Posted By: Pyper70
Anyone ever upgraded their engine to Propane? - 11/23/11 12:26 PM
There is a member on here, BigBlockMopar in the Netherlands. He got his car that way but I did some investigating through the European links from Impco. I emailed them in the NL and they referred me to France which sells to Greece. He didn't say anything of substance to me. I did find out that there is an American HQ in Santa Ana, Ca.
Before I go on an endless hunt with propane parts...Would it work adequately for our engines? What do I need to buy? I can probably mount a tank in place over the rear axle hump in my trunk and run a filler line somewhere for easy fillups.
Why do I want to do this....simple...Gasoline is $8.50/gallon here. It breaks my heart to see this beauty sitting in my garage after I used to drive her around on a daily basis back in California. When I moved here gas wasn't that bad..Like $5 a gallon which sat fine with me because VP Red 100 was $5 a gallon where I lived. I get 95 Octane from the pump here. Locally, the price of LPG is 0.80€ (thats about $4.06). I assume my carb's would have to get changed. Special high pressure LPG line from the trunk, along the undercarriage to the engine bay, and into a thingamajig...you can see I haven't really focused on anything here as far as research. If I do end up going this route, my performance will be altered, but is there a way to have a dual fuel...Keep my Edelbrocks and run LPG?
The only other system I can see for myself is running my own ethanol distillery. But that's a purchase of $7000. I believe I can net myself 40 liters a week off of that system...put 20 liters (5 Gallons) in my Charger's gas tank, 10 liters in my daily driver's tank, and another 10 in my wife's tank. Some weeks I may not even use the Ethanol for the Charger...like the winter months. I know using ethanol will help the engine run a little cooler but I will have to compensate with larger jets, my fuel economy may go down the tubes but its better than nothing...
What direction could I go? LPG with a single car conversion.....or mild tune ups and ethanol without any big component game changers in other cars?
Before I go on an endless hunt with propane parts...Would it work adequately for our engines? What do I need to buy? I can probably mount a tank in place over the rear axle hump in my trunk and run a filler line somewhere for easy fillups.
Why do I want to do this....simple...Gasoline is $8.50/gallon here. It breaks my heart to see this beauty sitting in my garage after I used to drive her around on a daily basis back in California. When I moved here gas wasn't that bad..Like $5 a gallon which sat fine with me because VP Red 100 was $5 a gallon where I lived. I get 95 Octane from the pump here. Locally, the price of LPG is 0.80€ (thats about $4.06). I assume my carb's would have to get changed. Special high pressure LPG line from the trunk, along the undercarriage to the engine bay, and into a thingamajig...you can see I haven't really focused on anything here as far as research. If I do end up going this route, my performance will be altered, but is there a way to have a dual fuel...Keep my Edelbrocks and run LPG?
The only other system I can see for myself is running my own ethanol distillery. But that's a purchase of $7000. I believe I can net myself 40 liters a week off of that system...put 20 liters (5 Gallons) in my Charger's gas tank, 10 liters in my daily driver's tank, and another 10 in my wife's tank. Some weeks I may not even use the Ethanol for the Charger...like the winter months. I know using ethanol will help the engine run a little cooler but I will have to compensate with larger jets, my fuel economy may go down the tubes but its better than nothing...
What direction could I go? LPG with a single car conversion.....or mild tune ups and ethanol without any big component game changers in other cars?
I had to put special exhaust valves and exhaust seats in those heads to make it work from then on 
I later bought IHC class A motor home on a 1.5 ton chassis that had been converted to propane only, it was a dog every where I drove it, it gor horrible fuel mileage, around 3 MPG 
I converted it back to gasoline and loved that motorhome after that 
Propane has around 55000 BTU per gallon, if I'm rmembering correctly 
I worked for a phone company that changed part of thier light duty truck fleeet over to LPG, the guys got to where they didn't want to drive them in the city due to poor power and terrible fuel consumption, they would run out of fuel in the afternoon and have to return to the yard for more fuel, that really screwed up there production 
yes it is quite ugly, this was built to run only on propane and more for function than form (daily driver 4x4).There was lots of room under the hood so placing everything right there was the easiest and cheapest way to go. Also this system was built well over 15 years ago so there is much better equipment out there now.
