LPG fuel around the world...
 

Hanno,
I find your comments interesting, as I am passionate about LPG as a fuel. I am interested to know what is going on with LPG and the thoughts of other MLU'ers in other parts of the world...
I reckon every vehicle in Australia (and the world!) should run on LPG. We have massive reserves of it, conversion is affordable, and LPG is affordable, and it's 'greener' than other fuels...
I have a used 10 year old Fairlane 4.0 litre which for you readers over the waters, is a very large luxury sedan. It has over 220,000km on the clock. On a trip last weekend to see my Sister (1200km round trip) it cost me around $50 to travel around 550km.
Or, to be precise, 68 litres of LPG = $47.60 = 548km ($8.68/100km)
Compared to ULP, 68 litres of ULP = $115.60 = 650km ($17.78/100km)
Which makes my car cheaper to fuel, service & maintain than a Corolla, and still have 160kW & 360Nm-ish on tap.
And if someone tells you that LPG is a pain because of backfires etc, tell them to find an LPG mechanic who knows what they are doing.
The 'second' Blitz project I have (the F60S) I plan to use quite regularly, and therefore it will be powered by a Windsor 5.0 litre, and will definitely run on dedicated LPG!
I guess right now I should mention that I manage a workshop that specialises in LPG conversions..
We get our LPG Vapor Sequential Injection parts from Italy, the quality of the product is very high.
We also fit LPG assist to Diesel vehicles, but that's a whole new story...

Lpg
 

We have an increasing number of LPG stations here. However sometimes buyers are put off by the rigmarole of fueling. We also have/had CNG or Compressed Natural Gas used by local buses. This is just ordinary gas from the network compressed and stored in a vehicle tank. LPG is taxed much lower than petrol or diesel but has less calorific value so a car that does say 35 miles per gallon (Imperial) may just do 20 or so. Of course you also need petrol to start the engine, although combuned the range increases dramatically as you can switch from on fuel to the other on the road.

Regrettably all gas-tank equipped vehicles are banned from the Channel Tunnel so that means going by ferry. However gas-powereds are I think exempt from the London Congestion Charge.

Our local Supermarket has just started offering Biodiesel which is good news.

The Cdn Department of national Defense tried using it in the 80s, and it was finally dropped as the overall cost of the project was exorbitant, and the reliability in our cold climate was poor. I used to have to go recover cars which a pilot would park for 2 hours while he took a flight, and we would finally have to tow them indoors and leave them to get them to start. Temps were in the -25 range, but that is the fact of life here on the prairies.

While the fuel is basically a salvage from the refining processes, it did not take long for the cost of that fuel to reach, and even exceed, gasoline.

LPG may be the only alternative for antique cars
 

Don't know about the rest of the world but I suspect that LPG may become the only practical answer for antique cars in the US. Though I can find no documentation for it I suspect that gasoline in the US is moving toward a blend that will only work with fuel injection. There have been a number of attempts over the years to get all the old POLUTING cars off the road, regulatory attempts such as requiring all vehicles (regardless of age) to pass the pollution test etc.

If you think that they would just change the blend so that it will not work in a carburetor just think about. The change the blend taking out lead as a valve lubricant, started adding alcohol to the point where it will eat fuel system rubber parts, change the characteristic so that gas burns hotter. All of these things have been done without care for the effect on antique cars.

I was going to ask what the outcome of the Canadian Military experiment was, so thanks Rob for that information. Rob do you know of any detail information about that effort that is available to the public.

So looking at LPG as an alternative is very logical. At one point Toyota had a LPG system for their industrial engines similar to the Chevy 6, so I think there are alternatives the question is going to be matching the RPM and Torque Curves along with the CFM flows.

As spair fuel
 

Question- How far can you go on one of the barbecue tanks?

You'll have to change the BBQ tank from pounds to gallons. The LPG generally got about 5% to 10% less mileage than gasoline, with the exception of the Ford inline 6, which got terrible results.

I don't have any data re the total cost to the forces, but it is regarded as an expensive failed experiment. I have seen some total cost of it all somewhere, but don't recall where.

Lpg
 

LPG has taken off in a big way here .... it came into use around 20 or more years ago. Most of the older Fords like Howard has .. Falcons and LTD's , F100's and so on, are on LPG . I think You can even buy brand new Falcons already converted at the factory .

A friend here has a F100 on LPG , it is an old backyard conversion thats really on the margin of being safe. The car always smells of gas .. it's very strong and I hate getting in it... you wouldnt be a smoker and be safe !

