Lextreme II
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I got an email few days ago about this product hydrogen conversion What do u guys thinks?
Hydrogen Gas Conversion
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The 1UZFE EGR Delete Kit is available for sale here.
The answer, IMO, is their certification process - no other government agency tests the vehicle for emissions. DOT and NHTSA are generally concerned about safety, and EPA are concerned about emissions compliance. Together, these three agencies have effectively killed the aftermarket LPG conversion business in the USA.
Interestingly, the Secretary of DOT is a Presidential Cabinet posting, while the Administrator of EPA is a "Cabinet Rank" posting. EPA "should" be subservient to DOT, but in reality it's the other way around.
Child is father to the man....
John
The calorific value of LPG is *lower* than that of petrol. If you convert over to LPG (without making engine changes) you lose about 10% MPG and 10% power.
But as you rightly say, the octane rating is so much higher - one guy in the UK running LPG only on his rover v8 is running 12.5:1 and 15 PSI supercharged, he's getting ~420bhp from an engine which puts out ~150bhp stock...
Cheers, Paul.
Thanks for welcome!
Just wanted to put things in perspective a little bit because its easy to get carried away thinking something (LPG for example) is the best thing in the world, only to be met with a slightly different reality if you don't do your research.
Lots of LPG conversions have been done in the UK (mainly rangerovers), some with carbs and some with LPG injection*, all lose power and MPG without engine modifications, such as higher comp pistons, or way advanced timing.
Also, isn't there the danger of LPG prices rising with the price of oil, as its a by-product, then you'll be back to square one should prices go up enough...?
Cheers, Paul.
*) Injected as a gas, i might add. LPG injected as a liquid would be amazing because it would act as its own charge cooler, but technology isn't quite there yet...
Really? Good look on things. For some reason ethanol gets all this attention when 1 gallon of E85 has like 65% the energy of 1 gallon of typical gasoline. Not really a improvement in much of any way over gas.
Ah, but it has the same key advantage as LPG - octane rating. Its very high, so you can run high compression ratios to recover the lost power and also lots of boost can be safely run...
Ta, Paul.
You'll get more or less the same power, but you get about 60-70% of the fuel economy.
Thats not true - BP recently demonstrated a porshe with just engine mapping changes gaining 70bhp running on 102 RON fuel. I think E85 is even higher octane than that...
cjsupra90
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sounds like a pretty good idea. now what I'd like to see is a 3 fuel set up. Hydro. for idle, Gas for acceleration, and LPG for cruise. I have been looking into LPG conversions for a little while now, but the problem atleast in my area is places to get it for fill up. What I have been thinking is actually putting a small fill station here at my shop and just have is filled and ready for fill-up when needed. plus it might be even cheaper per given volume being a larger bulk fill but not sure yet.
I know that in England and a few other countries it very popular because it is significantly cheaper then gas (petrol), but it doesn't seem to be that much cheaper here in the states though.
I know that in England and a few other countries it very popular because it is significantly cheaper then gas (petrol), but it doesn't seem to be that much cheaper here in the states though.
jibby
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That is amazing, the tax incentives are nice also. Wonder how this effects the performance of you vehicle? What is the full price plus installation? It can't be that cheap either. I will look into it more, if you can save that much at the pumps and help the planet it cannot be a bad thing. Awesone David.
Pro
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LPG is available at practically EVERY service station here in Australia and has been for almost 15 years now.
oil is cleaner, engine runs better but the 102-106RON rating means you need to advance your timing to take full advantage of it.
direct gas injection is only just available here (instead of carbies) and makes a HUGE difference to all round performance - the great thing about the mixers/convertors is that they don't pump fuel in like a carby - the engine draws it in as required which is much better for fuel economy.
are you implying LPG is only a recent thing in the US?
pitiful thing is, Australia has tied it to international parity pricing so the price fluctuates with oil which is an absolute joke. LNG/LPG is a product of gasses escaping the earths mantle and is a completley renewable resource.
LPG here is about 54c per litre versus fuel at around $1.20 per litre for regular ULP.
basic carby conversions in AU are about $2000.
oil is cleaner, engine runs better but the 102-106RON rating means you need to advance your timing to take full advantage of it.
direct gas injection is only just available here (instead of carbies) and makes a HUGE difference to all round performance - the great thing about the mixers/convertors is that they don't pump fuel in like a carby - the engine draws it in as required which is much better for fuel economy.
are you implying LPG is only a recent thing in the US?
pitiful thing is, Australia has tied it to international parity pricing so the price fluctuates with oil which is an absolute joke. LNG/LPG is a product of gasses escaping the earths mantle and is a completley renewable resource.
