julian N/W wrx my93

Thinking of having mine converted to run on gas, but its the 2k outlay which is putting me off at the mo. I know i'd get it back in the 1st year.

The system i looked at is fully mapable and upgradeable. Indivual gas injectors for each cylinder etc, and if i mod her just take her in and get the gas re mapped.

so does anyone else run on gas and wots it like? ( besides 1/2 the price of petrol!)

Also be intresting to see some RR figures for a gas run car.

bluenosewrx

iTrader: (2)

Maybe wrong here,i thought you couldn't LPG a petrol turbo car,especially to get the same performance anyway,or we'd all be at it .lol
Enter Greasemonkey

Franx

There seem to be a lot of varying ideas about LPG at the moment.
Some suppliers seem to quote a slightly lowered power output from the car, as I've experienced in my Land Rover. That however, is an older system, which I think bypasses the fuel injection system, so it runs the same as an old Carb motor. The more modern system uses injection, although it costs more, but there's better performance. I wouldn't expect it to be the same as optimax & octane booster, but it doesn't make the car slow.
www.lpga.co.uk is the main body - has a forum on there as well.
I've no idea if it's been done to a turbo'd car - although I can't imagine why not. Conversion costs would probably be in the region of £1500-2k, I should think.

Nick

There is one main issue with LPG. The price of LPG is determined by how the government feel like setting the tax rate. Currently, the tax rate is low, but for how long will it be low? 1 year, 5 years? How much do you trust the government? Remember when diesel was cheap?

julian N/W wrx my93

but imagine producing 400 horses, then telling people its ran on gas!

how good woud that be!

Brit_in_Japan

A friend has had his SEAT Leon 1.8T converted to run on LPG. The tank fits where the spare wheel used to be. He says that not only is there no performance penalty, he actually thinks it goes better than on regular unleaded, though total milage from a tank of LPG is less.

There is a switch so he can run on regular petrol if he runs out of LPG and can't find a petrol station which sells it. However he runs on LPG as much as possible as it's much cheaper. He reckons with his annual mileage it will take him about 2 years to recover the cost of the conversion, provided the tax differential is the same.

Faire D'Income

Working for the largest LPG distributor in the UK, I'd be more than happy to recommend that you go ahead with the conversion but you have to ask yourself why there aren't many (if any) converted Scoobs around.

I average 35K miles per annum and I was paying for my own petrol and claiming the difference from the Inland Revenue so you'd expect me to have converted the car to LPG if it was a good idea. I haven't and I won't nor would I recommend that you do so.

rb5037

Nice to hear some honesty.

Hope your not in BP sales and work off a commision.

Faire D'Income

BP, pah chicken feed in this business.

I don't work for them but there is a good bonus scheme involved but essentially what I'm saying is that LPG makes a lot of sense for many vehicles. For example, if you're running a fleet of vans or bog standard cars such as Vectras (I shudder at the memory of driving those things) then it is a viable and cost effective energy solution but not it's not for an Impreza.

That's not to say that the Impreza engine is the last word in technology but it's a lot more sophisticated and unusual than a stock GM/Ford unit in terms of configuration and fuelling. Despite what has been said, I did notice a small drop in performance on the Vectras that I used to run and I would imagine this is exacerbated with a higher output engine, plus I have heard of problems with the scraper rings on the Impreza block that have led to oil circulation problems.

Bricksh

I run gas on a 3.5 disco and yes it does feel slower than on petrol. There's no way I convert the wrx though, I've already had to put 1 new engine in! (oil pump not fuel)

julian N/W wrx my93

thanks for the honest replys guys.

But still thinking about it, got a baby now, and the sensable thing to do is sell the impreza, but i,ve had her for 3 years know and its like sawing of my arm!

just thinking of a cheap way to run the car.....

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

You also benefit from the high octane rating as LPG is far more stable than petrol IIRC LPG is around 110RON !!

