LPG injection into diesel engine

[arunmrao]

I shall be thankful if I could be given the list of manufacturers of diesel engines used in commercial vehicles and buses having LPG injection too along with diesel.

 

[WGJ]

arunmrao - seen this page:

http://www.ilovesponge.com/spongecars/diesel/dieseltechnical.htm

Not manufacturers but converters.
I imagine that some of the vehicles mentioned on their site will be quite familiar in India.


Bill

 

[WGJ]

arunmrao - do you mean complete replacement of the diesel fuel by LPG, or the addition of LPG to the intake air?



Bill

 

[arunmrao]

No I meant addition of LPG and not complete replacement of diesel fuel. We have now buses running on CNG in Delhi.
This question incidentally came to me from a Pakistani friend ??

 

[franzh]

To the best of my knowledge, there are no OEM producers of diesel engines who approve of the use of LPG AND diesel together.

There are a great number of aftermarket suppliers of dual-fuel devices, some work fairly well, but a great number of them do not. I have seen the remenants of more than one engine that suffered from overfueling with lpg and diesel. One of them is a paperweight in my office, at least, what used to be a piston.

Franz

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[arunmrao]

Thanks all for the guidance.

 

[franzh]

See if this image imbed works for me this time:

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[franzh]

Try again:

eng-tips, by professional engineers for professional engineers
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[franzh]

Ok, just click on the image.

Franz

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[WGJ]

Based on a cursory scan of the web, it looks like IDI engines are prone to die prematurely, possibly owing to detonation, and DI engines fare much better, although franzh's piston looks like it came from a DI !


Bill

 

[franzh]

The Cummins piston is from a 2001 5.9B 235 bhp in a 1 ton Dodge truck, with about 5,000 miles since new! The owner was convinced to install a propane "injection" system which lasted less than one month. The installer stated that the system was "user tunable for either economy or power", guess which one the driver selected, all the time!

This was a DI diesel engine with a home-brewed propane fumigation system.

A lawsuit ensued over who was responsible for the damage. The court found in favor of the vehicle owner (who was just looking to get his engine replaced, about $15,000 USD) but the court took exception to the installers attitude and sales process and added on additional punitive awards of close to $50,000. The settlement was for close to $80,000 which included the cost of a rental truck while this process was underway, about 6 months, attorneys fees, and a severe slap on the wrist.

I was called in as expert witness but never had to testify.

Franz

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[marcdeluca]

The only one I know of from a manufacturer is the Cummins Westport system. I have been running one of my own design on my Duramax for 2 1/2 years now with great success. I use it mainly as an alternative fuel. Most of the time I burn around 3 gal of lp to 1 gal of #2. I can't run that high of ratio when towing, it's more like 2:1 or so. My setup starts lightly pinging as the load increases if you have it set too high, so there is no sudden detonation that can take place.

Marc

 

[Lou Scannon]

Cummins Westport does not make a dual fuel diesel/LPG engine. They do make a dedicated, spark-ignited LPG B5.9 engine. It is mainly sold into street sweeper and phoney cable car bus applications.

Regarding fuel substitution, I figure you start saving money when the cost of LPG per gallon is less than 70% of the cost of diesel, assuming thermal efficiency stays the same.

 

[marcdeluca]

Hemi,
You are exactly right. LP has to be 2/3 the price of #2 to break even. The savings begins when it is less than that. I get lp for $1.45, so it usually saves me around 3¢/mi or so. What is really cool is how much it increases the torque. You have to be careful when towing because the engine doesn't act like it is working hard, but it will cause 5th gear to slip if you aren't careful. (Allison)