Turbocharged cars and LPG
02-02-2011, 04:28 PM
#1
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Turbocharged cars and LPG
Anyone got any experience of this? ive heard they respond well as the gas has less tendancy to knock than petrol. Ive seen a few v6 audi twin turbos with lpg, is it really worth it?
02-02-2011, 07:19 PM
#2
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There's thousands about with lpg and either turbo/s or supercharger.
The main thing is it has to be a multi point injection system(lpg system that is), can be done 100% safely and works massively well, other ways can result in broken engines or explosions, powerful enough to rip the whole car structure to shreds!!
Go onto www.go-lpg.co.uk/Turbo.html
There is a lot of info there, as well as example cars done, some respond better than others.
I was discussing this only monday with me main man who maps my car, cold start can be a issue on lpg, but that said there are lpg tweaks to overcome this.
I had a xr4i I put on lpg, that would start up even at -5C on LPG from being left for days, it took about 2-3 seconds more starter action that's al but started perfect with no misfires at all, initially I had plumbed the vapouriser(lpg mixer) into the water circuit as told, but this proved a no no, as it needed that much heat for vapourising that the vapouriser would turn to a block of ice after around 1 mile, if the engine was cold, I just let it warm for a few minutes, and instead of it being "T"d in to the cooling system it had full heater flow through it, instead of picking up latent heat, after this re water piping 1 mins run from stone cold was enough to fend off the icing up vapouriser, which causes complete no gas flow and no engine, hit the switch and it's back on petrol.
Mine did better per L of lpg than petrol, normally engines lose around 10% effeciency L for L, but the siamese ports of the V6 were so ineffecient it was way better on gas, after fitment of a WOLF N 3D spark advance unit, I was running 58 degrees total advance on gas, and it did around 22-24mpg on gas, taking it normal, now factor in the cost difference.
LPG can be had for 30P per litre in some places with a fuel card, lpg heating gas is the same stuff just without the stench(stink) agent put in.
It ran loads better on lpg, torque came in a lot harder and a bit sooner, I changed oil at 12,000 miles and it was the same gold colour as when it went in(new engine), so servicing is cheaper, plugs last longer, oil last longer as nowhere near as much carbon to clog oil, from memory emissions were 0.0023CO, or thereabouts.
tabetha
The main thing is it has to be a multi point injection system(lpg system that is), can be done 100% safely and works massively well, other ways can result in broken engines or explosions, powerful enough to rip the whole car structure to shreds!!
Go onto www.go-lpg.co.uk/Turbo.html
There is a lot of info there, as well as example cars done, some respond better than others.
I was discussing this only monday with me main man who maps my car, cold start can be a issue on lpg, but that said there are lpg tweaks to overcome this.
I had a xr4i I put on lpg, that would start up even at -5C on LPG from being left for days, it took about 2-3 seconds more starter action that's al but started perfect with no misfires at all, initially I had plumbed the vapouriser(lpg mixer) into the water circuit as told, but this proved a no no, as it needed that much heat for vapourising that the vapouriser would turn to a block of ice after around 1 mile, if the engine was cold, I just let it warm for a few minutes, and instead of it being "T"d in to the cooling system it had full heater flow through it, instead of picking up latent heat, after this re water piping 1 mins run from stone cold was enough to fend off the icing up vapouriser, which causes complete no gas flow and no engine, hit the switch and it's back on petrol.
Mine did better per L of lpg than petrol, normally engines lose around 10% effeciency L for L, but the siamese ports of the V6 were so ineffecient it was way better on gas, after fitment of a WOLF N 3D spark advance unit, I was running 58 degrees total advance on gas, and it did around 22-24mpg on gas, taking it normal, now factor in the cost difference.
LPG can be had for 30P per litre in some places with a fuel card, lpg heating gas is the same stuff just without the stench(stink) agent put in.
It ran loads better on lpg, torque came in a lot harder and a bit sooner, I changed oil at 12,000 miles and it was the same gold colour as when it went in(new engine), so servicing is cheaper, plugs last longer, oil last longer as nowhere near as much carbon to clog oil, from memory emissions were 0.0023CO, or thereabouts.
tabetha
02-02-2011, 09:11 PM
#3
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There's thousands about with lpg and either turbo/s or supercharger.
The main thing is it has to be a multi point injection system(lpg system that is), can be done 100% safely and works massively well, other ways can result in broken engines or explosions, powerful enough to rip the whole car structure to shreds!!
Go onto www.go-lpg.co.uk/Turbo.html
There is a lot of info there, as well as example cars done, some respond better than others.
