Well, after much consideration, thought and financial tinkering my car has gone in for an LPG conversion this week.

It's having a BRC SDI (Sequential Direct Injection) system, and i'm hopeful that all will be fine! Apparently the chap doing the conversion has done a couple of 2.0TFSI Passats previously and he says they are running fine.

I will be reporting back with how this goes...hopefully it isn't going to end in tears :no:

Fingers crossed for fuel savings!

Ta,

MPM

Edited 3 March, 201115 yr by MPM

How many miles do you do in a year? How much is the LPG conversion costing? If you compare the extra cost of the LPG installation against the cost of fuel. Will you actually be saving money or spending more money to try and save money? I'm sorry for sounding negative but a friend of mine did this and actually realised that he spent more having the LPG installed than he would running on normal fuel. He had a Range Rover V8 and the LPG system cost him nearly £1000.

Dont forget the pictures, I, and many others would like to see where everything goes

I cover just under 20k miles a year (not stratspheric i know), and the conversion is costing a wallet heating £1850. At current cost comparisons (LPG at 60p/l vs unleaded at ~115p/l) I should break even sometime after 12months.

I am going to be aiming at 2 years being by break even point. And i plan to keep the car for much longer!

I have a colleague here at work who has also 'gone LPG' and he's more than broken even, i think he's covered over 100k miles now and not had any issues.

There's a lot of tales about people with bad experiences, but never any detail to the tale - i decided to only listen to people with an opinion if they could back it up with a technical/justifiable and unbiased reasoning.

Pictures of anything i can get will be posted

Ta,

MPM

Just out of curiosity, wheres the LPG tank going? I considered this option a few years ago, but the tank was going to be fitted in the spare wheel well...................because of my job, a taxi driver, I can't leave the spare in the boot area which means no spare and just relying on a can of tyre foam/gunk whilst covering 50,000 miles per year was too high a risk judging by the number of punctures I have had over the years.

Don't forget, if you go with the tyre foam/option, the AA/RAC may not attend to a puncture/blowout where no serviceable spare is being carried, I have read there small print! So be wary of dumping the spare in the garage and relying on the foam/gunk.

If I was you, I would trade in the petrol and get a diesel.

ib be interested in this if LPG can be used in tandem with remapped cars. is there a performance drop off when used with LPG???

LPG tank is going in the spare wheel well. I've not had many problems with punctures over the years (haha here we go...) and will be putting my spare wheel in the boot if i'm out & about on the mways for work.

This was a big consideration, but the overall savings should far outweigh a potential inconvienience.

Don't want to go back to diesel, it was boring....

Ta,

MPM

edit: I am considering a remap afterwards - apparently this system is good to just over 300kW power. It steals the map from the petrol ECU and under heavy load may briefly switch back to petrol (so i understand)

Edited 14 June, 201016 yr by MPM

ib be interested in this if LPG can be used in tandem with remapped cars. is there a performance drop off when used with LPG???

That LPG Ford Focus in the BTCC is unstoppable compared to the petrols

LPG is the equiv of around 112 octane petrol (or something like that!) it's clean burning too, but there's less energy stored in a litre of LPG than there is in a litre of petrol - so you use slightly more. Benefits from a strong spark seems to be common wisdom.

The modern kits, especially the SGI (Sequential Gas Injection) kits are absolutely fine. I looked into them in a lot of detail for a P38A range rover 4.0 litre. The old / original style kits (non SGI) have caused a few horror stories -- exploding air box with shrapnel through the bonnet was one of the more extreme ones!

EDIT: for some (all?) of the SGI systems (at least the AG kit anyway), the kit includes an ECU specifically for the LPG side of things, has it's own maps and can be remapped seperately.

Edited 14 June, 201016 yr by Mute

I would be interested in any results in this, have they sorted the problems with LPG'ing a TFSi then? Last I enquired, most companies said it 'couldnt' be done and one that said they could but charged a fortune.

I recently spoke to Ben at Shark Performance about the possibility of remapping and/or LPG converting a friend's petrol Audi A5.

One issue about petrol / LPG conversions is that the trip computer / maxidot will not be getting any signals from the petrol ECU whilst running on gas, and therefore the figures shown in the fuel computer will be totally out, and useless.

As other posts have said, please put up some photos of the conversion, I'm another one intrigued as to where things go!

Good luck with the result, and I hope you achieve the fuel returns you are hoping for.

Mike

My old Octy 4x4 Mk1 which was running a tadge over 350 bhp (IHI Turbo, strengthened internals etc) was converted to LPG by the next owner & would run nearly 300 bhp on Gas & had the potential for more if he could source some bigger injectors. His system switched to petrol at higher loads, to maintain power, sounded too good to be true but Jabba did the mapping & were pretty impressed.