LPG here is about 54c per litre versus fuel at around $1.20 per litre for regular ULP.
basic carby conversions in AU are about $2000.
cjsupra90
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pro240c, well its not really a new thing here, but it is pretty unheard of in the US. a while back, a lot of gas (petrol) powered emergency vehicals were converted to it, but is no longer used. It is starting to become popular as a power adder on turbo desiel vehicals, but outside of that, its pretty unheard of. I am hoping that with the influx if turbo desiel's using these kits that it will make it more avalible. because of comminly being used for household heating and cooking, its easy to get in bulk quantity and in that case might just be better for me to put a household storage take here and have my own fill station being that the car would be setup as a duel fuel and therefore I wouldn't have to worry about running out of LPG while driving as just flip back to gas (petrol)......
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I think LPG in the US is on the verge of a comeback. Many conversions were done years ago using Impco and OHG old school mixer equipment, but then our government decided that to meet stricter emissions and safety requirements, Bubba's BBQ and LPG Conversions and other shops like his could no longer stick a BBQ propane bottle in the boot, run a bit of garden hose to the engine, slap an Impco mixer on the old SBC and call it good.
Probably well intended legislation, but as usual, it's had a terrible knock-on effect. Now, the only "legal" conversions are those which have an EPA Certificate of Conformity, and the installers are certified by DOT, and the list is pretty short, and consists mainly of large domestic cars, trucks, etc. because the only people who can afford the EPA certification process are the OEM's.
Along with the other red tape, there's the little gotcha called OBDII. Any add-on LPG or CNG conversion has to be compatible with the existing OEM's OBDII equipment.
Too, the price difference between LPG and gasoline started to approach parity, so any incentives that may have existed to do a $3000 conversion really dried up over the last 10-15 years, and the aftermarket conversion business dried up with it. None of the innovative little guys have been doing any new R&D on this..... until gasoline doubled in price overnight.
Now with gasoline at $3.00 per gallon, LPG in the range of $1.69 to $1.99 looks pretty enticing, plus with Bush's new Energy Act, there should be some incentives for people to convert. Unfortunately there's still the onerous rules & regulations to get around, but hopefully some of those will be relaxed or repealed....
There are some really nice, well engineered European aftermarket LPG systems that are poised to enter the US market, if only some of our BS red tape will be relaxed, especially the EPA certification process, because that in itself is estimated to cost an OEM $100,000-$150,000 for EACH style/model of vehicle certified. So if you want your system certified on a Lexus GS430, it's $150K. Then if you want the same exact system certified on an LS430, it's another $150K....
Sorry for the long winded post, but that's the state of play with LPG in the US at the moment. FWIW, I'm chasing down all the loopholes because I'm planning for my 1UZ project to be LPG powered. There's a LOT to like about a fuel that's already completely vaporised, and has an octane rating of better than 105.
John
Probably well intended legislation, but as usual, it's had a terrible knock-on effect. Now, the only "legal" conversions are those which have an EPA Certificate of Conformity, and the installers are certified by DOT, and the list is pretty short, and consists mainly of large domestic cars, trucks, etc. because the only people who can afford the EPA certification process are the OEM's.
Along with the other red tape, there's the little gotcha called OBDII. Any add-on LPG or CNG conversion has to be compatible with the existing OEM's OBDII equipment.
Too, the price difference between LPG and gasoline started to approach parity, so any incentives that may have existed to do a $3000 conversion really dried up over the last 10-15 years, and the aftermarket conversion business dried up with it. None of the innovative little guys have been doing any new R&D on this..... until gasoline doubled in price overnight.
Now with gasoline at $3.00 per gallon, LPG in the range of $1.69 to $1.99 looks pretty enticing, plus with Bush's new Energy Act, there should be some incentives for people to convert. Unfortunately there's still the onerous rules & regulations to get around, but hopefully some of those will be relaxed or repealed....