The LPG auto gas bottles by law , have to have a 10 year check , they are date stamped . There have been nasty cases of cars exploding , so they updated the laws and you need 2 cutoff relays now .. one each end of the feed pipe from the tank. The stuff is a by-product of the refineries .. so i've been told.

We had a 1988 Dodge V8 pickup that ran on propane and it got 20% less mileage than on gas. You couldn't always count on being able to buy propane when you needed it and if you ran out you couldn't get a can and dump it in the tank. We tried the BBQ bottle but couldn't get the liquid to flow into the tank. I hooked a tiger torch onto the bottle then removed the torch from the hose and poked the hose into the aircleaner. I regulated the gas flow with the bottle tap and we made it to town for more. All in all it was more of a pain in the ass than it was worth so we threw it in the junk and went back to gasoline.

Looks like we have gas conversions sorted out in Australia better than most places. The majority of service stations have gas.

Gas does NOT need petrol or anything else to make it start. A proper conversion will provide a vehicle that starts exactly the same on straight gas as it does on petrol. The engine conversion only takes a couple of hours but it usually takes a bit of time to fit tanks and plumb in the lines and filler connection.

Conversions in cars often go straight to pure gas operation. Because there is no room to leave the petrol tank in with the gas tank. Most conversions on 4WD leave a petrol tank in as well (dual fuel systems) and you can just switch from one to the other. The main reason for this is for country area use where gas equipped service stations are not available or you want to fill out of cans etc.

Having owned an F150 with a 351 V8, 6 cylinder Landcruisers and Nissan Patrols and my wife having a 6 cylinder Holden Commodore all on dual fuel I can say gas is a perfectly acceptable fuel. There is absolutely no discernable difference in engine performance and the 10-15% reduction in mileage is more than offset by the 50% reduction in cost. You can just flick the switch from gas to petrol while driving along and normally won't even get a small cough.

Ford and GM have been building taxis for many years as gas runners from the factory. 99% of Australian taxis run on gas. Mike mentions the smell - if you can smell your own car there is something wrong and if you are not used to it by now after sitting in traffic surrounded by gas burning taxis for the last 15 years you probably never will be. It is probably more pleasant than sitting beside a diesel bus in traffic.

All the above problems in Europe and Canada were experienced in Australia 10-15 years ago but technology and knowledge have left all those problems in the distant past.

The Australian Federal Government will give you a straight grant to convert to gas. Some fitters do it for free with cars (and just collect the $2,000 from the government) while something like a Landcruiser will cost the owner an extra $1,000/$1,500 which he will pay off in 6 months with fuel cost savings.


There is some confusion between LPG and LNG/CNG (liquid Natural Gas/Compressed Natural Gas). LPG is what is used in cars and is a byproduct of petrol production - or if huge quantities are needed actually consumes oil to produce. Apart from some reduced greenhouse emissions it is not a particularly ecologically wonderful product. It liquifies at low pressure and authorities are happy for the public to be handling it to fire their cars or barbecues.

LNG, on the other hand, is found in gas form under the ground and many people believe the vast resources present in many countries (including Australia) are being "hidden" or sold cheaply to local or Japanese factories while we continue to pay the oil companies for LPG. They are NOT interchangeable. LNG turns to liquid at MUCH higher pressures than LPG.

LNG requires high pressure tanks. The thinwalled, light tanks in cars holding LPG would have to be replaced with massive oxy/acetyline type bottles. Can you imagine the government allowing people to drive up and wave around hoses transmitting an extremely highly compressed explosive gas? 30psi is one thing, hundreds of PSI is another.

A number of Australian public transport operators are experimenting with LNG but this is at proper bus refuelling stations with expensive storage and dispensing equipment and trained operators. Even so, a couple of months ago, the entire back was blown off a bus during refueling at Brisbane City bus workshops.

A number of people have converted their military vehicles to LPG and I think it is a good idea if you are doing a lot of miles. A further historical element is town gas or coal gas which was used during WW2 on vehicles (I think there is a thread on gas producers). This is hopelessly inefficient and not suitable for use in car engines except in desperate wartime situatons. I am afraid we can't run a hose from our kitchen oven into our car tank.

Lang

G'day All, I'm fairly certain that in NSW (OZ) you cannot have a vehicle on historic registration (club rego) that runs on LPG, maybe it should be considered by the relevant body but don't hold your breath cheers Dennis :sheep:

In the DND we used to have a bottle and hose setup for refueling the LPG vehicles when they ran out . It was a standard BBQ bottle with a made up hose. To refuel, you had to stand the BBQ bottle upside down on the roof of the car and allow the LPG to flow down into the tank. It took more than a few minutes to get an appreciable amount of fuel into the car requiring the fuel, but it would eventually get the job done. Usually a minute or two was enough to get the car going long enough to make it to the next station.

