LPG conversion for the pickup

[Big Mouse]

OK, its not funny anymore. Trailered the camaro to Santa Pod on Friday for a weekend race meet. Stopped at the BP station outside Olney enroute to fill up.

Drove home in the pickup friday night, saturday night, sunday night. Had to fill the tank again this morning on the way back to the track!!!

Anyone got anything to say about the LPG conversion company in Bow Brickhill, Gas4cars.com? They are a Prins Gold Partner so should be capable

[philoldsmobile]

If its the place that used to be called alterntive automotive fuels, its the place that did dads Tahoe (and the Sony avalanche). the guys name is Stuart, and if he'd have bent over backwards any further we would have been able to see his tonsils!!!

Excellent excellent excellent service, very knowledgeable and does a lot of yanks. its gonna cost you, but no one does the job better..

if gas4cars is anyone else, go with Alternative Automotive fuels in Bow Brickhill..

or you could just buy the Tahoe for towing duty and work, keeping the F150 as a toy.....(its going to cost you more than half the price of the Tahoe to convert the ford, and its still going to be a ford.)

[Andy]

You drove past me on the way out before I had a chance to photography you this afternoon

Saw your truck, then your car. Probably not the right way round for spotting you, but thats what this forum does to ya!

[Big Mouse]

Quoting: philoldsmobile

f its the place that used to be called alterntive automotive fuels, its the place that did dads Tahoe (and the Sony avalanche). the guys name is Stuart, and if he'd have bent over backwards any further we would have been able to see his tonsils!!!

Might be the same place, Stuart Grey is the name on the website. \i'll go and see him tomorrow.

[Big Mouse]

Quoting: Andy

You drove past me on the way out before I had a chance to photography you this afternoon  

you snooze, you lose

I hung around for an hour of more after packing the car away to watch the rest of the class but there were too many oildowns/crashes. 4 days and only 4 runs so my boredom threshold was at its limit

[Andy]

Hopefully not going to OT...

We turned up and heard you going down the track thanks to the radio station, but didn't get to see you.

How rough was the shut off area? That wind must've been pretty nasty once passing the banks.

[Big Mouse]

Quoting: Andy

We turned up and heard you going down the track thanks to the radio station, but didn't get to see you.

That's a shame, you missed a really good race - I had Alex off the startline and held him off until past the 1/8th mile marker but his Procharger starts making power from then so he reeled me in and took the win.

Quoting: Andy

How rough was the shut off area? That wind must've been pretty nasty once passing the banks.

Its OK really at low speed, sub 200mph, but once you get over the 200+ mark it can get a bit hairy if you get a sudden strong gust against a light bodied car as the jet car found out today

[Motorama]

I just bought a 2006 Ram Hemi with LPG, it's cheap to run and i now use the truck daily which i didnt do with the Cummins diesel one i sold last month. I do miss the pulling power of the diesel though, the Hemi doesnt tow a loaded trailer anywhere near as well.

The conversion on this was £3200 last year , cant remember what make but it's the latest style and pro fitted and certified. You really have to look at the miles and savings you'd make though as i'm sure you'd need to do at least 30k miles before saved that amount. You get less mpg out of a litre of LPG than you do petrol, plus a little less power too.

[Big Mouse]

Spoke to the man this morning. The Prins VSI system for the F150 Lightning  with twin vapourisers, a 160litre tank in the bed plus a full tank of lpg is £2700 inc VAT.

Paid a deposit and having it fitted while I'm on holiday

Spoke to Barry Sheavils yesterday, he has the identical truck with the Prins kit on it and he's getting an average 36mpg with no loss of performance

I'm averaging around £450-500 per month on fuel at the moment; at my average mileage, 17-18k, it should pay for itself within 14-16 months at the outside.