There are some really nice, well engineered European aftermarket LPG systems that are poised to enter the US market, if only some of our BS red tape will be relaxed, especially the EPA certification process, because that in itself is estimated to cost an OEM $100,000-$150,000 for EACH style/model of vehicle certified. So if you want your system certified on a Lexus GS430, it's $150K. Then if you want the same exact system certified on an LS430, it's another $150K....
Sorry for the long winded post, but that's the state of play with LPG in the US at the moment. FWIW, I'm chasing down all the loopholes because I'm planning for my 1UZ project to be LPG powered. There's a LOT to like about a fuel that's already completely vaporised, and has an octane rating of better than 105.
John
cjsupra90
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John, thanks for the info that you posted. Most of which I already knew, but still very good. Like yourself, I am also planning on running LPG in the near future one way or another. The part that I cant seam to understand is why the EPA would be so worried about. It obviously does not release anything harmfull being that one its used as an open flame to cook with in a house and also for example, your average forklift uses LPG and does not requier any ventilation of sort for workers. So whats the big deal. I can see the problem with making it work with OBDII vehicals, but even then it wouldn't be hard. I think that it has something to do with the oil companies paying people off so that they dont loose money, but it is just a thought.
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It's a common question. Many people ask "Why is the EPA involved in this anyway?"cjsupra90 said:
The answer, IMO, is their certification process - no other government agency tests the vehicle for emissions. DOT and NHTSA are generally concerned about safety, and EPA are concerned about emissions compliance. Together, these three agencies have effectively killed the aftermarket LPG conversion business in the USA.
Interestingly, the Secretary of DOT is a Presidential Cabinet posting, while the Administrator of EPA is a "Cabinet Rank" posting. EPA "should" be subservient to DOT, but in reality it's the other way around.
Child is father to the man....
John
it's a gas
LNG and LPG are two different fuels
LNG Liquified Natural Gas is mainly methane gas which as Pro240 rightly points out just bubbles up out of the ground, renewable in time.
LPG Liquified Petrolium Gas is mainly a Propane & Butane mix taken from the refining of crude. In the good old days it was flared off as a waste product.
Butane is mixed in with the city auto lpg service stations to get rid of it. Cooking BBQ gas is normally pure propane. County areas away from refineries will normally get just pure propane for both auto and cooking.
Emissions will be far less than a vehicle running on petrol.
The calorific value of these fules is higher than that of petrol and you can run a slightly higher compression ratio or run more boost if you wanted to before detonation.
With the new gas injector technology coming out it has to be a good alternative.
Gas systems are also a closed system so the good stuff won't vent off as what happens with petrol. Ever tried to start your lawn mower with 12 month old fuel in it.
I have seen diesel engines with lpg boost and it is a great way to get up over a hill without having to change down.
Now that was a bubbas BBQ install, the gas bottle was on the passengers seat and all that was required was to crack open the valve.
LNG and LPG are two different fuels
LNG Liquified Natural Gas is mainly methane gas which as Pro240 rightly points out just bubbles up out of the ground, renewable in time.
LPG Liquified Petrolium Gas is mainly a Propane & Butane mix taken from the refining of crude. In the good old days it was flared off as a waste product.
Butane is mixed in with the city auto lpg service stations to get rid of it. Cooking BBQ gas is normally pure propane. County areas away from refineries will normally get just pure propane for both auto and cooking.
Emissions will be far less than a vehicle running on petrol.
The calorific value of these fules is higher than that of petrol and you can run a slightly higher compression ratio or run more boost if you wanted to before detonation.
With the new gas injector technology coming out it has to be a good alternative.
Gas systems are also a closed system so the good stuff won't vent off as what happens with petrol. Ever tried to start your lawn mower with 12 month old fuel in it.
I have seen diesel engines with lpg boost and it is a great way to get up over a hill without having to change down.
Now that was a bubbas BBQ install, the gas bottle was on the passengers seat and all that was required was to crack open the valve.
bobadrift
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How about this? Seems interesting enough to me. I wouldn't mind using this in my car.
http://hytechapps.com/
http://hytechapps.com/
monsterer
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The calorific value of LPG is *lower* than that of petrol. If you convert over to LPG (without making engine changes) you lose about 10% MPG and 10% power.
But as you rightly say, the octane rating is so much higher - one guy in the UK running LPG only on his rover v8 is running 12.5:1 and 15 PSI supercharged, he's getting ~420bhp from an engine which puts out ~150bhp stock...
Cheers, Paul.
