LPG

Hi all,

I'm looking to have an LPG conversion on my discovery 2, 4.0L, does anyone have any advise/info on reliable installers, price etc, anything really, I live in south London so London or the south east area would be good.

Thanks Andy

This is not what you will want to hear, but my advice is don't do it. The 94mm bore RV8's are prone to liner slippage (guess how I know?) due to cracking of the block around the liner & there is some evidence the hotter combustion chamber temperatures associated with running on LPG can exacerbate the problem. Even without that possibility you will have to cover a great many miles in order to re-coup the initial cost of the conversion, plus the systems are not always fit-&-forget either

Let alone not being factory fitted the Insurance would love you being a modification. Pending on your average miles per year the recoup cost on injection system plus ved and recovery service also london commute then finally insurance cover.

LPG systems are not all the same, DIY under £1000 easily but the best systems are not DIY as they sell only to specialists.

My last car had a DIY fitted SGI system which had a certificate and no changes to my insurance.

You will need to use a piggyback type SGI system and NOT mixers.

SGI systems interface with the injector looms and operate gas injectors cutting out the petrol ones. They also alter the mapping depending on RPM and injector duration.

Small errors in mapping are covered by the car changing the petrol map from Lambda signals.

SGI are easy to fit, easy to configure, reliable, and just work.

Professsional fitted systems are only worth the money when Prinz. (I think that was the name)

Hi all, thanks for the info, not sure what I'm going to do now, I had a range rover on lpg previously that didn't effect the insurance but don't like the sound of what norseman said, I'll have to think about it.

The bog standard SGI systems are all of a muchness, same ECUs, similar vapourisers, comes down to injectors, eg Romano have quiet ones, OMVL have better flowing but more troublesome ones, Prins which was not DIYable uses something quite good.

Other systems are liquid injection, mixers (yuk)

6 types, 4 are crap, 1 good, 1 excellent but slightly unreliable
http://www.lpgc.co.uk/index_files/TypesofLPGsystems.htm

Im waiting to fit lpg to my p38 iv had a 2nd hand system sitting here a while. It was removed from a working car and its a prinzs system. My current insurance company wont cover lpg but others iv asked will no problem.

You could do the same as me buy 2nd hand or even new and self install then its worth the cost as lpg near me is 61 ppl half that of petrol

Mmm, not sure about a diy install, I'm ok with mechanical but don't like electrical and after reading the info in the link you sent the setup sounds like it could be quite complicated.

P.s, to Biketeacherdave, I see your in south east london also, how do you find actually buying the lpg, I've done google searches and there doesn't seen to be many suppliers left now that BP have stopped selling it?

A 2nd hand unit would just be plug and play like mine all the hard works been done

Look at this on eBay http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/302412202111

Try charles

biketeacherdave said:

A 2nd hand unit would just be plug and play like mine all the hard works been done

Click to expand...

Think quick fill. If you plan on filling it through an 8mm pipe, bring a good book and an electric razor to the filling station

I had a 3.5 Kia Sorento running on LPG. It did 20mpg on petrol and 16mpg on gas but I had to drive an extra 10 miles to a garage that sold it. It would do between 250 and 275 miles per 75 litre tank full. The gas tank was mounted where the spare wheel used to be so the spare had to sit in the boot and it is a big bugger. Unless you are clever mechanically, you need to get the gas system serviced annually which costs anything between £150 and £250. The nearest service place to me is 60 miles away so 120 mile round trip. I bought the car with the system already installed but I was told it cost just under £2000. I would buy a duel fuel car again but I would not go to the expense of having the system fitted myself unless it was on a new car I planned to keep. Your insurer will insist on a certificate and it will have to be on a register.

Col

biketeacherdave said:

its worth the cost as lpg near me is 61 ppl half that of petrol

Click to expand...

That was to reasoning behind my decision to convert, but any such short-term gains were totally wiped out long term by the installation costs, problems with the LPG system itself just after the warranty ran out & finally a replacement block when the liner slipped. An expensive lesson learned & although my current 3.5 is not known as being susceptible to the problem I'll never touch LPG again

The thing is it is not that difficult.

Take a EFI engine and a SGI kit.

Tank at the back, 6mm pipe to front, into the vapouriser, hot water feed into that, suggest getting hot water feed from the pipes to the heater.

Drill and tap inlet manifold for the injector nozzles, best to do a swap out on this item.

Petrol injector wires plug into a loom, adjacant plug onto the injector.

Wiring requires power, RPM (crank sensor), injector intercept loom or 2 (as above) then another loom to the gas injectors. Then temperature sensor on the vapouriser, solenoids on vapouriser and tank, feed to tank sensor, and a lead to the control unit.

Prepare it and 2 days or so, professionals normally have them a week.