propane fuel

sun417 · Jun 22, 2008

I have a 1997 Ford Ranger 4.0 fi. I was reading about a conversion to propane, natural gas or methane. It all sounds straight forward and propane is alot cheaper thean gas or e-85. The instructions are for a carborator engine and of course I have fuel injection. Could I not just hook up on the fuel line going into intake? I have the link here if anyone wants to see what it looks like to you. http://www.nitrofreeze.com/racing.html
Thanks
Bob<><

I have one other thing looking for opinions on metal treatment if I have to go a full rebuild on my 4.0 check out this site and give me your opinions if its worth the money. I found a place in Fargo ND with better pricing that I could drive too.

http://www.nitrofreeze.com/racing.html

97RangerXLT · Jun 22, 2008

I am not seeing much benefit for an average driver to do the nitrofreeze thing. I am on the fence as to whether or not it even does give benefits, let alone spending that kind of time and money to do it. there are several people on this board that have close to 200k on their 4.0s and have no problems.

Now for converting to propane, natural gas or methane...the fuel lines will have to be changed out to lines that can handle the pressure of the gas. I am not sure if the intake rail will handle that pressure on a full time basis, plus, your injectors are made for gasoline which is a liquid. Iwould imagine that you would have to change out the entire intake system or if you are lucky you might be able to adapt an existing intake for this. Again, the cost to benefit ratio will probably make this conversion not worth it.

Just my thoughts.

AJ

LearjetMinako · Jun 22, 2008

You could possibly bleed propane through the intake manifold with the fuel pump off to make the engine run. But I know theres a lot more to it.

For the cost to switch. It may not be worth it.

dude772 · Jun 22, 2008

ive wanted to convert to propane for a long time. There are systems that use a propane injection setup. Even with the carberated setup its liquid propane that is sent from the tank to the engine and then it is changed into a gas and is sucked into the intake. I can see it being easily adapted as liquid propane injection with the proper injectors which are availible, and a different fuel rail and fuel lines. The problem there its programming the computer to get along with the propane.

The setback with propane is that is doens't make as much power as gas so you use more propane to get you the same distance, but with propane being way cheaper, its still cost effective to use. And the emissions of propane are much better.

heres a few links ive collected over the past year or so...

http://in3.dem.ist.utl.pt/lxlaser2004/pdf/paper_33_3.pdf
http://www.lpgli.com/features.html
http://www.greenfuel.org.uk/conversion/technical

Simple_serf · Jun 22, 2008

We are loking to swap the dumptruck over to natural gas at the farm I work at. We get head price on the gas, so it would be worth it. we are looking at a dual fuel conversion, although I would just rather sitch the truck over to carb/points and run a carb off of an old generator. You can use just a line going to the intake, but you need to use some type of demand regulator before that. We do this often with old oilfield engines.

sun417 · Jun 22, 2008

Thanks for the opinions

I agree the freezing stuff does seem cost prohibitive. On the propane the pressure at the rails would be just 8psi I believe the fuel pump pushes more than that. The link goes into alot of detail and states it can be done on a carb engine for just over $100.00 my thought is that if I can get the chip reprogramed it would work with the injectors I have e-85 works ok even though it is not an e-85 listed engine. Heres the link if you want to see what I mean.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green-Transportation/1972-05-01/Convert-Your-Car-To-Propane.aspx

AllanD · Jun 22, 2008

Propane is 3/4 the price of gasoline, but unfortunatly has 3/4 the heat
content in the fuel.

If you specifially built your engine for propane (higher compression)
you'd get some (but not all) of that power/economy (same thing really) back.

The price difference is really a wash unless you have an engine that
is specifically built for it.

But like can be said about many alternative fuels it isn't as available
as gasoline is and you are rather limited about where you can buy
propane motor fuel.

and incase anyone is interested propane is stored as liquid under gas at
standard temp at ~140psi, so there are some serious concerns about pressure.

AD

sun417 · Jun 23, 2008

You are right about that the pressure can be dangerous. There are DOT approved tanks and anyone trying the conversion would have to use one. If not it would be like driveing around with some c4 waiting for the big bang.

Simple_serf · Jun 24, 2008

140PSI isn't that bad. natural gas can run into the thousands of PSI and you have to have very expensive DOT tanks for that. For propane, I'd just get some industrial forklift tanks and the mounting for them. I have seen a tank set on fire in a saftey demo for work. Yup, they make a big bang, but in the end the gas was just burning as fast as it could boil after the inital failure of the tank.

armyets2003 · Jul 3, 2008

AllanD said:
Propane is 3/4 the price of gasoline, but unfortunatly has 3/4 the heat
content in the fuel.

This may be true, but my truck gets 15mpg on propane as opposed to 18mpg on gasoline. So its still cost effective for me to run propane. Mind you my truck is a primitive FI running on a aspirated propane setup (it was originally made for carb engines) with a custom adaptor to the intake tube.

Shawn

propane fuel

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