I was discussing this only monday with me main man who maps my car, cold start can be a issue on lpg, but that said there are lpg tweaks to overcome this.
I had a xr4i I put on lpg, that would start up even at -5C on LPG from being left for days, it took about 2-3 seconds more starter action that's al but started perfect with no misfires at all, initially I had plumbed the vapouriser(lpg mixer) into the water circuit as told, but this proved a no no, as it needed that much heat for vapourising that the vapouriser would turn to a block of ice after around 1 mile, if the engine was cold, I just let it warm for a few minutes, and instead of it being "T"d in to the cooling system it had full heater flow through it, instead of picking up latent heat, after this re water piping 1 mins run from stone cold was enough to fend off the icing up vapouriser, which causes complete no gas flow and no engine, hit the switch and it's back on petrol.
Mine did better per L of lpg than petrol, normally engines lose around 10% effeciency L for L, but the siamese ports of the V6 were so ineffecient it was way better on gas, after fitment of a WOLF N 3D spark advance unit, I was running 58 degrees total advance on gas, and it did around 22-24mpg on gas, taking it normal, now factor in the cost difference.
LPG can be had for 30P per litre in some places with a fuel card, lpg heating gas is the same stuff just without the stench(stink) agent put in.
It ran loads better on lpg, torque came in a lot harder and a bit sooner, I changed oil at 12,000 miles and it was the same gold colour as when it went in(new engine), so servicing is cheaper, plugs last longer, oil last longer as nowhere near as much carbon to clog oil, from memory emissions were 0.0023CO, or thereabouts.
tabetha
The main thing is it has to be a multi point injection system(lpg system that is), can be done 100% safely and works massively well, other ways can result in broken engines or explosions, powerful enough to rip the whole car structure to shreds!!
Go onto www.go-lpg.co.uk/Turbo.html
There is a lot of info there, as well as example cars done, some respond better than others.
I was discussing this only monday with me main man who maps my car, cold start can be a issue on lpg, but that said there are lpg tweaks to overcome this.
I had a xr4i I put on lpg, that would start up even at -5C on LPG from being left for days, it took about 2-3 seconds more starter action that's al but started perfect with no misfires at all, initially I had plumbed the vapouriser(lpg mixer) into the water circuit as told, but this proved a no no, as it needed that much heat for vapourising that the vapouriser would turn to a block of ice after around 1 mile, if the engine was cold, I just let it warm for a few minutes, and instead of it being "T"d in to the cooling system it had full heater flow through it, instead of picking up latent heat, after this re water piping 1 mins run from stone cold was enough to fend off the icing up vapouriser, which causes complete no gas flow and no engine, hit the switch and it's back on petrol.
Mine did better per L of lpg than petrol, normally engines lose around 10% effeciency L for L, but the siamese ports of the V6 were so ineffecient it was way better on gas, after fitment of a WOLF N 3D spark advance unit, I was running 58 degrees total advance on gas, and it did around 22-24mpg on gas, taking it normal, now factor in the cost difference.
LPG can be had for 30P per litre in some places with a fuel card, lpg heating gas is the same stuff just without the stench(stink) agent put in.
It ran loads better on lpg, torque came in a lot harder and a bit sooner, I changed oil at 12,000 miles and it was the same gold colour as when it went in(new engine), so servicing is cheaper, plugs last longer, oil last longer as nowhere near as much carbon to clog oil, from memory emissions were 0.0023CO, or thereabouts.
tabetha
03-02-2011, 06:55 AM
#4
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The injector issue is nothing, just use resistors, they are £2.50 each.
To get the best it would need mapping as you know, personally I would use a different ecu more so when on lpg emerald K6 is what I'd use, already triple map, I use the earlier K3 version, Dave from emerald has mapped lots of lpg cars before.
With triple map you can have the best of both worlds, the inlet temp input is simple replaced with liquid(gas) temp.
I have a tartarini Tec 97 kit in my garage, which was a ace bit of kit in it's day and still very capable, though sadly not up to turbo fitment, that was what was on my xr4i.
With triple map you can have the best of both worlds retaining the max power of petrol and the advantage of lpg, I reckon it would even be possible to do a auto switch over on the emerald from lpg to petrol upon power demand with a bit of "trickery", ie lpg up to say 400bhp, then petrol for the last 50bhp to take it to max power for example.
Let me know how you get on and I'll do the same, I've budgeted £1500, but it could be done for well under £1000, with a simple kit and switch over to petrol, meaning lpg95% of the time you don't need to power of petrol.