So no-more melted pistons and knackered big ends - well, in theory anyway

wrightyrs

well i run a Octy vRS at the moment,not on LPG at the moment but my second car,which used to be my main car a Corrado VR6 runs fantastic on LPG.

the direct injection systems are very very good now and fully map-able.

i am going to convert my Octy vRS,its got a JabbaSport re-map so currently running 230bhp.

i expect to loose a little in performance but you never notice it on a converted engine as LPG burns differently to Petrol so you get more midrange.

myself and a friend have done a fitting course so are quailified to convert cars and provide the documents you need for insurance.

my friend has converted his TVR Chimera and that runs very very well.

in relation to the tax on LPG,yes it will go up,but Petrol and Diesel will continue to rise,it took 30 years for diesel to cost more than petrol so even if it take 10-15 years to to catch up you'll still save lots of money.
the duty on LPG is going to rise by 1 pence per litre over the next 5 years.
petrol will rise more than that.

dpb

[QUOTE
the duty on LPG is going to rise by 1 pence per litre over the next 5 years.
petrol will rise more than that.[/QUOTE]
So your gordans right hand man

wrightyrs

not at the moment.

just have had the info through from the supplier of the LPG kits i use that the Treasury have stated that this is the tax increase that is to be applied to LPG.

julian N/W wrx my93

so how much is a kit fitted with a dougnut tank, fitted and mapped?

ta matey!

Faire D'Income

Yes, but look what happened with Autogas first time around in the '80s which was touted back then as the fuel of the future until HMG decided that increasing the duty would be a great way of increasing the Government's coffers.

And then take into account this lots various money grabbing schemes....

Brian the Sn@il

But with the comptecated ECU system would the Scooby require a REMAP ?? after a as conversion.

Please dont get me wrong im all for a Gas Conversion as i get about 12 miles per gallon the the type R. But im concerned with Maps etc .....

bluenosewrx

iTrader: (2)

surely someone would have done it by now.seems a bit scary doing that do a scoob,do you get any kind of warrenty for damage to ecu,engine etc.

dpb

company i tried certainly covered 'their work' /parts etc ...couldnt quite work out about rest o engine tho - what do think - 'greenfuel company' sorry dont have clicky

spufus

iTrader: (2)

There was/is a company near Harrogate (N. Yorks.) who did a scoob.
They wanted to do mine too, but we had a Galaxy done & it kept dying.
That said, we have a Scorpio done by the same place & it's run perfectly for 3 years - saved a packet in fuel.
It also seems nippier when run on LPG - if a scorpio could ever be nippy!

toigye

your all scaring me to death ill stick to optimax for now after all when i bought the scoob i knew it would cost if you want to save money buy a cheap small car and run round in that but ill be passing ya all in my opti sti lol

julian N/W wrx my93

or i coud be passing you in my modded gas powered scooby!
how gutted would you be!

lol

SPEN555

He'd be chucking up with the stench of rotton cabbage after you'd gone by! lol!

julian N/W wrx my93

look! told you it can be done!

Supercue

iTrader: (1)

So what was the price or is this not feasible?

Scratch

iTrader: (1)

IF you do get it done, I'm sure we'd all be very interested to hear how it went and how well the car runs once converted.

stevoWRX

Have contemplated this and talked to dealer and other peeps about this as well .
Have been told that there isn't an LPG conv kit available as there is SEVERE heat issues ... u know these scoobs run hot anyway .. LPG has much higher temps .
Don't fancy coughing up for a conversion ... then BANG goes the engine

Plus as my scoob is only 8 months old .. kiss the warranty goodbye !

Looks like I'll just buy some Shell shares in the know that I'm contributing to my investment every 3 days anyway !


Steve

madjust

I have a chrysler voyager 3.3 le (thats for sale by the way £9000) had it converted to lpg and its is blooming brilliant basically you can double your miles per gallon cause the fuel is half price and i dont notice any power difference.

ThrustSSC

Funnily enough I was just talking about this tonight with a colleague on a project to break the steam-powered land speed record (see www.steamcar.co.uk if you're interested). The car will run on LPG and some of the people involved are heavily into the LPG-conversion world.

We were discussing a conversion on my MY03 STi PPP, which does 30,000 miles a year, using about 1500 gallons of Optimax. The reckoning is it'll be just fine - the way it's done has the LPG system 'following' the existing petrol mapping - and in many cases the power output goes up, not down - LPG is about 107 octane. It's the older cars that tend to go down. Consumption is about 10% higher.

Now for the maths. 1500 gallons is 6675 litres. 45p a litre saved is £3000 a year. The conversion costs £2000. In my case (I have a company fuel card) the saving to me is £1200 a year - so it pays for itself in 1 year 8 months.

Tempting...