Gas Conversion

[Tom]

Okay, I don't plan on doing it, but I've been talking to some body about gas conversions on cars..

Apparently the government is allowing a $2000 grant towards conversion costs on private owned cars?


So, what are the pro's and con's of gas conversion? Apparently the car can still be just as powerful as well?

 

[Kitty's VR4]

Pro's Higher Octane Value, ie more horsepower
Con's Less MPG

not sure its do-able on a 6A13TT but I'm sure someone on here will know

 

[VR4sum]

yeah but then you'd have to change your plates to OMG GAS or GAS 70M...or maybe GOT GAS!
Yeah, then you could double up as an advertising vehicle for metamucil or something...LOL!

 

[VR4sum]

and besides Tom, you couldn't anyway.
The red LPG sticker wouldn't match your new bonnet

 

[Tom]

Hahaha Alex, awesome replies

OMGGAS FTW

 

[qball]

some guys have done it Club vr4, they didn't seem to lose that much power so i'd check over there

 

[Guest]

some guys have done it Club vr4, they didn't seem to lose that much power so i'd check over there

Yes that's correct and most have been positive about there experience with LPG. And if you want to have a bit of fun it just a case of pressing a button to go back on petrol

 

[Guest]

anything is possible...there's a RX4 here in adelaide built and tuned for and is running entirely on LPG, and its still putting out 320rwkw!

 

[Hotwire]

Gas is great for power due to the high octane numbers (~110 RON) HOWEVER the problem with LPG in Australia is that the industry is slack in producing consistant fuel and the RON can vary between 102/103 to 115!!! So if you tune your car on fuel that happens to be 110, get a tank of 102 things can go nasty quick - so often the tune is still conservative (rich).

BUT that being said, big HP on the original Gas Vapour systems will cost you quite a bit in economy, and the payback period will take a bit longer

At the moment Liquid LPG is being spread thoughout australia, with kits for many australian cars. Liquid LPG is exactly as the name would imply, injectors are drilled into the inlet manifold just before the head and the LPG is injected in liquid form, maximising power and economy. There are a number of XR6 Turbo's running 330+ rwkw on liquid LPG and still returning 12-13L/100km (same as petrol) for normal driving. However these kits cost $4.5k +

I doubt they would bother with Liquid LPG for a VR4 though, the cost to set it up would probably be in excess of $5.5k+ and then your payback period would be far greater than any of us would keep these cars.

 

[SiliconAngel]

Pro's Higher Octane Value, ie more horsepower

Without teaching your grandmothers how to suck eggs, I'd just like to point out that strictly speaking this isn't correct - higher octane actually makes fuel less explosive, which is why its used in high power applications. Higher octane only means you can potentially push an engine to a much higher power figure without causing detonation. It doesn't mean that simply by running higher octane fuel you'll get more power - on the contrary, with exactly the same tune your power figure will actually go down.

If you converted to LPG and you could ensure you were using say 115RON fuel all the time, you could upgrade to larger turbos and push boost up to 30psi (pulling a figure out of my backside) with supporting mods and get tremendous power without having to find race fuel. However that would be hugely expensive and I don't know how much fun the car would be as a daily driver after that

 

[Kitty's VR4]

Hmm ok Trevor, I should never assume, we had gas on our previous tow vehicle and when you switch over to Gas from Petrol is certainly performed much better than when it was on Petrol (98 RON).... Thanks for enlightening/correcting my assumption