I guess if you wanted to convert then go for it but yeah just hope nothing bad does happen... I would rather a turbo diesel tho heheh I guess i am just not a big fan of gas... Unless its avgas hehe mmmm Nath
IMHO you would be bloody crazy to install any LPG kit here is Australia based on the cruddy idea's they have here of what works and what doesnt. The emitter based systems they use here are shit! If you want to know the only option for making a gas car run correctly look toward the Italians. They make the best kits bar none. The only kit I would be putting on any car of mine are sequential injection gas injection kits like these. http://www.autogasitalia.it/db/kit2.asp?lan=eng&id=13 I would even put this on a TT Zed. Then you have the advantages of gas with none of the disadvantages. You can reasonably expect the same performance as petrol and similar economy.
