I seem to remember a pissing match Bill got into with someone where it came out that it was indeed a N2O installation, not a propane one at all, that had stuck open, and the throttle plate _had_ returned but the N20 and fuel kept the engine under power long enough to cause the driver-apparently a street-racer punk pal of Bill's-to panic and be killed.
If I can remember this better than Bill, it's fair to speculate he does indeed have memory loss such as that associated with Alzheimer's. Perhaps the State of California should require he be retested for licenseworthiness.
There are straight LPG vehicles as well as dual fuel, in fact they are more common now in the US than the dual fuel, and they start and run even in January in Minnesota. In cold climates you have a tank heater and a vaporizer assist, which is used only for starting.
What vaporizer are you running, a Vialle? I was talking to a guy in Sweden with a straight propane Saab turbo. He had freezeups on a Vialle fuelock/vaporizer, and he switched to a US Impco unit with larger coolant feed hoses and is fine. As long as the coolant flowa it can't freeze-a propane vaporizer doesn't use but a tiny fraction of engine heat.
You only need an intercooler with a turbo. But if you have a turbo can you use the vaporizer in the intercooler circuit? You bet. Ak Miller has done it. Works well. That's another advantage to propane on turbocharged engines.
Nope, the engine runs so much longer on propane the vehicle is gone by the time it hits the yard. And, the tanks and Impco equipment are gone as soon as they get there. Seems they all go to farmers or are exported. I know, I'm looking.
I did a quick check, and the propane in my outdoor storage tank is at 100 psi. If you have injectors capable of handling 100 psi liquid, then I suppose you could dispense with the fuel pump, and just let the liquid squirt into the intake ports under pressure. You would have to use larger ported injectors, because liquid propane has less energy per unit volume than liquid gasoline. Theoretically, it would work. It is not used, for practical reasons.
The reasons for using fuel injection with gasoline do not apply as much to propane. The first consideration is mixing. Gasoline doesn't mix as well with intake air, because it is a liquid. It has to be coaxed to mix with air and become a gas, suitable for combusion. You may have heard this process referred to as "atomization". With propane, you just release the pressure on it, and it becomes a gas on its own. Another reason for fuel injection is more precise metering. With propane, you allow the fuel to become a gas before injection into the intake, you control the pressure and the mixing ratio, and metering is a snap. A third reason may make propane injection useful. This is the ability to deliver larger quantities of fuel, using smaller plumbing and metering apparatus. Anyone who has looked at propane regulators and plumbing, versus gasoline or diesel fuel injection systems, can verify that liquid fuel injection simply takes up less space.
Your link says that "Propane-fueled engines produce less air pollution than gasoline engines." I would think, for this reason, that you would be in favor of propane use, not against it. Although not as bad as diesel, gasoline does smell bad. Propane doesn't smell, unless you count the aromatic compounds added to it, to facilitate leak detection.
Interesting. Remember farm equipment that would start on gasoline, and then you had to manually switch to diesel, once the engine warmed up? I worked in an apple orchard where they used propane for the fork trucks in the packing house. They always started up, even when it was real cold. Of course, "real cold" in Virginia is not the same as "real cold" in other locales.
off you go ! your widow can tell us how you get on.
The stoichiometric ratio is the ideal combustion process during which a fuel is burned completely; not the only ratio at which it will ignite as you well know.
btw, Shell disagrees with you over the safety of lpg and petrol:
I guess an automatic fuel pump cutoff would be a good idea for modern gasoline-powered vehicles, eh, Bill?
Last year I remember an article in a 4wd mag about a propane conversion to an AMC v-8. The gas shutoff valve was vacuum-operated...no engine vacuum, no gas flow.
MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.