LPG Conversion?

[steve.s]

hi

sorry Claire but did not want to sound too negative!.

i was driving tons of miles a few years ago and looked at converting a 106 1 litre!.

would get 90 mpg equivalent, but still £2k to convert!.

i don't intend on my D (when its finally on the road) as being stuck in a garage, but it does concern me abit about all the nutters by us (midlands!)
and i'm happy with the 4000 miles or so a year.

i certainly could not park it unnattended, after having 5-6 cars broken into, one stolen (even with an alarm and two mechanical locks!)

i did think it had to be registered fitter fitted to get the cert!.

after all this i did fancy playing with nitrous (had a skyline) mad!.

Regards

steve

[Guinney1971]

steve.s Wrote:hi
sorry Claire but did not want to sound too negative!.
i was driving tons of miles a few years ago and looked at converting a 106 1 litre!.
would get 90 mpg equivalent, but still £2k to convert!.
i don't intend on my D (when its finally on the road) as being stuck in a garage, but it does concern me abit about all the nutters by us (midlands!)
and i'm happy with the 4000 miles or so a year.
i certainly could not park it unnattended, after having 5-6 cars broken into, one stolen (even with an alarm and two mechanical locks!)
i did think it had to be registered fitter fitted to get the cert!.
after all this i did fancy playing with nitrous (had a skyline) mad!.
Regards
steve

s'okay Steve, I know that many people will have reservations and concerns about such a conversion - if the D had a Ferrari engine, I wouldnt bother, but at the end of the day, its a Volvo 760/Renault 30 lump, and if you look at it in that respect then to me its not so scary.

I have to say, from a security point of view, I've had no problems with anyone 'attacking' Flopsy. When I lived in Stevenage, she lived outside - either on the drive or out on the road, and was never touched. The only problems I ever encountered using her daily (apart from constantly filling her up) were car park barriers - ie having to get out of the car, go round to the machine, press the button, get ticket, and go back round to the car before the barrier came down again :lol:

Phill and Rich asked the installation companies about DIY installs, and they all said its not a problem, but you have to get it certified once the work is done. There is a company in Norfolk who specialise in LPG systems for classic cars and do all the certification too. They are in Aylsham - www.classic-rebuilds.co.uk. However, you will save at least a grand by doing it yourself. Also, it doesnt really matter about how long it takes for the installation to pay for itself, as Dean, Phill and myself have all said we'll never sell our D's.

I can see how it wouldnt be worthwhile to do it on a 1.0 Pug (that already does 45mpg?) if you only keep your car's for a year.

I'm keen to get my Rapier done first so that I can press that into daily service as I want to take my Cavalier off the road. I want to get the engine out and tidy up the engine bay, as theres a bit of tin worm coming through, so I want to get that sorted before it gets any worse. I've also got 2 new rear arches to go on too.

Once Rapey is converted, she'll be doing the equivalent of 40mpg, and with a conversion cost (DIY) of about £500 will pay for itself pretty quickly.

Anyway, Phill has just contacted the company in Norfolk, so we'll report back once we've heard back from them.

Regards,

[Guinney1971]

janvdwouw Wrote:

Claire Usher Wrote:Dean, Phill and myself have all said we'll never sell our D's

That's what I said too. Look at me now :?

But haven't had many regrets yet; I enjoy driving my Aygo too much for that

haha, very true Jan!! But, you did sacrifice it to buy your own home, so we'll let you off! :wink:

I must admit, there were a few times last year when I wondered why I'd bought the Rapier, but then I'd take it out for a drive again and really enjoy cruising around in it.

I drove Flopsy for the first time in 2 months in February (killed my shoulder though ), and couldnt stop grinning from ear to ear every time I put my foot down. I guess thats what I like about my 3, they are all so different and have such individual 'personalities' (as much as a car can have a personality of course!!)

I think if I ever sold Flopsy, it would break my heart to see someone else driving around in her. I've been through far too much with the old girl I guess.

[TheJoyofSix]

Re Multi vs single point lpg;

I had a single point system on a B280E engined Volvo 760 that had no problems with gas supply to the 6 pots. The car ran just as well on lpg as it did on petrol, but as mentioned above did do 1-2mpg less and did suffer as little loss of power if climbing a steep hill. 95% of the time I couldn't tell the difference between the fuels.

Multipoint with its own tuned ECU has the advantage of being able to use the fact that lpg is about 110 RON and thus the engine should (in theory) make more power than on petrol. Andy Rowlands from the Volvo Owners Club deals with lpg installations and has a 960 as his daily driver running on lpg. On petrol the 3.0 straight 6 gives 204bhp, however he set his lpg system up on a rolling road and managed to get 241bhp. He also claims the car is more fuel efficient on lpg returning 1-2mpg more than on petrol.

At a guess I'd say that some of the installers are trying to dissuade people from fitting single point systems in order to sell the twice as expensive multipoint style (me? cynical..???), but the correct system can cope with the 2.8litre PRV. It has the advantage of recovering the costs quicker than will multipoint, but at the sacrifice of some power under certain conditions and is less fuel efficient. A multipoint system will take longer to recover the costs, but may well give you more power and economy.


Food for thought perhaps?