[Motorama]

Mine has a 170 litre tank, although they only hold about 80% of thier volume making it around 140 actual. All the LPG pumps at service stations trip off at 100 litres anyhow. It is a great feeling though when you fill up and it's only £60 instead of £120

[Big Mouse]

Quoting: Motorama

It is a great feeling though when you fill up and it's only £60 instead of £120

Thats the bit I'm looking forward to

[philoldsmobile]

thats the guy.

he's a top bloke, and no, the prins kit wont loose ANY performance. any kit that does is not up to the standard of prins - this is the problem with LPG converted vehicles, there is LPG and there is LPG....

fit prins, and its awesome, fit a cheaper kit and it simply wont be the same. if you are loosing power with a prins kit, something is not right - the chevy avelanche was put on the dyno and had lost just 1 bhp

[Motorama]

in theory you are right about the power loss Phil, and i'm not going to argue with your facts and figures however i've owned and driven around 20 LPG trucks and SUV's over the last 4 years all with multipoint sequential systems from Prins, Romana, Tartarini and so on and they all lose a little power on LPG. Maybe i notice it more because i do a lot of towing? Also a lot of LPG systems are fitted to used vehicles that probably arent running at optimum performance anyway

[HardRockCamaro]

I'm sure I read that you get less mpg as the fuel contains less energy by volume...  

As for prins, that's what Ford fit(ted?) to the LPG Transits they were selling so it must be a good reliable performer or they wouldn't have risked putting one in the best selling van...

[philoldsmobile]

LPG does contain slightly less energy by volume, but interestingly its 100 octane, and due to its very low temperature, turbo engines LOVE it because of its charge cooling effect.

Prins are by far and away the best systems.

[Big Mouse]

Average is 80% mpg against petrol but it is a cheaper overall so its all good

[philoldsmobile]

Quoting: Motorama

Also a lot of LPG systems are fitted to used vehicles that probably arent running at optimum performance anyway

that may have something to do with it. the Tahoe was converted at a very low milage (sub 50,000 miles IIRC - it wasn't very old when dad bought it) and the avalanche was converted when new.

[Motorama]

i think spark plug choice is a major factor too, and air filter and oil need changing more frequently

[FUBAR]

i'm intrigued, why would the Air filter need changing more often?

[philoldsmobile]

it doesn't - there should be no gas where the air filter is.. also the oil needs changing LESS frequently as the gas burns far cleaner than petrol.( a good indicator of this is the fact the exhaust pipe will not build up a lining of carbon on LPG)

in reality sticking to the manufacturers guidelines is preferable, but the oil should be coming out very close to the colour it goes in, if its getting dirty, its not running right, perhaps accounting for the lack of power?  

spark plugs should be platinum, and the gap reduced slightly.

[Motorama]

I had a couple of trucks on gas which had intermittent running problems, they would switch back to petrol if you floored them, and in both cases an air filter change made a difference. I dont know why this is (but i bet Phil does ), it was suggested by a local installer i use to service LPG systems.

Maybe not more frequently, but it's a factor to keep the motor running right. I can only speak of my experiences with the vehicles i've owned and driven, which is more than most

[philoldsmobile]

Quoting: Motorama

but i bet Phil does

yes i do.  

due to the different chemical composition of LPG, it gives a slightly different level of oxygen in the exhaust as it burns. if the air filter is clogged, this can go outside of the parameters set by the piggyback gas ECU. if the ECU sees a situation where the o2 readings go out of permissible values, it will switch back to petrol.

this is the same safety device that will switch back to petrol when you run out of gas, but by swinging the other way. the mixture goes lean due to low gas pressure, and the ECU will switch to petrol to prevent a lean detonation situation damaging the engine.


when dad had his conversion done, I did a hell of a lot of reading about LPG.  Its all fairly straight forward stuff, handy if you ever need to diagnose any problems.

[Big Mouse]

The plugs are being changed at the point of conversion, now scheduled for next tuesday plus 3 days, as they are a bastard to get to once the conversion is in place.

The recommended plugs are 60,000 mile units apparently so shouldn't be a problem for the time I own the vehicle

[Motorama]

where are you having the filler located?

[Big Mouse]

The tank is in the back of the bed so probably just above the existing petrol one; going to talk to him about that on the day before he starts.

As long as its colour coded I'm not overly fussy as long as it looks right.

Where would you go for on an F150?