How popular is an LPG Conversion in the UK?

Hi guys, is this a common thing to do in the UK considering the price of fuel? Since the majority of us on here love performance cars which are petrol it seems like a good idea. It's quite common here in Australia. I mean it would make owning a Vette a lot easier. Do you lose much power?

What is the approx price of a conversion over there? Also how much is LPG?

Cheers!

Not popular at all! A lot of garages will back away in horror as soon as they see an LPG kit. They all see it as some kind of black art and what nothing to do with it And most people that have no experience of LPG seem to think that the tanks are bound to explode if you have an accident.

I have an old V12 jag running on LPG and even though my system is very old and not particularly economical it still saves me quite a bit of cash.

It was a great option about ten years ago, since then the price differential has eroded, meaning you have to do more miles, even a thirsty motor means 20k miles for payback.

If however you do the sums, and you keep the car for long enough it's as good as the conversion, which depends on the installer, but there are both turbo and supercharged cars running LPG.

Performance is affected because the calorific value of gas is lower than petrol per unit, but this can be clawed back if the engine is tuned to take advantage of the higher octane level of gas.

The power loss is less for bigger engined cars.

If you have the space a fueling tank at home means you can buy the gas yourself in bulk and drive down the price.

The main issue is where to put the tank, IMO you really should aim for a gas range @300 miles.

The degree of engineering to achieve this affects the end price, and the compromises made ie less boot space vs bespoke tank is just another thing to consider in the sums.

The reason you aren't on LPG is because of an irrational dislike of petrol station shops?
Please provide more details on your mentalism

It is available in three petrol stations within a mile of my house, but that is unusual

LPG is easy to find, but you might want to find out where it is before you leave the house, rather than just drive round hoping to find somewhere that sells it. I have found that if a garage does not sell it they have no idea who does sell it.

I had no idea there were so many around! Now if I only had a large capacity V8 to fuel...

Seen cars as diverse as MX5 and Subaru Impreza turbo converted, it's more is is thirsty... dual fuel means even if you feel the performance difference - which is rarely the case with the latest sequential systems, just switch over to Petrol.

I can't believe I never really looked into LPG. Of course the period of time it takes to fitting the system before it is offset is a problem if you change cars, but a car already converted seems a good idea.

Back to the OP's post - looks like the popularity of LPG conversion just improved by 1!

LPG is doing quite well in the British Touring Car Championship at the moment....

I had a FTO using LPG and i currently run a Pajero 3.0 V6 on lpg. Getting about 180 miles from £30. Both great systems. As long as its mapped correctly it shouldn't affect performance that much. At the moment my local pumps range between 56p and 66p per litre.