Funny story: I had to use the bottle on a recovery of a staff car one evening, so the next day the Sgt told me to take the bottle to the civilian propane depot to get it refilled. We had the capability to fill vehicles in the DND, but not to refill BBQ tanks. Of course, the propane company that had won the contract to refill our bottles were on the furthest side of the city, so off I drove the 45 minutes to get there. Once there, they refilled the bottle but found it only needed a partial fill, so they only charged me for a "mini fill", which was $4 instead of $8. I then drove the 45 minutes back to the shop, and submitted the invoice. Next day the Sgt tells me that the supply guy was not happy about the mini fill since we were only tendered for full fill, so I had to drive all the way across town with the invoice, explain it to the company, and have them make out a new invoice for the full fill amount, which they gladly did.
So in total, I ( a military mechanic) had to spend a total of 4 hours, and drive a car across the city twice, just so I could get half a bottle of propane at the full bottle price. These were the efficiencies of the DND at the time.

One thing I have not seen mentioned in this thread is the need for hardened valves and seats when using LPG. We had new vehicles which would require completely new valve trains after only 6 months of service..

Ford's E-Gas engines
 

I can tell you Ford Australia's LPG straight six isn't a conversion of a petrol engine but a dedicated six cylinder with unique conrods, head, manifold and the list goes on. We've been building them since the AU Falcon and at peak demand were building over 120 ( mixed in with our standard and turbo ) out of 450 engines a day.
A couple of years back we were just a weekend away from putting the gas engine into our Territory SUV but the idea was canned from higher up.
It's just a pity that the "Gurus" in Marketing don't promote it well enough so that the wider public see the benefits. Most people are not aware we even make it. We don't all need the be running to 4 cylinder cars.
Oh well, we are still making them daily and they still make up a great deal of our production. Unfortunately our production will fall soon to just 255 engines a day as the public move away from "scary" large sixes.

On a side note I just got a gas conversion done just last week. After the government rebate I'll only be out of pocket $800. Which will be made back soon enough through the cheaper price of LPG at the pump.

Howard,

Thanks for bringing this up. I love LPG and have had a few cars running on LPG, see some of my (dated) notes of running a VW Beetle on LPG.

More later.

H.

I think the Canadian experiments look a bit like a dog and pony show operation testing an interesting concept in the early days of development.

Things have become much more scientific and everything is now built on well founded engineering experiments and millions of hours of successful real-life operation. I think if the Canadian experiments were repeated now just using off the shelf equipment that has been developed they would have very different results.

There is no problem using gas on modern cars because they have all the hardened valve components to cater for modern lead-free petrol and can handle gas OK. If you are worried there are plenty of lead replacement additives which can be used in the oil or in the occasional tank of petrol if you have dual fuel. The metering bottles from Moreys and others direct into the intake are supposed to be excellent.

In older engines gas will give you the the same problems as lead free petrol so the remedies are the same(hardened valve seats or lead replacement additives)

Dennis,

There are no restrictions on club registration and LPG in QLD (I don't get the connection). I know one NSW owner on club plates and LPG.

Could you check to see what the rules are - we don't want them coming across the border particularly if some public servant has a "well founded reason" for the restriction. We can then help you fight it.

Lang

US military tests concluded that as long as you run any engine below 3,000 rpm, valve wear will be insignificant compared to running it on petrol. It's only at higher rpm's that valve wear can become detrimental in engines without (hardened) valve seats.

H.

Hanno,

This was also the conclusion when tests were done in the UK on the demise of leaded petrol and trials of lead replacement additives were conducted. I expected to be a slight rise in valve problems amongst customers vehicles, but nothing of significance has been noted over the years, and not everyone uses additives either. What should be noted, is that quite a number of wartime vehicles, both US and British, had hardened seats and specialist steels for exhaust valves, amongst them were Dodge (USA), Austin and Morris-Commercial (UK).

Back to LPG, about 28 years ago, I hired a haulier to move a vehicle and he had a Bedford TK with the 300 petrol engine, running on a normal propane cylinder as used on forklift trucks.

Sorry, Howard, I have to support David here and say Biodiesel is a much cleaner fuel. I've now clocked over 75,000kms on the Cruiser on a combination of homemade and commercial Bio, and homemade conversion using waste Cooking Oil is well below the cost of LPG!

