I ran my Maverick on propane yesterday!

I used to work for Frito Lay in the 80s ... all our delivery trucks ran on propane and seemed to run pretty well ...

....until the chilly morning (might have been in the 30s) that I didn't let the truck warm up very much. Just jumped in it and hit the road... It went about a mile before the carb iced over and left me sitting by the side of the road.

Live and learn ...

 

Frank...still too cheap to buy the plumbing for my nitrous setup. Moved into new house and playing with the boat, instead.

 

One of my customers in San Marcos, CA. makes CNG conversions kits for diesel engines. They are selling the heck out of them in places like Mexico City, India, Malaysia, etc. But it is illegal to install these conversions in CA. Not only that but CA does not even have a process in place to certify their kits for use in CA. The CNG buses, cars, etc. allowed are either Big 3 or grandfathered in from being certified before CARB got so stupid.

Both CNG and Propane burn very clean but there are several drawbacks.

The size and weight of the fuel tanks make packaging difficult. Also, the tanks are under quite a bit of pressure so you end up using a cylindrical tank which makes it even more difficult to package. Typical fuel range will drop considerably when you do the conversion. This is not a real problem for an in town or short trip vehicle but it does put a crimp in longer road trips. Fuel availability is also an issue as well as the cost per gallon.

So, typically, you will see local delivery vehicles, buses, forklifts, and similar machines are the best bet for conversions. Everywhere but California. Who said CA cares about pollution or the environment?

 

Making your own conversion kit is easy but making it run right throught the different loads and rpm is a technical challenge. I have worked on many LPG conversions and to do it right you have to change the advance curve in your distributor, boost your compression, and use a good carb - set-up for the fuel you are using and the size of your engine. The simplest system is the old Century carb and vaporizer because to get adequate fuel you need to get liquid from the tank, use a regulator/vaporizer to heat it to a gas and then get a delivery system that feeds the right amount of fuel for the load and throttle opening. The kits that are normally used are the Impco systems and they are so complex that they seem to have a lot of problems. If you get big enough injectors you can actually set up an electronic injection system to use liquid propane but that takes a bit of programming to get it right.
If you swap the fuel system without any other mods you loose 40% of your range (same size tank in gallons), 25% of your power, and a good 20 - 30% of your mpg.
If you make all the changes to set your system up for LPG only then you get a lot of that back and you can get an increase in power from the gasoline set-up. You can no longer run gas because the compression will be too high to use anything but racing fuel.

 

when i was a kid my parents had a 1981 E350 ford van with a 390 in it. it was powered by propane. it had over 200,000 miles on it when my dad finaly sold it. he had converted it to run on gas or propane about a year before he got rid of it. it had a sticking lifter and was bending push rods so my dad replaced the cam and lifters. it was just starting to get too many miles on it and he wanted something more reliable for the family. i can remember in the early 90's getting propane for around 40 cents a gallon.

 

http://www.gotpropane.com/p4.html

 

That is the IMPCO kit. it has the two stage regulator/vaporizer and the final regulator on top of the carb. There is lots of parts and the secondary and final regulators are what gives the most problems. For the same money you could get two Century kits.

 

The natural gas that is being burned off is full of impurities not fit for anything also has to be flared to keep the rig from blowing up don't worry there are trillions of cubic feet of it in WV PA NY

 

Yep, there's so much of it we will never run out.........
Propane used to be a "throw-away" product too.. then they found a market for it.

Paul