NE1 has thought about doing a propane conversion, or looked into it?

I know it's possible, with the right head........ and theres also a possibility of making it propane AND gasoline..... (ie. for every two tanks of propane, run one tank of gas, mostly for lubrication)




wait for it... wait for it... NOW GO!! ---> '02 LS Sport <---
Yahoo IM : buzz122 AIM : buzz122cav

I thought that was only for Diesel engines...

a friend of mine has it in his truck.....he normally runs either straight gas or straight propane.....i'll have to ask him if it was gas or diesel...he said it was pretty easy to do

Ghost wrote:I thought that was only for Diesel engines...

You're thinking of the "N20" effect of propane - which only works on diesels. I think Buzz122 wants to use propane in place of gas, as the only fuel running thru the engine.

Just go to the junkyard and grab yourself the engin and the odds and ends out of an old propane Cavy. With some drinking, swearing, and throwing things it would probably be the easiest way to convert over....

Then again, I've never thought of trying this, so theres a good chance I'm out to lunch here. The old rusted out propane wagon stays parked out back where it belongs...

Dubie

Yeah, I thought thats what the topic was about. I had no idea that works in another way.

my dad had an old 454, but it was carbed....it ran on propane, he put the kit on himself. It is actually a seperate carburator taht sat ontop of the other carburator, so yes, it can work on gas engines.....it deffinatly isnt good for your heads(in your case, head) but yea, it can be done. i have never seen it done on fuel injection, it would be hard to get the computer to like it. I dont know, doesnt seem worth it to me, just put some 11.1 compression pistons, shave the heads, and cut in valve reliefes into the pistons....and run her on 110 octane turbo blue, the @!#$ is only like 3.50 a gallon, even after the gas prices went up, that stayed the same....so you mise well make the cavy run on race fuel

it will cost you hell of alot of doing that swap over because I have a buddy who owns a 1996 beretta z26 with a 3400 supercharger and he said it will cost you hell of alot money to do this.



Go Check Out My Z26 Message Board @ http://v6z26.proboards12.com/index.cgi and tell me what you think Thanks

Right. It will cost more than what you will potentially save on fuel costs. On top of that, depending on the price of propane in your area, it may run more $$$ for the same range as one tank of gas.

Example:

Out here in my neck of teh woods (35 miles N of Seattle), gas runs $2.71-2.89 for the 87 octane. Propane runs $1.49-1.99. You can expect roughly half the range on propane per tank. Also just to get that half range, it will require more than half of the gas equiv. IIRC, CNG Cavi's have an 8gal propane tank.

I've owned a propane powered car. It was the first engine I'd seen which had over 200,000 miles. In fact, it was at 245k when I bought it. The cam in the poor old 305 had worn out, but there were plenty of non propane powered 77 and 78 Chevy engines with cam wear issues. The car ran well but as mentioned didn't get as good mileage as on gasoline. And fueling was a problem, because I had to find places that had the correct adapter to fuel the vehicle tank (not the same as fueling bar-B-q grill tanks). I also had to pay more for my propane than someone using it for home heat or a propane grill, because fuels used on the road are subjected to federal and possibly state taxes. On cold winter days the car didn't want to start well. And the heater hoses were routed through a propane heater to improve driveability, which meant that the car I was driving never got very warm on cold days. The main benefits as I could see them were slightly lower cost for fuel, and increased engine life. The company I bought the vehicle from sold propane, so it was natural for them to run the fuel. But I eventually switched to gasoline and was much happier.

The last generation of propane conversions that I was aware of had separate computers to handle the propane delivery and fool the stock ecm. They were very expensive, and the tech that was working on them at the time wasn't impressed with the performance. I think he said "They've still got a ways to go." This was about 15 years ago. Since then the life of the average gasoline has increased from about 100k miles to about 150k. With my experience in fleet work I say it's not unreasonable to expect engines to live to 200k miles with more frequent oil changes and plenty of highway driving. With this expectation, I believe that the largest benefit of propane conversion isn't much of a benefit any more.

There's quite a bit of information on the web, I think. Compressed Natural Gas is methane which isn't the same as propane, so most information relating to the fuel storage, handling, and mileage of CNG vehicles won't be useful in propane research. Although finding a CNG Cavalier might at least give notes on how to install the propane tank and lines.

Impco is a major brand of propane fuel system components, although there are others as well. You might be able to find propane conversion parts on Ebay or by doing some searches on car-parts.com.

Good luck and have fun.

-->Slow

slowolej <<< ---- WOW. thanx for the info



wait for it... wait for it... NOW GO!! ---> '02 LS Sport <---
Yahoo IM : buzz122 AIM : buzz122cav