LPG economy rates

[p76rangie]

I don't know where you live,gas is .529 and petrol is 1.17

Interstate the prices tend to be 15 to 20 cents more expensive than Vic.

 

[GUnka]

Diesels cost more to purchase,maintance is more often,parts are more expensive,and the new era diesels running 30000 psi injector pressures cost a fortune for one injector,and reliability when the kms mount up is a problem,but if you live in the outback,or do a lot of trips out there then diesel,but most just drive around suburban areas ,it's false economics,ask a good mechanic about the new era diesels,cost of parts will blow your mind

That must be why Y62 Patrols are selling like hot cakes and there are 10 times more petrol 200 series cruisers being sold.

 

[rogerazz]

Hi guys/girls!!
Just wondering what sort of kms per Lt you get from your LPG? My 80 series has a roof tent, but I suspect something is up as my 85lt tank yielded just over 300km, and I don't think this is right. Am I wrong? Cheers

I have a dual fuel system. The gas is an Impco system and I have electronic ignition fitted so it runs perfectly. Starts easy, idles smooth and runs smooth.
At the moment petrol costs me $1.19 per litre and Gas $0.57 per litre.
I get 23 litre per 100 k's towing a 14ft pop top at around 90 k.p.h. on average on petrol or gas.
My gas tank is 100 litres but I use about 90 litres before next fill. That means I usually do 400 ks maybe a little under per 90 litres.
Gas costs me 50 % of petrol even in the country where prices are higher because both gas and petrol costs rise.
This means that using gas which is 50% cheaper than petrol I am getting the equivalent 11.5 litres on petrol.
I have taken an average consumption over thousands of k's towing over hills, flats, winds, weather etc. to work this out.
Every time I fill with gas I reset the odometer to nil not only to check consumption but also to verify how close to 400 ks I am to allow fill at nearest town.
You need to check your consumption carefully, taking into account all I have mentioned above.
Is your tank 85 litres or is that usage? My 100 litre tank will only run to say 90 litres of actual gas.
The only true way is to do a few fills recording distance to next complete fill each time.
However it could be that your roof top camper may be creating some drag. My Troopie is higher than my Pop Top so does not create much if any drag. If it's your roof top, maybe fit some sort of wind deflector as drag is a big part. Don't recommend but I have been pulled along a few times by say a B double and I use nearly half the accelerator.

 

[discomatt]

my Disco has a high torque cam and cam timing is advanced by 3 degrees and dizzy is also advanced by 9 degrees so its awesome on LPG but I do need to run 95+octane fuel so it doesn't ping its head off. Around town and cruising it averages 22l/100 on fuel or petrol towing and average 4wding its up to 25l/100 worst I have seen on soft sand towing over a ton of camper it is up to 35/100
most of the time with fuel cost and maintenance costs all taken into account its about same as old diesel to run and half the cost of a modern diesel.
I have kept all fuel and maintenance cost because its also my work car so its a tax deduction and over 100,000km it averages $17.00 / 100 km
A modern diesel over 100,000 will cost on average 7k just in injectors, pumps and turbo replacement costs and that's without servicing or fuel so after all the other costs LPG is way cheaper.
That is comparing a 18 year old car to a new car so totally irrelevant
As far as "you cant get LPG no range" bla bla bla I have a range of 1000km and have never had an issue of getting LPG in 99% of places so that's also a irrelevant comment

 

[p76rangie]

worst I have seen on soft sand towing over a ton of camper it is up to 35/100

I can beat that. Along the beach at Rhobe to the mouth of the Murray, 120km, went through 60ltrs. 2km per litre or 50l per 100km.

On a trip up to Lake Eyre with the ute fully loaded with food, fuel, camping gear, etc, sitting on between 100kph and 110kph I got 18l/100km and 15l/100km on petrol. That is a 4.6 V8.