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Hehe, you're both right.
Petrol has a higher calorific value per gallon or litre (110,250 BTU/gal vs 91,690 for LPG), while LPG has a higher calorific value per lb or kg (21,590 BTU/lb vs 20,930 for petrol). This is for commercial motor fuel grade propane, also known as HD5.
LPG has had a bad rep for loss of mileage and power, but IMHO, it's only because people are running LPG on engines designed for petrol and converted to LPG. Plus, ancient vaporiser/mixer/venturi technology was used for years in LPG systems. And what is a mixer, but a simple orifice device (also known as a restrictor in racecar circles). So you put a restrictor, errr mixer at the intake of a motor, and guess what, it makes less power than before!
Plus, when you bleed LPG and air together into an intake manifold, where before you only had air entering the manifold and were squirting petrol directly into the heads, well a naturally aspirated engine can't take in as much air as before and the VE tumbles.
I think if anyone comes up with a turbo/supercharged motor, with an LPG SFI system, and an optimised ignition curve, along with enough static compression to take advantage of LPG's octane, they'll have a winning combination.
Matter of fact, I wish my builder would hurry up and finish mine, so I can break it in, then install my Prins system on it and we'll see what it'll do.
Petrol has a higher calorific value per gallon or litre (110,250 BTU/gal vs 91,690 for LPG), while LPG has a higher calorific value per lb or kg (21,590 BTU/lb vs 20,930 for petrol). This is for commercial motor fuel grade propane, also known as HD5.
LPG has had a bad rep for loss of mileage and power, but IMHO, it's only because people are running LPG on engines designed for petrol and converted to LPG. Plus, ancient vaporiser/mixer/venturi technology was used for years in LPG systems. And what is a mixer, but a simple orifice device (also known as a restrictor in racecar circles). So you put a restrictor, errr mixer at the intake of a motor, and guess what, it makes less power than before!
Plus, when you bleed LPG and air together into an intake manifold, where before you only had air entering the manifold and were squirting petrol directly into the heads, well a naturally aspirated engine can't take in as much air as before and the VE tumbles.
I think if anyone comes up with a turbo/supercharged motor, with an LPG SFI system, and an optimised ignition curve, along with enough static compression to take advantage of LPG's octane, they'll have a winning combination.
Matter of fact, I wish my builder would hurry up and finish mine, so I can break it in, then install my Prins system on it and we'll see what it'll do.
monsterer
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Thanks for welcome!
Just wanted to put things in perspective a little bit because its easy to get carried away thinking something (LPG for example) is the best thing in the world, only to be met with a slightly different reality if you don't do your research.
Lots of LPG conversions have been done in the UK (mainly rangerovers), some with carbs and some with LPG injection*, all lose power and MPG without engine modifications, such as higher comp pistons, or way advanced timing.
Also, isn't there the danger of LPG prices rising with the price of oil, as its a by-product, then you'll be back to square one should prices go up enough...?
Cheers, Paul.
*) Injected as a gas, i might add. LPG injected as a liquid would be amazing because it would act as its own charge cooler, but technology isn't quite there yet...
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Tacoma_Kyle
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Really? Good look on things. For some reason ethanol gets all this attention when 1 gallon of E85 has like 65% the energy of 1 gallon of typical gasoline. Not really a improvement in much of any way over gas.
monsterer
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Ah, but it has the same key advantage as LPG - octane rating. Its very high, so you can run high compression ratios to recover the lost power and also lots of boost can be safely run...
Ta, Paul.
ou could but watch where your temperature is going in the valveseats. they WILL burn.
living in holland I have only owned LPG powered cars, and have drivven about 450.000kms in total on the stuff, which cost me multiple valveseal head jobs in my european cars (renault peugot), but the honda is holding out pretty good, it's now on 270.000km and still on original valves and still able to adjust the renault seats would burn at around 190.000km, the engine oil got analised at 300.000km and that was really really good, the techi said he normaly saw that in <100.000km cars which run on petrol,
LPG burns very very clean.
so If you up compression expect to change all of your valve seals ion the exhaust side within a not to long period of time.
grtz Thomas
living in holland I have only owned LPG powered cars, and have drivven about 450.000kms in total on the stuff, which cost me multiple valveseal head jobs in my european cars (renault peugot), but the honda is holding out pretty good, it's now on 270.000km and still on original valves and still able to adjust the renault seats would burn at around 190.000km, the engine oil got analised at 300.000km and that was really really good, the techi said he normaly saw that in <100.000km cars which run on petrol,
LPG burns very very clean.
so If you up compression expect to change all of your valve seals ion the exhaust side within a not to long period of time.
grtz Thomas
Tacoma_Kyle
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You'll get more or less the same power, but you get about 60-70% of the fuel economy.
monsterer
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Thats not true - BP recently demonstrated a porshe with just engine mapping changes gaining 70bhp running on 102 RON fuel. I think E85 is even higher octane than that...