Diesel fuels aren't really relevant to old MVs, but since the 60's there has been a shift to Diesel powered vehicles, including Multi-Fuel, the specs for which includethe use of Avtur and Biodiesel. Can't wait until the M1030M1 comes on the Surplus market!

There may well be many new developements that make propane more viable. Are the new systems in union with the emmisions control systems? Does the Oxygen sensor (and the host of others in the emmision system) control the fuel's injection system? Back in the day, the propane system merely replaced a carburetor, and was not tied in to the engines' computer.

One thing that has not changed in Canada though is the extreme temps we get here on the prairies. Minus 35C is -35C, and the propane will not evaporate readily at that temp, making cold starts extremely difficult. Add to that we do not have a fuel shortage in Canada, and the propane does not look so attractive.

Rob,

The gas systems fitted to cars definitely produce less greenhouse gas than petrol or diesel. That goes for specific built engines such as the Ford Taxis here in Australia and after market add-on kits.

The add-ons can be attached to carburettor vehicles using straight gas or dual fuel and injected vehicles using both with the same results. The mixture sensing units are very sophisticated.

I think that dual fuel systems would be the go in Canada with either manual or automatic changeover to gas during the cruise period - maybe a heater system for the gas is called for but it would probably be pretty simple to devise.

I am interested in your comments that there is no shortage of fuel in Canada. If we continue to use petrol without milking everything out of it eg LPG we are just going faster down the international slippery slope - Canada is not an island. Your comments about emissions show you care about this aspect like most of us - gas is a way to reduce them. With your pioneering experience with gas you should be a salesman for it !???

Lang

Lpg
 

Rob, Lang et al. In 1981 I bought a brand new Chev Caprice Classic. I had installed a 77 liter propane tank in the large trunk. A brushed aluminum lockable access door for filling, and appropriate dash switches completed the ensemble.

At the time, and also during the same time to which Rob refers, efforts were made to encourage such dual conversions. Heavy subsidies for LPG meant a 0.13 per liter cost.

Yes, performance was down about 10-15%.

Yes, filling stations were far and few between.

Yes, cold weather starts were a bitch.

But if one had dual fuel, no sweat. Start on regular in the AM, run on LPG during the day, shut down on regular.

The military, bless their hearts, went total LPG for, primarily the usual inter base pedal runs and staff car routes which, through experience, had authorized regular gas refill stations located en-route.

With a lower performance profile, recovery calls started coming in because vehicles were stranded with out-of-fuel conditions. Quel surprise!

An expensive exercise indeed.

Any lessons learned, I wonder? :doh:

We fit two kinds of LPG system to vehicles: a)mixer, b)VSI
a) Mixer systems we simply install a mixer ring somewhere in the air intake system. It works like a carbie in that it creates a venturi and draws LPG vapor with the air on the way through. If the vehicle that this system is fitted to has an o2 sensor, we also fit a 'stepper motor' device that uses the data from the o2 sensor to vary the amount of LPG vapor delivered.
Non o2 mixer systems use about 20-25% more gas than petrol. Mixer systems with an o2 sensor are more efficient and you can expect to use 10-15% more gas than petrol.
b) VSI (Vapor Sequential Injection) systems are something else. With this system, we fit a gas injector into the inlet manifold right next to the petrol injector. This system is superior because it uses ALL of the engine management system data that the petrol system uses, eg, MAF, MAP, o2, knock, air temp, coolant temp, etc etc. Having all of this data allows the LPG ECU to trim fuel & ignition strategies to the point where power & consumption figures on LPG mirrored petrol's performance, to within 2 or 3%.
I should note that some vehicles return better figures than others, having said that I have a customer with a 1 year old Falcon XR6 (190kw?) who gets significantly BETTER economy from LPG than petrol.
Naturally, the more efficient an engine is at the start, the more efficient it will be on LPG.

Head Gear
 

As for head gear damage, it is a real problem. However, it is one that is not to hard to overcome. Most Aussies I'm sure will be familiar with 'Flashlube' which is an upper cylinder lubricant added to the petrol tank of pre-unleaded vehicles. Flashlube make a dispenser kit that will add around 500ml per 5000km into the intake system & help protect the headgear. We fit this on every vehicle except Falcons. I am sure there would be something equivalent available elsewhere in the world...
Some vehicles (eg Toyota Workmate Hilux 2wd, or the new Holden Rodeo) will always destroy their headgear, due to very soft metal headgear.

