LPG and small engines

[chimpboy]

How come you don't see small engines running LPG much? Is it just because they are economical anyway, so it's not worth the cost?

I didn't think power was so much worse with LPG that it would make the motor totally pissweak... so what's the reason?

Just curious! My old man was wondering whether he could get even better fuel economy out of his 1.3 litre Suzuki Swift that way.

Jason

[V8Patrol]

Ok so I'm OLD ........

back in 1984 I had a Mitsibishi sigma ( was trying to keep my licence ) and I fitted LPG to it for extra fuel capacity for long distance driving. It had a 2.6 lit motor and 5 speed box and a 2" stainless zorst system ....other than that stock as a rock.

The power differance was minimal with it in tune for either fuels..... but if I screwed the LPG right back I coud get amazing ecconomy figures but with a top speed of 100kph flat out !

Amazingly enuff the car is still around here and is driven daily by the current owner. He has removed the petrol tank completly and runs straight LPG and has fitted a 2nd tank for longer distance between fills. He travels to Melbourne twice a week in it and recons it has saved him tens of thousands of dollars in the time he has owned it ( I sold it to him in 1990 )

As for how small an engine do you want to run on LPG ...well a local excentric nut has had his rideon mower converted to straight LPG !!! yep a 10 horse power Briggs & Stratton motor ! The convertor is warmed up via an exhaust heat exchanger and the "tank" is a BBQ bottle !

I might be old .......but he's just plain phuckin stupid !

Kingy

[MKPatrolGuy]

We see quite a few Propane powered machines at the mower shop I work at. One is a ride-on sweeper and the others are floor polishers, smallest is a 5.5hp Honda. They are used indoors, which is why they are on Gas.

[bazzle]

Used to ba a lot of corollas around. Bloody gutless in auto form but..

Bazzle

[up2nogood]

I converted the ex's Magna to straight LPG when the carby died. It was chaeper to get all second hand bits, weld the mounts into the car and throw all the petrol stuff away than fix the carb!

Went better too, although you have to put heavier springs in the dizzy so it doesn't advance as much.

Except for termites, the car is still fine four years later. And she's got a new bloke.........

Should work OK in smaller engines.

[J Top]

One problem is the lack of boot space in the modern car.
When you put a pair of tanks over the diff on an HQ an XA or a VG you still had usable boot,just needed heavier springs.
One Govt department had a Mini on CNG,no boot and gutless.
J Top

[built4thrashing]

my prevoius 4x4 was a feroza and it was on dual fuel. There was very little diference in power and it went better on lpg in the bush. took it to tassie on hols and wes gettin over 1000km from both before needing to fill up. if there was room to do it in a zook and keep the back seat id do it but that was the reason i sold the roza. nowhere for the bub to sit.

As for loosing power if you advance the timing a few degs ya wont tell the difference except if ya in a high performance machine

[pcman]

mate works at a indoor gokart center and the goverment was attempting to make them convert all there gokarts to lpg they had a few setup 5.5hp straight gas gokarts they actually went better than the petrol ones but noone wanted to use them cause the tank was right up against the back of your head the gov changed there mind and let them keep running petrol so the lpg got removed

[muppet_man67]

Ive seen sierras on gas before but they have no back seat. I think thats why not many people do it. and also for most people economy in a sierra is fairly good

[V8Patrol]

Father Inlaw ( read LPG GURU ) told me........

If your getting 30mpg or more from a car then its not viable to fit an LPG system to that car, it would cost much more in the long run to offset the petrol price.

Kingy

[muppet_man67]

whats 30mpg in kilometres per litre?

[chimpboy]

whats 30mpg in kilometres per litre?

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&i ... arch&meta=

[muppet_man67]

hey I never knew you could do that.

[Mudzuki]

12.7543112 kilometers per litre

Thats pretty good

Means lpg is viable for heaps of people, no matter what size of engine

[RaginRover]

12.7543112 kilometers per litre

Thats pretty good

Means lpg is viable for heaps of people, no matter what size of engine

Yeah not too bad, that equates to 8.3L /100K which means that at $1.03p/L that it costs this car $8.55 for ever 100K travelled.

Therefore - if I did the conversion myself and just paid for parts
it would cost around $500 from scratch and the economy would change by around 15%. Now that means 9.54 L/100K on gas which translates into
about $4.30 per 100K travelled (assuming around $0.45/L for gas)

That represents a $4.25 saving per 100K on gas so we would have to do
11,700Km before our conversion was paid off.

Now if I paid someone to do it the cost would be nearly $2000
for the conversion - saving $4.25 per 100K we would have to do
47058Km before we paid off the conversion.

Doesn't look so appealing now - unless you can do it yourself and get it approved.

These calculations were off the top of my head - let me know if you reckon my reasoning is out or needs improvement. I assume the economy figure used was the "around town" figure of a camry of similar
- driving on the freeway continually would change the figures a bit.

Tom