[Guinney1971]

TheJoyofSix Wrote:Re Multi vs single point lpg;

I had a single point system on a B280E engined Volvo 760 that had no problems with gas supply to the 6 pots. The car ran just as well on lpg as it did on petrol, but as mentioned above did do 1-2mpg less and did suffer as little loss of power if climbing a steep hill. 95% of the time I couldn't tell the difference between the fuels.

Multipoint with its own tuned ECU has the advantage of being able to use the fact that lpg is about 110 RON and thus the engine should (in theory) make more power than on petrol. Andy Rowlands from the Volvo Owners Club deals with lpg installations and has a 960 as his daily driver running on lpg. On petrol the 3.0 straight 6 gives 204bhp, however he set his lpg system up on a rolling road and managed to get 241bhp. He also claims the car is more fuel efficient on lpg returning 1-2mpg more than on petrol.

At a guess I'd say that some of the installers are trying to dissuade people from fitting single point systems in order to sell the twice as expensive multipoint style (me? cynical..???), but the correct system can cope with the 2.8litre PRV. It has the advantage of recovering the costs quicker than will multipoint, but at the sacrifice of some power under certain conditions and is less fuel efficient. A multipoint system will take longer to recover the costs, but may well give you more power and economy.


Food for thought perhaps?

deffo mate, very interesting indeed!!

haha, who needs a "stage 2" DeLorean?? Just get gas!!!! :lol:

Seriously though, what you have written there has blown away any concerns I had about running on LPG detracting from the performance of the car.

Hmmmmmmmm .....................

[alexadams1]

I wonder if this is a good idea, convertig a DeLorean I mean.

Afterall, all of us love DeLoreans the way they are. Even if the car is underpowered and a little expensive for part and such like. It all comes with owning a classic car.

[Rottbott]

Why? If it can be improved, it should be. It was never 'meant' to be underpowered anyway, so if you upgrade the engine you're just making it how it should have been in the first place.

[Chris Hawes]

Alex, these cars are not expensive at all compared to other cars. Cars overall though aren't cheap to run.

[Guinney1971]

very true Chris.

The DeLorean gives excellent value in the 'bangs for your bucks' stakes, I just want to do it for a few less bucks! :wink:

[Chris Hawes]

don't we all

[Phill Wright]

Front mounted tanks, just had some info from a specialist classic car converting company that I emailed last night (he is sending me some prices for DIY kits as well.)

- The tank can be front mounted but must be at least 6" from the front crumple zone. The D's spare wheel well is set back well, so can't see it will be a problem.

Also, as for certification/setup of a DIY installed system, they charge £90.00 for this and it takes about 2Hrs.

Cheers

Phill

[NickT]

Some rough calculations:

£1500 + vat @ 17.5% = £1762.50

Unleaded petrol is currently at approx £0.90/ litre.

For the money this can buy you 1958.3 litres.

Divide this by 4.54 (4.54 litres per UK Gallon)
to get 431.35 gallons.

Assuming the car does 25mpg
you would get 10783.7 miles for the cost of installation.

You would have to use the car as a daily commuter car to reap any cost savings.

Even for my everyday for a 60 mile round trip commute (less business mileage) it still isn't worth lpg conversion as diesel is more economical.

Individual choice though and once done would be a worthwhile article for the mag !

NickT.

[NickT]

Obviously you wouldn't be doing that from the lpg bottles due to tax purposes :wink: :wink: :wink: :wink:

I'd love to see the installation once it is done Dean.

Good luck and enjoy the car.

NIckT.

[Guinney1971]

I was wondering about getting my bonnet modded by Chris Nicholson to give me a second gas flap ..............




ok ok, I was joking!!!!!!!!!!!!! lol :lol:


I must admit, whenever I talk to people about putting LPG on my cars, everyone goes "oh but you got to do "x" no. of miles for it to pay for itself".

So what! I've got no intention of selling any of my fleet, and I was convinced further yesterday when we filled Guinney up with 58 litres of Shell Unleaded, for which I was relieved of just over £51 - they guy at the pump next to me was putting LPG in his Chelsea Tractor, he put 40 litres in and it cost him less then £17. :evil: With LPG being so much cheaper, you can effectively say, that if your car normally on petrol does 30mpg, on LPG you'll be getting the equivalent of over 60mpg. To me, it is a total no brainer. The only thing thats stopping me ordering my kits right now is cash! My firm do not pay sick pay, so I've either got to wait for my wages to build up again when I go back or wait for my insurance payout before doing the conversions on my three.

Seriously though Dean, I'd be interested to hear what your chap comes back with about locating the gas filler under the bonnet. We've come up with how to do a hidden external filler, but personally I'd rather mount it under the bonnet.

Look forward to hearing back from you about it

[Chris Williams]

I suppose when you think about it, Petrol is only going to get more expensive, taxed harder, Etc Etc and as 'congestion' and road toll charging becomes more widespread throughout the country lots more people will be looking to save money on transport costs. Lets face it the Delorean should be around for a great number of years where as most cars will have died and been replaced with new eco cars. Whilst the cost to me (only doing 1500 miles a year) far out way the advantage I am sure doing enough milage will pay for the conversion if not now certinally in a few years time.
Chris