No Way
We had My renault on the rollers, that was a Bifuel system, it could be run on gas or LPG on the flick of a switch, it was a Vialle LPG G3 system with a simpel single fogger system. and 2 seperate ECU's the Siemens from Renault that controlls the engine, and the aditional Vialle/Bosch unit that controlls LPG and advance curve when the car is run on LPG.
On ron95 it did 108fwhp and
on LPG it was 107fwhp
so that's more dyno-error than a real difference.
it must be said that the torque on ron95 was there a little sooner than on LPG but that's to do with mapping not the fuel itself
ron95 drove 1Liter to 12km
LPG drove 1Liter to 11.5km
the honda I now have does the exact same milage on both sorts of fuel.
it's very easy to screw up an LPG mapping and running pig rich without noticing, so when your system get's only 70% of it's economy you should get things sorted. but do NEVER lean out on LPG you will destroy more valveseat material in 5 minutes tha you normaly do in 100Kmiles.
there are some very nice systems availeble in holland (LPG country) former Auto-Gas (AG) systems developed an aditional injector which has flowrates similair to that of the various bosch/denso injectors around, they in turn can be controlled buy your standard ECU which offcourse has far more features than a LPG unit, the people at the company I had my system build, told me that you can rig up the tank and rest of plumbing, put in the new injectors/vapourizers hook them up to you stock ecu et voila, off you go. the injectors looked very much like the injector-rings you can get for various NOS systems
You can indeed run a serious amount of boost more on LPG so in the porsche aplication it's not the LPG making the power it's the mapping of the turbo system. but you should not be scared to replave your valve seats every now and then (renault in stock set-up was 180.000km about a 110.000mls) when seriously tuned like a friends Volvo t5 V70 on LPG he dials in 80.000km for a head rebuilt but his engine put's out over 430hp so that should indeed get pretty hot even without lpg. seriously quick though.
grtz Thomas
We had My renault on the rollers, that was a Bifuel system, it could be run on gas or LPG on the flick of a switch, it was a Vialle LPG G3 system with a simpel single fogger system. and 2 seperate ECU's the Siemens from Renault that controlls the engine, and the aditional Vialle/Bosch unit that controlls LPG and advance curve when the car is run on LPG.
On ron95 it did 108fwhp and
on LPG it was 107fwhp
so that's more dyno-error than a real difference.
it must be said that the torque on ron95 was there a little sooner than on LPG but that's to do with mapping not the fuel itself
ron95 drove 1Liter to 12km
LPG drove 1Liter to 11.5km
the honda I now have does the exact same milage on both sorts of fuel.
it's very easy to screw up an LPG mapping and running pig rich without noticing, so when your system get's only 70% of it's economy you should get things sorted. but do NEVER lean out on LPG you will destroy more valveseat material in 5 minutes tha you normaly do in 100Kmiles.
there are some very nice systems availeble in holland (LPG country) former Auto-Gas (AG) systems developed an aditional injector which has flowrates similair to that of the various bosch/denso injectors around, they in turn can be controlled buy your standard ECU which offcourse has far more features than a LPG unit, the people at the company I had my system build, told me that you can rig up the tank and rest of plumbing, put in the new injectors/vapourizers hook them up to you stock ecu et voila, off you go. the injectors looked very much like the injector-rings you can get for various NOS systems
You can indeed run a serious amount of boost more on LPG so in the porsche aplication it's not the LPG making the power it's the mapping of the turbo system. but you should not be scared to replave your valve seats every now and then (renault in stock set-up was 180.000km about a 110.000mls) when seriously tuned like a friends Volvo t5 V70 on LPG he dials in 80.000km for a head rebuilt but his engine put's out over 430hp so that should indeed get pretty hot even without lpg. seriously quick though.
grtz Thomas
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