LPG CONVersion?

[joerossetti3131]

Hey

Im new here.
I have a 1991 VN Berlina commordore. It has done close one 260,000 k's
I was given the car.
As i cannot afford the petrol, I have the choice of selling the car for around 1k and buying a corolla.
Or converting it to gas.
After gov rebate, it will cost me around $300 with EZY-GAS
Is it a good idea to convert? As i here holdens dont handle gas well
I only plan to have to car for 3-5 years longer, as long as possible, as i am a student and dont wish too put large amount of money into it.
If i do convert it, should i put it to srtaight gas? or duel fuel.

Also, is EZY-GAS the best and reliable?

Cheers
Joe

[centy]

mate a service lean chip and injector clean would be the way i would go.
With gas you would need to maintain the car better of suffer backfires, like any car.
On petrol it will be a lot more forgiving, then on gas.
on gas smoother and less noise though, also less boot space.

[joerossetti3131]

hey
sorry, could you dumben the language down haha
"mate a service lean chip and injector clean would be the way i would go"
are you saying to keep it on petrol?
i can't afford to keep it on petrol, thats why im trying to either convert or sell.

[padrickz88]

convert it and you will make that 300 back in a matter of a month or 2 and the rest is saving money

people give gas a bad rep but its seriously fantastic concidering how much i pay and how many km's i get..... why pay $1.20 a litre when i can pay 50c?

i have heard ezy gas are pretty good... haven't heard a bad thing yet

[Cúl-Báire]

Put it on gas!.. I put my VP Berlina on gas sometime ago (Bout 50,000kms), and the only issue I have is sometimes it has worries starting cold (I try to start on petrol anyways). The amount of dollars you will save is incredable especially if you are traveling a fair bit.

Something to keep in mind though; you will need to keep your car well tuned, a poorly tuned gas system will run like arse, and use just as much juice.

[rob drag racer]

go gas every car converted suffers back firing at some stage weather its a ford holden or otherwise ive owned a fairmont a fairlane and 2 vps on gas and at the end of the day id rather pay 30$ to fill my tank than 70$ its worth it

[levymetal]

hi, you don't have to post 2 threads with the same question to get an answer.

yes, you should put your car on gas. holden's handle gas perfectly well. you will be given a dual fuel setup for that price, which is perfectly fine. all you have to do is start your car on petrol (when it's cold), then after a few minutes of driving switch over to gas. even if ezy gas tell you that you don't have to do it - do it anyway. i had gas installed in my car and they said not to bother, but the problem is that lpg needs to be vaporised before it's burnt. it does this through the converter, which uses your coolant to heat up the gas. if the car's cold - it won't vaporise - and it will run really bad on gas until it warms up. that's why you start it on petrol.

ask ezy-gas what's included in the price for the conversion. i cannot stress enough the importance of new spark plugs and leads. if you do not get these - you run a much greater risk of backfire. it's worth the extra bit of money to include these if the conversion doesn't.

[spirto]

Lpg on Commodores is fine, people who save on services tune ups are the ones who blame LPG.

Most of the current generation LPG converts include a "start up in petrol" first then it automatically changes to LPG once it has started. This does save the engine when it's cold can cause the Valves to pit.

You can also have a "valve saver" dripper bottle adding this allows some oil to get sucked into the inlet manifolds to lubricate the cylinder heads. It also increases slightly the compression meaning better performance.

You should run the car on petrol once a month at least to just help it along, it also saves the injectors from getting clogged.

Defineately aggree on these.
- new sparkplugs for LPG (larger gap)
- new spark plug leads 9mm etc.
- change the oil for one that is designed to run LPG.
(note the oil tends to stay cleaner when running on LPG, as there is less carbon getting into the motor).
- K& N filter or similar to enable better breathing.
- Also a simple mod to save backfires is to install a drain plug like your sink that can pop first saving the diaphram on the LPG mixer. (Most TAXI drivers have this installed - goes on the side of your air box. and allows it to pop first).

I'd also check your coil pack , being a VN, it might have the old square top one, try to find a cheap VR /VS one they were built better.

hope this helps
Tony

[joerossetti3131]

cheers that was incredibly helpful

thanks

[Gosling1]

I wish I had converted the VN to LPG back in the 90's !!!

Its way cheaper, and when you do all the mods as suggested above (new plugs, leads, fit pop-off valve into airbox) - it works 110% really well.

The conversion fitted to my VN is an auto-switch style - starts on petrol, then changes over to LPG at a pre-set rpm - basically to allow the car to warm up a bit (idling after start and rolling up the drive / dwon the street), then changing to LPG. Stays on LPG until you shut the engine off.

I get around 350km per tankful, and >450 on the highway!

Best conversion you can do.

[Paiste402]

convert it and you will make that 300 back in a matter of a month or 2 and the rest is saving money

people give gas a bad rep but its seriously fantastic concidering how much i pay and how many km's i get..... why pay $1.20 a litre when i can pay 50c?

i have heard ezy gas are pretty good... haven't heard a bad thing yet

spot on , ive had 3 lpg cars and its all good. A VN V6 and i didnt have one backfire (didnt even service it, hey i was younger), a VB 253 but had a few backfires due to mix but were only small and my current VC 308 which works just fine on LPG. Mate it feels good putting in $20 and getting 3 quarters of a tank to use.