Regarding the situation in NSW and Historic rego, the RTA our govening state body says " the vehicle is to be as close to ORIGINAL as possible except for safety issues " since lpg requires an engineers ticket the vehicle has been MODIFIED so it is not eligable for Historic or Concessional rego.

This thread has had some very interesting information and anecdotes. Very informative to see the directions that LPG has gone, and the reliability achieved in the warmer climates.

One of the problems we had back in the day with the dual fuel system was that you either tuned up the vehicle for gas, or for propane. Or more often, you kind of struck a balance so that neither system was operating at it's peak efficiency. With todays computer systems I guess the end results could be much more favorable.

My guess was that we had seen the last of the propane vehicles in this part of the world, but I suppose we can never say never.

The big problem for these conversions is compression ratio. Propane needs a lot higher ratio to work properly. If you installed pistons that gave about 11 to 1 ratio that would solve some of it but there'd be no going back to gasoline. You'd still have the spare fuel portability issue and the cold weather thing. Rob mentioned minus 35 temps causing problems but at minus 40 propane simply won't vaporize. I worked on a seismograph crew in Alberta in the early 1970s and when it got lower than about 20 below F we'd light the tiger torch and direct the flickering flame at the 100 pound bottle for 15 or 20 minutes before the liquid would vaporize enough to make the torch burn properly. That made some of the crew get a little nervous but "ya gotta do what ya gotta do!" I remember filling those bottles for $3 but then crude oil was $1.86 a barrel too. Talk about the good old days!

You seem to have a serious problem in sub-zero temperatures and maybe Canadian gas use will require further development with heating units etc before it is universally acceptable. Of course in those temperatures EVERY engine has its problems - you don't see engine warmers on cars or aircraft in Australia.

Gas does not need higher compressions to work as well as petrol. If you read the above thread you will see that compression is not mentioned in the various problems discussed. There are tens (hundreds?) of thousands of vehicles in Australia alone running on gas conversions switching from petrol to gas as they drive along with no discernable change in performance or reliability.

I have probably 250,000km in dual fuel gas/petrol converted cars ranging from Ford V8's to Toyota and Nissan straight 6's to GM V6's. Apart from saving tens of thousands of dollars they all performed with reliability and performance equal to or better than their original petrol only brothers.

Don't give up Canada, I am sure there is a way to use LPG in a cold climate with a bit of inventive experimentation.

Crude oil is a mixture,
 

When it comes out of the ground ,crude has a range of hydrocarbons from the lightest gas, Methane to the heaviest Bitumens. Refining separates the mix into fractions for users:
Methane is Natural Gas used in domestic homes and as CNG
Ethane gets used to make plastics and stuff
Propane is usually mixed with Butane and sold as LPG
Butane is used on its own in cigarette lighters
after that we get liquids which are usually mixed so:
Pentane thru Octane and beyond become petrol (or gasoline)
then heavier fractions make things like parafin, kerosene, diesel etc
then come the various grades of lubricating oils
The stuff that stays solid is used on the roads as bitumen,
and the gunk left over that is too soft for roading and too thick for fuel is used as bunker oil in ships, where they heat it to make it flow

That's it in a nut shell

If more LPG is used, mainly in the warmer climes, that will take the pressure off world demand for petrol, and help those in the cooler areas.

Rob

ps I used CNG vehicles at work in the 1980's and it was a pain in the butt, low power, low range, no roadside top ups. The taxi and bus industries loved it, but they were able to stay close to the refill station and one driver per vehicle helped too.

Another vehicle in the fleet (a Falcon) had dual fuel LPG / petrol and it had an incredible range, with barely noticeable power drop on LPG.

In Holland (and most of Western Europe) mostly dual fuel systems are used. Even today´s modern systems start the engine on petrol, and switch over to LPG unnoticably once the vaporiser has warmed up. The vaporiser is plumbed in with the car´s cooling system. This works in cold climates too, although it might take running a few kilometers instead of a few hundred meters (like here) to heat up.

The latest technology is LPG liquid injection. Instead of vaporising the LPG, it is injected in the inlet manifold in liquefied form. This allows improved control of the fuel injection, which results in improved performance and optimum combustion. Because a liquefied petroleum gas system employs the original petrol engine’s computer, all the original characteristics are retained and the emissions are less harmful to the environment.

Holland and Italy are the home to the world´s leading LPG systems manufacturers, succesfully exporting their products across the globe.

H.

For comparison, today´s prices in Holland:

Petrol (Euro 95) EUR 1,54
Diesel EUR 1,32
LPG EUR 0,69

... and mind you, these are per litre(!)