 

[discomatt]

We just got back from SA, went from Carpenter Rocks to Robe on the beach averaged 23l/100, didn't do to the Murray mouth, saw that and up along the river and lake system on a charter boat. Carpenter rocks area was really soft and had me a little worried a few times...
Mine is a 4.6 but not Rangie management system so no O2 sensor and no crank angle sensor, just the Disco system but upgraded electronic ignition

 

[John Henderson]

I've just taken my 4.8L GU Patrol of gas after 5 frustrating years of abysmal economy, poor engine performance and horrendous cost. I also feel that the LPG industry isn't well served by some of those who sell and install the systems, as my initial installation was poorly done and subsequent installers have concentrated on selling me more parts and equipment whilst bagging the efforts of the previous guys. All this is compounded by the fact that gas prices outside of metropolitan areas (in Queensland at least) are outrageously expensive - around $1/litre in my area, which in facts means it costs more to run, not less than running on petrol. When outback travelling, I also found myself having to fill up the 65L long-range auxiliary tank with petrol at every single opportunity, as LPG was either prohibitively expensive or not available at all. Economy has been around 23L/100km on petrol and 30L/100km of gas meaning I struggle to get more than 500km from 60L of gas and 65L of petrol. Three weeks ago I had the whole system taken off gas and installed a 147L LRA main tank, meaning I've now got 210L of fuel capacity. I've taken off the upper-cylinder lube system that I installed and am in the process of installing new coils and will have the injectors cleaned and tested. One of the biggest problems was the quality of the LPG installation, for example the design of vapour injection ring fitted at the entrance to the throttle body allowed free air to be sucked in, of course throwing the fuel mixture out and increasing both LPG and petrol consumption massively. I had to figure this one out myself as all previous LPG experts didn't even look at this. Anyway, the result is that presently I am down to around 21L/100km on petrol and expect more improvement after thye injector/rail clean and new coils. I'm sure a properly-installed injected LPG system would have alleviated the performance and perhaps the economy problems, but certainly not the extortionate prices charged for LPG outside of metro ereas. On the whole, not an experience I'd recommend to anyone.

 

[rogerazz]

I agree with you John. I have dual fuel gas/petrol. In Melbourne it's about half the price of petrol so that works good for me.
If I leave Vic. or go more remote, gas is much dearer, if you can get it???
Next time I would rather buy a diesel vehicle, basically because I could then get fuel where maybe even petrol is not available.
As far as reliability, economy, I reckon the experts on here could answer that.

 

[discomatt]

I find the talk about LPG being unavailable a little surprising, last September we did Wyperfield up to Mungo over to Bendleby up to Flinders further nth to Gammon Rangers and over to Leigh Creek all on LPG then filled with LPG at Leigh Creek and did the ood trk, delhousie mt dare Fink and out to the Stuart hwy where we got more LPG then LPG all the way back to Melbourne. All of it done in a thirsty V8 Disco fully loaded with over a ton of camper on the back So out of a 7500km trip only about 800-1000km had to be done on Petrol. Sure some places I paid up to $1.20 for LPG but at some places people were paying $2.45 for petrol so still heaps cheaper

 

[John Henderson]

Maybe its just QLD. Even in my nearest town of Bundaberg it is still $1 per litre, more expensive than diesel at present.

 

[rogerazz]

Maybe, LPG is available in popular areas. However we tend to take back roads when we travel say Vic, NSW, SA. rather than main roads. That's because I like to travel slow see the country ,Max. 250 k,s to 300 k's a day or even less. Stop all the time for a good look, get to camp early for set up and have another good look around.
So when we pass through lots of one horse towns or even just a road house , many don't have LPG.
Even in France, Ireland, England, Tassie, New Zealand, we took back roads through towns, villages rather than freeways, etc. Get to see things that you don't see on main roads.
As my brother said once. People race from one end to the other to see things at each end, I see lots of things on the way
Recently stayed in Dural up Sydney way chasing son's Ancestry. Out of all the servos, there was only one that sold LPG. and I had to go a fair way to get some.

