Propane

[72burb 4x4]

who has propane and what r the advantages and disavantages of it,and can i see a pic of your setup

[72burb 4x4]

TTT

[68 Suburban]

protrucks who use to post here is a big propane expert. I have all the parts to make my truck dual fuel, but have not done it yet.

[Longhorn Man]

Going from memory of what protrucks told me last month... A couple of the advantages of propane, is the engine oil lasts 4 times as long since it is hardly getting contaminated by unburned fuel since the propane is entering the carb as a gas and not a liquid. That alone makes propane more efficient.
If you are able to buy the stuff in bulk, it comes out quite a bit cheaper. Protrucks had just bought a bunch when I visited him last month, and he was able to get it at 92 cents a gallon, verses the 1.20 - 1.49 I paid the same day on that trip.
The engines last (virtually) forever when you run propane mainly becouse there is no cylinder wash from the gasoline on the cylinder walls.
I'm sure there hare more advantages, but I am unable to remember.
He also pointed out that the fed. gov. will pay you quite a bit for conversion parts since it is considered a alternitive fuel, which they want us to run. Also at the state level I'm sure there are some perks too.

[chevy2racr]

would u still have a road tax on propane?

[RON WOODGEARD]

A friend of mine runs PROPANE on his "BUILT" small block.
He also runs twin turbochargers (tr-4s) No lag with propane, it runs straight through the carb.

He used to take it to the TRUCK PULLS in BAKERSFIELD CAL.
As stated before, oil stays clean, engine lives much longer.
You have to build it with a little more compression then with gasoline, and there is some other minor differences that don't come to me right now. I was going to make the change a few years ago but they don't make a propane tank for a stepside and I'M NOT GOING TO RUN ONE IN MY BED..
This friend of mine was the general manager of a local propane distributor..

RON

[Longhorn Man]

It's hard to figure what all is in the cost of the fuel, but since it is not a common motor vehicle fuel, I'll asume (and that's all it is, is an asumption) that there is no road tax on it.
The best thing to do is set up for both fuels. In doing so, you will not be able to set up for 100% efficiancy on either fuel, but if you run out of propane, (which many guages give little warning) then with the flip of a lever, you can get to the fillin station on the 5 gallons of fuel in the tank.
One drawback I was informed about, the price of propane out on the road, it can easily, and commonly does excede the price of unleaded.

[68 Suburban]

Road tax depends on the state. In california you can get a sticker that relieves you from paying the fuel tax

[Canada20]

I want to run mine on propane someday too but since it doesn't run at all at the moment, the kind of fuel I use is kind of irrelevant.

The only real disadvantage I can see for the stuff is that you can't park it in any indoor parking structures. For me that's a bit of a pain since I have an office job. There is some talk of availability problems too but where I live it's not a problem and I've heard of at least one board member who's toured all over some pretty remote places in Canada and has always been able to find the stuff. He also claimed that the guages do work just as well as a regular gas guage. Anyway, this link has tons of info;

http://www.wps.com/LPG/

Greg

[Protrucks]

WOW you can't park indoors in your area? I have never herd that before. I love my Propane setup's. Most state's I have gone thru you do have to pay road tax. I do here in MI. I was in CA with my 70 back in 1998 and did not have to pay road tax there. All the other states I did. I thinks OK will give some Fuel cost is the biggest disadvantage on the road. Since there is no Gov regulations on pricing like gasoline the dealers can charge what they want to.
I am going to have my 350 Twin turbo 68 GMC on the road (I hope by the summer of 2003) I am going to try this Jasper motor and see how it dose http://www.jasperengines.com/altengine.html
I am using the same turbo setup as seen here
http://www.truckworld.com/4x4-OffRoa...rboWillys.html
If you have any other questions feel free to E-Mail me.

[Protrucks]

I found a good web page for showing the propane setup. The downside is the truck is a f@#d
http://www.overland.net/~ysgwd/Propane.html

[fishuntr]

I think I saw on your SIG that your truck is a 4X4. Running propane has an additional advantage when running offroad. Our trucks with carburators sometimes loadup and stall when running in extreme angles, or over very rough terrain. A propane setup won't do this. Since it is a vapor, they are not position sensitive.

Some 4 wheelers call it "poor mans' fuel injection". I don't run it on my 72, but I do run it on a small block Chevy powered Toyota Land Cruiser (is that a dirty word?..sorry). Works great.

I'm no expert, but have read up on the subject a little. Since propane doesn't have as many BTU's burning as gasoline, there is a small loss of power, when compared to gasoline. About 10% I think, maybe more. I know a company here that runs propane on their fleet of Plumbing trucks that run big block Chevys and they seem to run forever.

[Canada20]

I always thought that propane had more BTU's than Gas but because our engines are set up for gasoline, that was the reason for the slight power loss; looks like I need to review my info on that one.

Another thing I need a bit of clarification on is the increased compression you can run with propane. How high can we go with that? 11:1, 13:1 or even higher. I'm pretty sure getting much higher than that would put it into diesel territory (23:1 I think) but the higher CR would make up for the power loss and then some I would think. Of course, you can't run a dual fuel setup that way without race-gas but then that does away with the cost advantage of propane.

Greg