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34051

General Discussion Area / Re: LPG kit bulk buy & / or install party

« on: 13 November 2007, 15:10:19 »

Ive just spoken to my local LPG supplier and its 40p a LTR. Time to get it converted I think

OK. this is the other thing that has been confusing me. LPG around my way is 55p per litre or more at the couple of places I am aware of who do it. Still better than nothing but 40p will make a conversion pay back much more quickly. Who sells LPG for 40p?

Kevin

34052

General Discussion Area / Re: LPG kit bulk buy & / or install party

« on: 13 November 2007, 12:46:59 »

It's very tempting. Much as I would like to do the job myself, in some ways, looking at it like like that it doesn't make a lot of sense.  :-/

Kevin

34053

General Discussion Area / Re: LPG kit bulk buy & / or install party

« on: 13 November 2007, 12:33:00 »

That is interesting. Makes it look like it's hardly worth the bother of fitting it yourself. Once you've bought the kit and paid for someone to certify it....  :-/

But then the main attraction of doing it myself is that I know it's been done well. I'm not happy to let people hack holes in the bodyshell, etc. because I know they will scrimp on rustproofing them. Had it before when I've had towbars fitted.

Kevin

34054

General Discussion Area / Re: LPG kit bulk buy & / or install party

« on: 09 November 2007, 09:51:29 »

Once they have got the mixture at idle correct......most places (i know my local installer does) will take the car for a spin with laptop sitting on passenger seat so they can see whats happening over different throttle positions. Something you could consider doing  

True, but you haven't got anything to measure the mixture. A narrow band lambda sensor will tell you if you're rich or lean of a stoichiometric mixture (14.7:1 on petrol) but you want a richer mixture than this at full load (around 12.8-13:1 on petrol). All they can do is watch the Lambda sensor output and make sure it indicates "rich" on hard acceleration.

Kevin

34055

General Discussion Area / Re: LPG kit bulk buy & / or install party

« on: 07 November 2007, 18:08:33 »

I think my main concern is getting the system running properly before something gets damaged.

You have to try hard to damage an engine. As long as you get the mixture right under light load / idling conditions before you start giving it large it will be fine.

Most LPG installers probably don't do much more than run the self-adjustment procedure on the SGI system. This is Ok to determine the mixture at idle but they probably end up with no idea what's happening at wide open throttle and high revs as this requires a rolling road and / or a wideband Lambda sensor. The dangerous scenario is that the SGI system can't deliver enough gas and the mixture goes lean just when it needs to be quite rich to prevent knock and keep temperatures under control.

If we want to get really involved I have a wideband Lambda sensor which I would rig up to plug into an Omega. It will take some doing (just accessing the sensor is not that easy on a V6) but I'm sure we can do just as good a job setting it up as a "professional" would. In any case, we need to get the systems commissioned / certified so we could entrust the setting-up to whoever does that.

Kevin

34056

General Discussion Area / Re: LPG kit bulk buy & / or install party

« on: 07 November 2007, 16:07:55 »

I'm not too shabby at electronics so I have no real worries about that area. Have also played around with fuel injection systems a bit, and mapped a few of these systems so I know what makes them tick. Principles are the same for SGI.

I have done my fair share of drilling and tapping, making holes in bodywork, etc. in the past. I prefer it if it's my own bodywork, tbh, but I'm happy to loan people hole saws, taps, dies, drills, etc and stand back.  

A good idea to mention the areas where we have concerns and the areas where we may be able to help each other out

Kevin

34057

General Discussion Area / Re: LPG kit bulk buy & / or install party

« on: 05 November 2007, 20:57:52 »

Just out of interest, there's a guy in Cannock breaking an Omega with LPG fitted. Cheap kit ?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/VAXHALL-OMEGA-EST-BREAKING-FOR-SPARES_W0QQitemZ330181454961QQihZ014QQcategoryZ10404QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Ken

New SGI kits are so cheap it's not worth messing with older stuff......

Agreed. Doesn't say what kit it's got on it. Probably a mixer though. Might be worth it for the tank but they're not huge money in comparison to the total cost anyway :-/

Kevin

34058

General Discussion Area / Re: LPG kit bulk buy & / or install party

« on: 05 November 2007, 20:36:46 »

Definately interested .. but wouldn't know where (or how) to start !!  

