On May 24, 2004, at 13:52, Norah Bleazard wrote:
> Dak Gen 3 CC with a decal on the tailgate that said it was fueled by
> propane. Has anyone else seen this? I wonder how difficult the
> conversion
> would be, how much it would cost to convert, and what kind of mileage
> they
> got.
It would be a bit more work to convert an multiport-injected EFI engine
to propane, but moving from a carb is dirt simple: pull the carb and
replace with a mixing manifold (I don't recall the proper name).
Nothing else needs to be changed, and just about any forktruck shop can
tune the "carb" for you. There is slightly less power per unit of
propane (fewer BTUs per L versus gasoline) resulting in slight power
loss, but the relative equivalency to about 110 octane allows you to up
your compression to more than compensate.
No more carbon buildup, cleaner oil, and roughly the same mileage are
all resultant - though you can't fuel as many places (some places will
refuse to fuel in-vehicle tanks, so it's most flexible to run a few
removable forktruck tanks) and of course it's not quite so simple to
bum a few pounds of propane if you run out versus a few gallons of
gasoline.
Propane is an especially attractive mod for offroad carbourated
vehicles since you're no longer dependent on a float bowl that can get
whacked out in off-camber situations.
On a modern vehicle, I'm not sure what you might have to do to the
computers to get it to run right, or if there is a more complex method
of direct propane injection that might be used to more closely mimic a
normal MFPI system on a modern computer controlled engine.
I'm planning to swap my RamCharger over to propane if it gives me any
offroad trouble stalling- or flooding-wise.
Peterson's did a breif writup on conversion a couple months ago, but I
tossed my read issues when I moved, so I can't quickly look that up.
There's also a lot of good info on propane power in the forums at
pirate4x4.com (forewarning: put on your thick-skinned suit if you want
to join in on any discussions)
-- Michael Maskalans <http://mike.tepidcola.com/dak/> '98 Dakota CC 4x4 318 '84 RamCharger 4x4 360 mobile.612.618.4652 campus.585.274.2246 fax.954.697.0487
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