More power from LPG
Discussion
gavinl said:
Well, you could say the same thing about nitrous, but that remains popular enough.
Nitrous is popular?
Seems to be, yeah...
rolyrat said:
[quote=tuttle]
I have a customer who has lpg converted his Nissan Skyline, the new ecu seems to control gas fine from cold starts with no probs.
Would this be a turbo charged skyline perchance?
I've only ever heard of one other turbo LPG setup and that was on a Scooby. I was under the impression that its a very hard thing to map the LPG injection to a turbo motor.
Andy
I know a guy with a T5 volvo on gas, and that starts and drives very nicely.
Someone else mentioned it was necessary for smooth starts/running to heat the gas. I had forgotten to mention that in this skyline there is a heater, mapped to the ecu that brings the gas temp up to 50 degC as it hits the inlet manifold. Not knowing a great deal about lpg I had assumed this type of system was the norm. Anyway he seems very happy with it.
>> Edited by tuttle on Saturday 10th December 20:39
Pigeon said:
Well, you could say the same thing about nitrous, but that remains popular enough.
Nitrous is popular?
Seems to be, yeah...
In the US maybe...globally?
My car in NZ runs dedicated LPG - i.e. no petrol at all and has been set up to run solely on LPG. this means higher compression (13:1) more initial ignition advance (but less total). The engine is a 5 litre Rover V8 based engine with small valves (pre-SD1 sizes)and a mild camshaft. This combo produces 220HP at the wheels as measured on a hub dyno. Not too bad for 1960s LPG technology.
Cold starts no problem, even with snow covering the car.
One of the main reasons for starting the car on petrol is to make sure all the petrol fuel hoses and 'o' rings for the injectors don't dry out.
LPG does have a higher octane ratine, but lower calorific value than petrol, so unless the engine has ben optimised for it, performance can be about 10-15% less.
LPG as well as being cheaper is also cleaner burning. You should be able to meet current emissions without cats. The engine oil also stays cleaner.
Its a very good fuel, once you understand it. I've always got converting the Cerbera to dedicated LPG in the back of my mind.
Cold starts no problem, even with snow covering the car.
One of the main reasons for starting the car on petrol is to make sure all the petrol fuel hoses and 'o' rings for the injectors don't dry out.
LPG does have a higher octane ratine, but lower calorific value than petrol, so unless the engine has ben optimised for it, performance can be about 10-15% less.
LPG as well as being cheaper is also cleaner burning. You should be able to meet current emissions without cats. The engine oil also stays cleaner.
Its a very good fuel, once you understand it. I've always got converting the Cerbera to dedicated LPG in the back of my mind.
andytk said:
tuttle said:
I have a customer who has lpg converted his Nissan Skyline, the new ecu seems to control gas fine from cold starts with no probs.
Would this be a turbo charged skyline perchance?
I've only ever heard of one other turbo LPG setup and that was on a Scooby. I was under the impression that its a very hard thing to map the LPG injection to a turbo motor.
Andy
andytk said:
tuttle said:
I have a customer who has lpg converted his Nissan Skyline, the new ecu seems to control gas fine from cold starts with no probs.
Would this be a turbo charged skyline perchance?
I've only ever heard of one other turbo LPG setup and that was on a Scooby. I was under the impression that its a very hard thing to map the LPG injection to a turbo motor.
Andy
I have a Nissan skyline running on LPG. Its an R32 Type M, 6cyl Turbo. it runs very smooth on LPG, the finacial gain is great on LPG (17-18mpg at 37p per litre). I get the same on SUL which costs 89.9p per litre. The system cost £1800, its an injected sequential, with its own ecu. there is a noticable power increase when running LPG, especailly on the high end of the rev range, 4500-7600rpm. I have no complaints.
We also run a Saab 95 2.3 HOT on LPG once again its fantastic.
I`ve been running an L200,2 range rovers,4.6 and3.9 and a transit on the stuff with no problems.L200 has now covered 130000mls in last 4 years,Range Rovers and transits have been added at regular intervals and clock up similar annual mileages,currently paying 39.pence,mainly down to the fact I have a 2000 litre tank at my premises,which gets filled up monthly.Far better and much more civilised and economical than a dirty noisy smelly diesel.