Well, neither would I have until I started to dig around a little. I'm hoping we will be able to get together for an LPG party somewhere, by which time a couple of us will have tackled the major issues so we'll be able to share a bit of knowledge around. Once a couple of cars have been tackled we'll know exactly where to drill the holes, route the pipes, etc. and it should be straightforward (as long as we don't all go for slightly different tank options, etc). I'm not sure we'll be able to get together and convert cars en-masse but we can certainly tackle the challengine parts of each install, make up any required bracketry in advance, etc. It remains to be seen how much time is required for each car but I'm sure there'll be plenty of advice available.

Kevin

34059

General Discussion Area / Re: LPG kit bulk buy & / or install party

« on: 05 November 2007, 20:12:38 »

Right, we have plenty of interest so I'll get back to the guy tomorrow and see what gives regarding a discount and how we can organise payment, delivery, etc.

There's quite a cluster of us in the South so I'm thinking I'll pick up those kits and distribute (possibly at an LPG party TBA).

Cheers,

Kevin

34060

General Discussion Area / Re: LPG kit bulk buy & / or install party

« on: 05 November 2007, 20:02:13 »

Would be an impressive range. Full petrol tank gives 400 miles plus 800 out of the two LPG tanks?

As Martin says, I wouldn't want to try it with a car full of passengers though

Kevin

34061

General Discussion Area / Re: LPG kit bulk buy & / or install party

« on: 05 November 2007, 19:16:49 »

Just popped out for a measure.. and found a nice list of some tank sizes here: http://www.tinleytech.co.uk/sizes.html

940mm available between rear suspension turrets so a 400x930 tank gives TDs 100L maximum.

Spare wheel area looks like it'll take up to 250mm depth and will probably take 630mm diameter, maybe more, so that's a 60l vertical tank.

Kevin

34062

General Discussion Area / Re: LPG kit bulk buy & / or install party

« on: 05 November 2007, 09:57:49 »

i had the largest tank you can get in the spare wheel well with an actual capacity of 41 litres(ive since fitted a 100 litre tank across the rear seats)i routed the pipe around the rear of the car behind the bumper to avoid the exhaust altogether.as a ps you can now get flexible plastic lpg pipe instead of copper,makes it a lot easier to route the pipe to the front.

Thanks for the info. I was thinking across the back was probably going to be the best option for routing the pipe.

Sounds like range is going to be very limited with a toroidal tank. Cylinder tanks are also available no problem. I will find out what tanks he supplies and see if I can dig up a list of dimensions.

Kevin

34063

General Discussion Area / Re: LPG kit bulk buy & / or install party

« on: 03 November 2007, 18:08:01 »

Well, that's 8 of us interested, including JamesV6CDX who I know is up for it.

The supplier can get hold of 4 different sizes of vertical toroidal tank, so there's plenty of scope for finding the best fit, although working out how to route the pipes needs some thought. Whilst this won't give fantastic range on LPG I work a mile from an LPG garage so a regular fillup won't be too bad. I've lived with a Westfield that only does 165 to the tank for 7 years and it's not too much of a hardship.

One idea I had for the light cluster issue is that you can get replacement LED bulbs to fit in the socket of a normal filament bulb. These should, in theory, have a much longer life than filament bulbs so may be worth considering. They'll probably need some load resistors adding to keep the flasher unit / MID bulb failure sensing happy.

Anyway, looking good.

Any more interested?

Kevin

34064

General Discussion Area / Re: LPG kit bulk buy & / or install party

« on: 02 November 2007, 16:44:21 »

Indicentally, I mentioned vertical toroidal tanks as the only alternative to a cylinder tank for a saloon. They aren't cheap (circa 300 quid for the tank) and it remains to be seen how much capacity can be squeezed into the spare wheel well. I'm just not sure I'm ready to give up enough boot space for a cylinder. Fitting a toroidal is also going to be a headache because routing the LPG pipes away from the exhaust under the car presents some challenges.

Kevin

34065

General Discussion Area / Re: LPG kit bulk buy & / or install party

« on: 02 November 2007, 16:38:20 »

I take it having the filler inside the boot is a no no?

Unfortunately it appears so. Any gas connections must be isolated from the vehicle interior and vented to the underside so my interpretation is that you can't have a connection to the tank that is accessible from the boot.

Kevin