Alternative fuels And Performance?

[LowBuckX]

What do we know about alternative fuels and the performance possibilities
of such fuels for use in Hot rods and race cars?
I mean fuels like Propane (LP) Natural gas , E85, Methanal ethanal Etc etc.

I know with a compressed gas you would have the added weight of armored holding tanks and issues with no upper cylinder lubrication. But there are ways to fix that.

What other limitations are there besides system upgrades and refill stations.



We will need to find other ways of fueling our rides one day shouldnt we think of this sooner than later....

[indyjps]

ive wondered about natural gas or propane injection instead of nitrous. the turbo diesel guys due it, ive just never checked out any of those sites.

[LowBuckX]

Im very suprised that with all the knowledge on this site this post would go unanswered for so long.

[Kenova]

It's crossed my mind on occasion.
Propane - octane in the neighborhood of 100 to 110 - tank pressure of 125psi. - heavier than air.
Natural Gas - similar octane - lighter than air, but a full tank will have pressure close to 3000psi. (I think). Which one do you want under your butt?
I don't care too much for the "mixers" that are used to regulate the propane going into the engine. They take up a huge chunk of underhood realestate and don't appear to have a very big cfm rating. I'd like to see the propane injected, similar to gasoline. The hard part would be building an injection system that can handle the pressure.
Ken

[my72vette454]

I have a 440 dodge motor that I built years ago for a challenger thats running about 11.5 to 1 comp ratio and I put it in a dodge pickup a few years ago and I couldnt get it to run good on premium gas so I converted it over to propane and it runs great. I was able to run the timing back up where it needed to be and no detonation. The down side is a 4 bbl propane setup is only about 450 cfm and it runs out of air about 4500 rpm. I have another 4 bbl setup and a tunnelram that I am going to stick on it one day and see how it changes things. A friend of mine has a powerstroke that he has done alot of work on and he gets me off the line but from 20 mph we run dead even till mine gets up to the 4500 rpm in high and kinda dies out. It seems like years ago there was a company that had a propane injection kit you could put on a gas engine that was supposed to boost power under full throttle.

[buick_jeff]

I spent a few years doing alt fuels for an engine mfr and the Dept of Energy. Here's what I can remember off the top of my head.

Propane and natural gas - high compression (Ford ran their CNG Crown Vics at something close to 12:1) but the gaseous nature of the fuel kills volumetric efficiency as the fuel competes with air for space in the cylinder. You could run either with a turbo and that might alleviate some of the vol eff concern. Tanks are bullet-proof (literally) but may be difficult to package depending on the application.

Methanol and ethanol - again, higher octane but less specific energy for equivalent weight when compared to gasoline. We ran methanol turbo buicks as a demonstration fleet - great power but had to double the fuel tank size to get equivalent vehicle range plus everything that touches fuel has to be changed to stainless or something similar that does not corrode when exposed to alcohol.

And from a practical perspective, fueling stations are hard to find.

There's a reason gasoline is so prevalent...

Any more questions, fire away.

J

[LowBuckX]

tunnel ram and 2 450 cfm mixers sounds fun.

So with Propane what fuel milage would be exspected with say 460HP @ 6000 RPM. (DOUBLE MIXERS)
Or how would you word that? miles per pound?

[my72vette454]

When I used to drive the pickup on the road on a regular basis I would get about 10 mpg, that was with the stock low compression smogger motor. When I put the built motor in my mileage went to 8. This is a 3/4 ton extended cab 4X4 with 4.11 gears. When I did the propane thing It maybe went to 7 or so, not much different. Now its just a play toy for the mud and snow, I have 38" mud tires on it right now.

[Martin71RS]

I run on LPG (propane) and the mpg isn't much different from normal fuel..... horsepower is affected (about -10%) but it costs about a thrid of normal fuel...

My car can run on fuel and LPG...with a dedicated LPG carb the horsepower loss will be gone (at a lesser mpg)

exhaust gas is much cleaner on LPG....smells funny though.

some pics on my page www.pro-touring.nl page 16

It is a very common system overhere on classic cars......

for fuel injected cars there are LPI systems, they inject liquid propane
http://www.vialle.nl/ for some info on LPG (english)

[Steve Chryssos]

I'm in denial.

[Kenova]

It is a very common system overhere on classic cars......

for fuel injected cars there are LPI systems, they inject liquid propane
http://www.vialle.nl/ for some info on LPG (english)

Thanks for the link Martin. I figured it was a good enough idea that someone would have found a way to do it. Now if I can only get this universal translator to work..... :comp3: . I'll have to see if I can find a Canadian or U.S. web sight.
What a thought..... electronic fuel injection, 11.5:1 compression, and 100 octane fuel for less than the cost of 87 octane swill. . Hey, I can dream can't I?
Ken

[Martin71RS]

just reviving a very old thread....

I now have a 100% propane system on a 400sbc with 10.5:1cr and it smokes the tires with 2.73 gears....plenty of power only the mpg is around 7 I guess...still need to measure that properly though. This motor was dynoed with another LPG (propane) system @ 340hp at the wheels.
My system has higher cfm and should put out some more.

the milage sucks but the power doesnt :-)

[LowBuckX]

3 year old post of mine that I still wonder about. Maybe some newer blood can shed some light on this.

---- E85 has been talked about to death how about some talk on the Propane and other compressed gasses...

[shizzy]

how does one figure MPG with propane? Im trying to get my head around the gas mileage differences between LP and gasoline

[Beige]

It's about the same as e-85 in btu's and octane. The milage should be similar.

Liquid Propane weighs about 5 lbs a gallon. Which is lighter than gasoline.

If you've messed with a propane grill or a space heater, you'll know that the output of a tank drops well before it's empty, though.

[Martin71RS]

milage at the same power level will be about 75 to 80% to that of gasoline. The advantage is the higher octane number and it's 2.4 times cheaper per liter overhere.
there is a great forum on alternative fuels here:
http://fuelsforum.rasoenterprises.com/index.php

Martin