mr woo 2005

Please bear with me on this one and do not post throw away replies saying that a Scooby should never be run on LPG!

I am in total agreement that a Scooby is for driving hard and fast, and therefore just the thought of tarnishing such a beast with LPG is hard to follow. However, on the roads today I find myself driving in rush hour traffic where no amount of speed or enjoyment is used. The car just gets me to work, of a weekend it is a different story, blast away!

Has anyone looked at the possibility of running a Scooby on LPG? I currently own an MR2, wonderful car however a handful in the winter and only has 2 seats, therefore looking at a late square model Scooby turbo! The only thing is the majority of my miles are done in heavy traffic or motorway miles. Therefore I would like to offset the high fuel costs of a Scooby to save my pennies so at the weekend I can cane the thing. For all you sceptics LPG can be switched off at any time!

Any ideas?

16vmarc

Youre right!, a scooby should never be run on LPG!

mr woo 2005

I am not saying drive slowly all your life to save fuel as if you are doing that a Scooby is not for that, get a diesel corsa! But you cannot drive hard and fast all the time, especially on the motorway and in rush hour! It is just offsetting the expensive cost of petrol when you dont need petrol! The beauty with LPG is you can turn it off and drive hard and fast at the flick of a switch!

Think of it like this:-

Petorl currently costs 86p per litre (depending on where you live), this is not getting cheaper!

LPG costs half this!

Reading peoples fillup costs and miles per tank (235 miles off £42), gives about 16p per mile. LPG would cost 8p per mile.

Over a year doing 10000 miles, of which 60% may be steady motorway/rush hour driving where no amount of power will get you anywhere quickly, use LPG. That would save you £500 per year, not including the conversion cost.

16vmarc

I really do think its a waste of money converting an impreza to lpg. Choose a bland boring car like a vectra to convert.

seab

Not wishing to frighten you further but Optimax is not 86p a litre (as far as im aware) try up closer to the 93-96p a litre (where i come from) so the fuel costs are slightly higher than anticipated dude.

GC8

On the plus side; LPG has an octane rating of well over 100RON.....

Tuts

I'm with you on this. Don't know if it can be done or not though.

Last time I posted about fuel I got a lot of the drive it like you stole it brigade saying I should get a diesel if I'm worried about fuel, but they consistanly miss the point.

I want an impreza because I like the car and like driving it, but sometimes you have to do long boring drives in heavy traffic.

Why not do this if it can be done, then you get the best of both worlds, running costs less than a diesel and also the option to switch it off for a blast when you can. Not all of us can afford to run 3 cars in the family (2 for me and one for her).


Just done a quick search on the net and it doesn't look good. Can't find anything about lpg imprezas.
The thing that worries me is what will it do to the engine when on boost. No idea if it could damage it. Wouldn't have thought so but I don't want a rebuild!

Marky9074

I'm with you all the way on this one (bttt)!!!

I have a WRX300 but am considering a Forester STI and had also thought of an LPG conversion. I recently drove a long distance to a course and found myself holding back just to keep a decent MPG on the journey, whereas my mate with a Disco V8 flew past me without a care in the world with his gas conversion.......

Marky9074

And it might exempt you from paying congestion charge in London....

davyboy

I know of an Audi TT race car that ran on LPG and running a fair amount of power too.......so it must be possible.

Aquanaut

Only if the conversion is Powershift approved

Lots of people with lpg conversions have trouble and are then bounced between the Car manufacturer and the lpg convertor.

The huge price difference is always under review by the government, so you could spend out big bucks to convert your car and the price of lpg goes up.

s80wkr

You can choose if you want to run on gas or petrol at any time

If you leave it on gas it will start on petrol and once warmed up the gas will switch automatically

If you are driving along and want a blast on petrol press the button and it switches and you cannot tell on changeover

If you want gas press the button and wait till its up to temp usually 10 secs if the engine is up to temp if that

I have just had my Legacy B4 Twin Turbo rolling roaded at TEG Sport

It is still in the process of setting up and is only running 0.7 bar of boost

The results on petrol was 204bhp



The results on gas was 201bhp



There is a misfire on full load that needs ironing out yet which may be a plug going

There is very little difference on gas and petrol although it is possibly a little more responsive on petrol

There is a guy in BOlton at F1 Performance was has had a Impreza done and now drives an Evo LPG

I don't do loads of miles but 6 months will pay for my conversion

It is not practical now to drive fast all the time and long journeys are no fun doing 20 mpg

s80wkr

Also I am sure the governmnt have signed up to some eco programme and cannot up the price of LPG by more than a certain amount for x number of years

YOu also find independant dealers ie who sell different types of bottles gas are cheaper Shell is 42p and independant are 35p per litre near me

Jamo

iTrader: (23)

it is possible theres a company that used an impreza wrx as there show car. iirc it was very impressive but very expensive also, someone worked out that you would need to run it for 3 years before making a saving on fuel though

have you considered getting an impreza sport? still quite quick and plenty of fun, and excellent in snow, yet cheap to run, insure and of course cheaper to buy.

just a thought.

yhe chod

for the lpg to be con charge exempt it needs to meet grade 4 [or band 4]emissions ,.not all lpg conversions are to band 4 so ask first.

heres a link to the powershift web site and lists the cars that are exempt [in pdf format] so you need adobe reader to view the
list.

http://www.est.org.uk/uploads/docume...2011-01-06.pdf

if i remember rightly there was a issue regarding lpg for the scooby turbo namely to do with the valves not getting enough cooling or lubriaction??- one to check out.

silent running

WOuld be interesting to find out what the score is. I'm in the same boat really. Bought a Scoob wagon as an all-rounder but 5 days of the week I'm just commuting and still only get low 20's mpg. Wasn't so bad when petrol was 70p a litre, but nowadays it's bloody stupid. The compromise that worries me is having to have a whacking great gas tank in the boot.

Plus of course, if it ever does get popular, the government are guaranteed to tax it the same as petrol. Remember when diesel was always cheaper than petrol? Then it got popular, and now it's more expensive. *******s. And I haven't even got a diesel.

mr woo 2005

Glad to see I am not the only one that hates paying fuel duty!!!

Anyone serious about the LPG conversion should check out this website, does several different systems for different engine management systems and made a recommendation and estimate for a scooby!

http://www.greenfuel.org.uk/

Also gives a calculation on how much money you would save per year on LPG!

Tuts

Had a look at that site but it said they didn't have enough info on an my03 WRX to quote.