For those switching "apparently !!" its the same Gas as used in central heating & in those big read tanks they use on building sites etc but thats fuel duty free & untraceable unlike Red Diesel

At current cost comparisons (LPG at 60p/l vs unleaded at ~115p/l) I should break even sometime after 12months.

Love to no were you are, I pay nearly £1.30 a litre for Super!

113.9 for Unleaded

116.9 for Diesel

Around here (Aberdare, South Wales (where I work))

113.9 for Unleaded

116.9 for Diesel

Around here (Aberdare, South Wales (where I work))

Just filled up at Tesco, 124.9 for Super, and thats the cheapest its been for a couple of months.

Diesel - 118.9

Petrol - 115.9

Morrisons Redcar, Cleveland

Just filled up at Tesco, 124.9 for Super, and thats the cheapest its been for a couple of months.

its about 115p for cheapo 97 ron sludge here, but for Vpower your looking at 124.9

115 for std u/l 125 for super...

ANYWAY...back on topic:

LPG Tank in boot...

Spot the fuel gauge...

Injector rail and filter

Reducer (converts Liquid PG to GAS PG basically) & Isolator valve

Wide shot

I now have the car back, but the map on the LPG ECU needs tweaking so not running on LPG yet, should be able to report back on how it's running soon...

MPM

im keen to see the performance differences. and want to know more about mapping them

Whats LPG do to Exhaust gas temps and anyone have any idea if it would have any long term effects on components such as the turbo?

Filler cap is currently (next to) where the rear towing eye is, i'm pondering wether to have it moved but it doesn't look too bad.

Performance should be similar to petrol - once it's up and running i can report back on that one

I couldn't say for sure about the long term effect, however, there should be little difference to petrol on almost all fronts from what i gather.

MPM

Isn't having the filler for a tank full of explosive on the rear bumper a wee bit dangerous in the event of a rear impact?

Isn't having the filler for a tank full of explosive on the rear bumper a wee bit dangerous in the event of a rear impact?

Nope, not at all - there are many many many one way non return valves built into it. That filler neck can be ripped off and the system will not be compromised

Nope, not at all - there are many many many one way non return valves built into it. That filler neck can be ripped off and the system will not be compromised

That's good to know, but for some reason it would still bug me having it on the back.

Oh well

Yep, i'm not sure about having it there, i had a long chat with the installer about other options, they were:

- drill a hole in the side of the bumper behind the rear wheel and mount it flush here, however this method carries a risk as the panel is not inherantly 'stiff' so the paintwork may get damaged or crack over time (i'm unsure whether this is something to worry about - any opinions?)

- put a hole in the quarter panel and have it like a proper filler neck (this option is a little scary in my opinion, all i can see is rust in a few years - i am proably overly cautious on this one)

The filler (legally) has to be external, so no internal fillers.

If anyone has any ideas where to put it please chip-in, stealth is best so a filler hanging under my rear bumper is not my 1st choice...

Apparently some manufacturers make the petrol filler 'area' slightly wider so people can put LPG necks next to petrol necks! (Volvo/Merc came up here)

Ta,

MPM

Yep, i'm not sure about having it there, i had a long chat with the installer about other options, they were:

- drill a hole in the side of the bumper behind the rear wheel and mount it flush here, however this method carries a risk as the panel is not inherantly 'stiff' so the paintwork may get damaged or crack over time (i'm unsure whether this is something to worry about - any opinions?)

- put a hole in the quarter panel and have it like a proper filler neck (this option is a little scary in my opinion, all i can see is rust in a few years - i am proably overly cautious on this one)

The filler (legally) has to be external, so no internal fillers.

If anyone has any ideas where to put it please chip-in, stealth is best so a filler hanging under my rear bumper is not my 1st choice...

Apparently some manufacturers make the petrol filler 'area' slightly wider so people can put LPG necks next to petrol necks! (Volvo/Merc came up here)

Ta,

MPM

From what you say, it sounds about as good there as anywhere else.

Isn't having the filler for a tank full of explosive on the rear bumper a wee bit dangerous in the event of a rear impact?

If the filler was ripped off completely and the tank dumped its contents, it would be very difficult to light as the mixutre would be completely wrong. If you've got a gas hob, remove the jet ring and then try lighting the hob from the just the gas, you'll get nothing and thats assuming it would vapourise fast enough to come out as gas rather than just dumping liquid

Edited 21 June, 201015 yr by dan_the_v8man