Sorry the certifiactes are worthless. Although the LPGA like to think most insurance companies need them,in my experiance I ahve never been asked for one. Also my experince is that theapproved installers are just as bad as most of thenon approved installers. My advice it to learnhow it all works and do it yourself or buy one already running perfectly.
The cylinder tanks might not look good but on the whole are a whole lot larger thats the donut type and goive better range as a result. Its easy enough to swap them over if you feel you need theboot space back, aslthogh either way you should never consider converting anything with a small boot.
Stewart
The cylinder tanks might not look good but on the whole are a whole lot larger thats the donut type and goive better range as a result. Its easy enough to swap them over if you feel you need theboot space back, aslthogh either way you should never consider converting anything with a small boot.
Stewart
And single pioint systems can work perfectly well. Personally I wodul aviod SGi systems like the plague as you can't swap them from car to car so easilly, My preferance being for the Single point systems and the earlier multipoint systems, as they can be swapped to the enxt car very easilly regarless of its engine configureation. Some say the older systmes sufferfrom blowbacks, but again this is down to not being correctly setup, certainly my original system never suffered from this on either the Rover 827, the 2.0i XM or the XJ40's and is now being fitted to the Range Rover. Only reason I have a multimpoint system is I nowhave a turbo XM and the singlepoint systems don't work erll on turbo cars.
Stewart
Stewart
That looks pretty good.
As for the Insurance Cos asking for a cert if I have an accident, that's irrelevent, it they needed one they HAVE to ask at the outset of the policy, if not, and they attmpt to negate cover as a result then they are in breach of contract, and therfore run a very real risk of being shut down and criminal (note NOT civil) proceddings for fraud. Although this does not preclude them form trying it of to wriggle out of it, but once faced with this they cave in and pay up (they don't have any option). I have always delared the conversion, but it's never made a differace as its not seen as a prefomance enhancement.
I have to say I have never sold any of my cars with the system still fitted, as it makes very little differance to price, certanly not enough to pay for the next car's system, so normally I sell them without, and keep it for the next car, and always fit the filler to the tow bar or to the tow bar fittings thus avoiding unsighly holes in the bodywork!
The SGi systems are just not versatile enough for me, the previous systems wodul fit anything, being complete fuel managment systems, but teh SG1 systems only work on fuel injected cars by pigybacking on the existing petrol system, and you can't put a system of a 4 onto a 6, which you can with the single and multipoint systems.
Stewart
As for the Insurance Cos asking for a cert if I have an accident, that's irrelevent, it they needed one they HAVE to ask at the outset of the policy, if not, and they attmpt to negate cover as a result then they are in breach of contract, and therfore run a very real risk of being shut down and criminal (note NOT civil) proceddings for fraud. Although this does not preclude them form trying it of to wriggle out of it, but once faced with this they cave in and pay up (they don't have any option). I have always delared the conversion, but it's never made a differace as its not seen as a prefomance enhancement.
I have to say I have never sold any of my cars with the system still fitted, as it makes very little differance to price, certanly not enough to pay for the next car's system, so normally I sell them without, and keep it for the next car, and always fit the filler to the tow bar or to the tow bar fittings thus avoiding unsighly holes in the bodywork!
The SGi systems are just not versatile enough for me, the previous systems wodul fit anything, being complete fuel managment systems, but teh SG1 systems only work on fuel injected cars by pigybacking on the existing petrol system, and you can't put a system of a 4 onto a 6, which you can with the single and multipoint systems.
Stewart
Word of advice for those wanting to go LPG, i'd steer clear of dated installations. Although im running an E36 328 on both LPG/Petrol, the dated Landi system is quite problematic and unreliable. Although the conversion itself was done to a high standard 5+ years ago, things have moved on alot and systems such as this are very clunky and have a few little "quirks". So it's not ideal, just ensure you go for a properly installed recent setup then ya should be fine.
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