 

[discomatt]

wow diesel less than $1.00 /l that's cheap, about 1.20 here, yep hear you Rog LPG can be hard to find when doing the back blocks but that's why I put the sill tank in and take a jerry or 2 on the really long trips, that gives me 170 l petrol
For the most part the Disco is on BBQ fuel so its as cheap as chips to run now that its well sorted but down side is it needs premium fuel so it doesn't ping its head off

 

[rogerazz]

Yeah, when I did the SA Bendleby trip a couple of years ago, I carried fuel containers of petrol up top. Used petrol at fill up in Burra, then at Bendleby switched to gas and had lots of petrol left. Then travelled on to Clare, Barrossa, down to Robe and Beachport and back to Melb. with no probs.

 

[rogerazz]

wow diesel less than $1.00 /l that's cheap, about 1.20 here, yep hear you Rog LPG can be hard to find when doing the back blocks but that's why I put the sill tank in and take a jerry or 2 on the really long trips, that gives me 170 l petrol
For the most part the Disco is on BBQ fuel so its as cheap as chips to run now that its well sorted but down side is it needs premium fuel so it doesn't ping its head off

Yeah. My Troopy pinged a lot on petrol. I guess it has to do with tuning to run on gas and then petrol is a bit more advanced in the points??? So I fitted an electronic ignition which starts, runs, on LPG really tops. However Petrol still runs on a bit so I use it on the highways because if I back off in town it does create a little back fire at times.
Not as bad as when I had points though, I blew a muffler and boy did that blow..

 

[abw]

Strange, mine runs better on lower octane (cheap) petrol.

For the way I use my car (weekends and short trips, plus everyday city driving), petrol/lpg is perfect. I'm paying 56c for lpg at the moment, so my 2.7 tonne 4.8L Patrol doesn't cost much more than my wife's Corolla to run!

 

[4runnerSteve]

wow diesel less than $1.00 /l that's cheap, about 1.20 here, yep hear you Rog LPG can be hard to find when doing the back blocks but that's why I put the sill tank in and take a jerry or 2 on the really long trips, that gives me 170 l petrol
For the most part the Disco is on BBQ fuel so its as cheap as chips to run now that its well sorted but down side is it needs premium fuel so it doesn't ping its head off

Diesel was 95c for a bit over a week in childers, now its up to 102 but its been sitting around 100 for a while now. Cheaper in small towns than the nearby cities here. Petrol is dear though.

Strange, mine runs better on lower octane (cheap) petrol.

For the way I use my car (weekends and short trips, plus everyday city driving), petrol/lpg is perfect. I'm paying 56c for lpg at the moment, so my 2.7 tonne 4.8L Patrol doesn't cost much more than my wife's Corolla to run!

My old 4Y ran better on e10 than anything else i found. I used to get 450 on e10 and only 400 on 95.

 

[discomatt]

Mine pings so much due to the advanced timing, 3 degrees on the cam with the adjustable timing chain, gives better low down torque and 9 degrees on the ignition so it runs better with the higher octane of LPG. The dizzy is also curved to suit the high torque stage 1 cam with a custom scorcher electronic ignition set up, much more reliable than the old Lucas points ignition.

 

[greysrigging]

Gas priced at $1.13/L in Darwin. Diesel is $1.17/L. 'Nuff said.....

 

[discomatt]

Just as well that I don't live in Darwin then, instead we live in the most liveable city in the world voted last 3 years in a row, although I do hate the city
LPG 49c/l diesel 1.20

 

[typhoeus]

There are number of systems that will change your open loop to a closed loop. It depends whether you have a impco mixer that has the power adjustment built into the mixture or the more common type where the power control is in the line between the convertor and mixer. The later is more simple where the power adjustment is simply replaced with a solenoid that adjusts its mixture based on a small ecu and O2 sensors in the exhaust. For the impco mixer, like mine, it involves a small solenoid that increases or decreases the vacuum applied to the mixer diaphragm to adjust the mix.

You can see the various units here; http://www.alternatesolutionsgroup.com.au/LPG-Fuel-Processors.htm Mine is the CP401, the second one on the link.

I do not like the vapour injection systems and would not put one on my car.

Can you tell us why you don't like the injection systems?