[levymetal]

yeah, kind of pisses me off now when people talk gas down when they've never tried it. my 5ltr runs BETTER on gas that petrol! much smoother idle. gas is cleaner for the engine too. and anyone who notices a lack of power is either tricking themselves or has a crap system. while taking my aircon out i bumped the converter, stuffed up the mixtures, and now it won't run on gas (i guess you could say that's 1 bad thing about it ). so i've been driving on petrol for a week. i haven't noticed a single difference, except for the fact that it's rougher on idling. and it's costing me more than twice as much. gay

[Blown V6 Hatch]

yeah, kind of pisses me off now when people talk gas down when they've never tried it. my 5ltr runs BETTER on gas that petrol! much smoother idle. gas is cleaner for the engine too. and anyone who notices a lack of power is either tricking themselves or has a crap system. while taking my aircon out i bumped the converter, stuffed up the mixtures, and now it won't run on gas (i guess you could say that's 1 bad thing about it ). so i've been driving on petrol for a week. i haven't noticed a single difference, except for the fact that it's rougher on idling. and it's costing me more than twice as much. gay

Well, i have had a gas powered car and i'll never have one again....In fact, the vehicle in question is now back on petrol after having it on LPG for about 12 months. I definately felt a loss in power and a huge loss in torque. I towed a tandem trailer with a car on it and it REALLY struggled to pull it on gas, now towing the exact same car on petrol it tows no problems. The car also got nowhere near the K's out of gas that it gets on petrol. It's also a faulse economy anyway, with the ammount of cars i repair expensive problems on, due to gas.....All in all, i wouldn't recommend gas to anyone!

[rob drag racer]

and the hole thing is gas burns at a higher octane rating and burns better under compression with the right mods you can see a quiet tidy increase in power

[levymetal]

Well, i have had a gas powered car and i'll never have one again....In fact, the vehicle in question is now back on petrol after having it on LPG for about 12 months. I definately felt a loss in power and a huge loss in torque. I towed a tandem trailer with a car on it and it REALLY struggled to pull it on gas, now towing the exact same car on petrol it tows no problems. The car also got nowhere near the K's out of gas that it gets on petrol. It's also a faulse economy anyway, with the ammount of cars i repair expensive problems on, due to gas.....All in all, i wouldn't recommend gas to anyone!

yeah i remember you saying you even used to install gas? i dunno, i've had 2 cars on gas now and i've never had a problem at all. last vn had 320xxx gas kms on it and was still going strong!

[Blown V6 Hatch]

yeah i remember you saying you even used to install gas? i dunno, i've had 2 cars on gas now and i've never had a problem at all. last vn had 320xxx gas kms on it and was still going strong!

Yes, you are quiet correct, i used to install gas. Not any more though....Way too many hassles installing gas, i'll never install gas again either.

[Blown V6 Hatch]

and the hole thing is gas burns at a higher octane rating and burns better under compression with the right mods you can see a quiet tidy increase in power

Gas USED to have a higher octane rating, thats why people used to use it in performance applications as you could run more compression without the likelyhood of detonation. These days gas is full off crap, now car LPG is just the shit from the bottom off the barrel so to speak that the refinerys can't use for anything else....

[rob drag racer]

Gas USED to have a higher octane rating, thats why people used to use it in performance applications as you could run more compression without the likelyhood of detonation. These days gas is full off crap, now car LPG is just the shit from the bottom off the barrel so to speak that the refinerys can't use for anything else....

lol that's what i thought to but im just relaying what i was told i must admit the amount of cars needing gasline and converter clean outs due to waxing these days has increase a lot which is why cheep gas aint always good gas

[Gosling1]

..... cheep gas aint always good gas......

funny you should mention that - my experience using Woolworths LPG has been bad *every* time the missus filled up with it. Car would hesitate, stall quite a bit when slowing down for lights, stop signs etc - basically the car ran quite poorly when using Woolies LPG.

On the other hand, now we stick to Mobil LPG all the time - no such problems at all. The quality just seems to be better, and consistently better. I cannot really notice any power difference at all between using LPG and normal petrol ? Car seems to be just as slow using either ! ( normally I ride a ZX12R kawasaki with 165 rwhp - so everything else seems *very* slow...)

Even towing on LPG (which I had been warned about as being a real issue on gas) - is no problem, I regularly tow a bike trailer with 1 or 2 road (track) bikes up to Sydney and back......the VN on LPG does it with ease....

[rob drag racer]

i flatly refuse to use wollies or coles gas or petrol there both crap and i know when my local guy gets his delivered so i try to get it when the servos tank is full touch wood no problems yet in any of the lpg cars ive had

[levymetal]

On the other hand, now we stick to Mobil LPG all the time - no such problems at all. The quality just seems to be better, and consistently better.

i fill up at safeway caltex 90% of the time, then when i filled up at a mobil i got more than 50kms out of the tank (that's a lot when you're talking about 250kms to 300kms). i thought i was dreaming, but tests showed that i do infact get a hell of a lot more mileage out of mobil. lpg is a mixture of propane/butane. if i remember correctly, more propane = better. apparantey there's a 100% propane pump at supagas in dandenong? and your car goes WAY better when using it! never actually seen this pump or tried to find it though.