Thinking about it last night my mate used a hedgehog from VW on his install that worked well in the cold conditions with low temp running.
He even dual fuelled a landy and promptly went a bit ott, blowing the engine up and depositing oily bits on the road, he told me he was getting around 8mpg on petrol from his 2 1/4 engine but can't see that bad ?
tabetha
To get the best it would need mapping as you know, personally I would use a different ecu more so when on lpg emerald K6 is what I'd use, already triple map, I use the earlier K3 version, Dave from emerald has mapped lots of lpg cars before.
With triple map you can have the best of both worlds, the inlet temp input is simple replaced with liquid(gas) temp.
I have a tartarini Tec 97 kit in my garage, which was a ace bit of kit in it's day and still very capable, though sadly not up to turbo fitment, that was what was on my xr4i.
With triple map you can have the best of both worlds retaining the max power of petrol and the advantage of lpg, I reckon it would even be possible to do a auto switch over on the emerald from lpg to petrol upon power demand with a bit of "trickery", ie lpg up to say 400bhp, then petrol for the last 50bhp to take it to max power for example.
Let me know how you get on and I'll do the same, I've budgeted £1500, but it could be done for well under £1000, with a simple kit and switch over to petrol, meaning lpg95% of the time you don't need to power of petrol.
Thinking about it last night my mate used a hedgehog from VW on his install that worked well in the cold conditions with low temp running.
He even dual fuelled a landy and promptly went a bit ott, blowing the engine up and depositing oily bits on the road, he told me he was getting around 8mpg on petrol from his 2 1/4 engine but can't see that bad ?
tabetha
03-02-2011, 01:17 PM
#5
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not keen on the restistors idea TBH, would rather a seperate driver to protect the ecu completely, i do have a resistor pack sitting for an old nissans injector set up though. i have a tank already (was free from scrapy as they cant get rid of them!) so all i need is a shut off valve (25 quid), large enough vapouriser (around £100) and a set of injectors and nozzles, pipes etc (£100) plus some switches and electronic trickery, (got all that lying about) so should manage to do it for under 300 quid. My ecu also has the capability of running dual maps so i can just switch to the LPG map with the same live that switches from petrol to gas. The only thing putting me off slightly is the fact that the nearest LPG station is 20 miles away, and is 83p a litre, although it is on my way to work, but most importantly what is the range of a tankfull? could be as low as 100 miles? that would be a pain
03-02-2011, 05:18 PM
#6
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The range of course depends on the size ?, is it a toroidal(doughnut) or torpedo shape tank ?, mine was 110 Litre torpedo shape tank that sat on the boot floor and took up 1/2 the boot, could just still squeeze a normal size suitcase in there though.
Lpg tanks only fill to 80% of the capacity as they need to leave air space, for expansion of the lpg on a hot day, any extra pressure will vent from the vent hole.
be careful with your choice of tank, more particularly it's pick up design, some will give you fuel surge with the cornering that cossies can/do, the pick up picks up liquid, as lpg is liquid under pressure ie in a tank, once exposed ie free then it turns to gas.
There is some legislation change so tanks over 10 years old are a no no, and I think but not sure that only dutch 4 hole designs are being accepted on converted cars.
Legally you are not allowed to fill the system unless it has a certificate.
As for resistors your choice of course, but billions of cars use them perfectly well, most are just internal in the ecu that's all, I use resistors myself, the end result is what counts.
tabetha
Lpg tanks only fill to 80% of the capacity as they need to leave air space, for expansion of the lpg on a hot day, any extra pressure will vent from the vent hole.
be careful with your choice of tank, more particularly it's pick up design, some will give you fuel surge with the cornering that cossies can/do, the pick up picks up liquid, as lpg is liquid under pressure ie in a tank, once exposed ie free then it turns to gas.
There is some legislation change so tanks over 10 years old are a no no, and I think but not sure that only dutch 4 hole designs are being accepted on converted cars.
Legally you are not allowed to fill the system unless it has a certificate.
As for resistors your choice of course, but billions of cars use them perfectly well, most are just internal in the ecu that's all, I use resistors myself, the end result is what counts.
tabetha
03-02-2011, 05:49 PM
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110 litre tank would be the daddy, the one i have is a donut one, think its 60 litres tops. ill give you a pm when i get into it a bit more, 90 percent sure im doing it
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04-02-2011, 09:01 AM
#8
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Quick update, just won an lpg kit for a 4.7 litre jeep, with injectors, vapouriser and ecu off ebay. Comes with no loom or plugs hence a bargain price of £75 delivered! ace, guess im def doing it now lol. Loom should not pose any problems.
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