LPG CONVERSIONS - REWIEW 3

Advantages: Cost of fuel, cleaner emmisions, better for engine oil

Disadvantages: Initial cost, lack of filing stations, tanks space

Recommendable Yes:

I have fitted a Romano System N SGI system to my Omega 2.6 V6, it can off a previous car which had issues.

I will cover day to day first.

The car starts on petrol then switches to gas when ready, the switch also allows petrol usage as desired.

The car is a tiny bit slower than on petrol and a bit thirstier (Propane has a lower energy density per litre than petrol), it is also a little quieter on gas.

Day to day fuel costs are roughly half that of petrol despite autogas being slightly less than half the cost.

The car can be difficult to fire occasionally on petrol, this can be cut down by using injector cleaner and also switching to petrol for a second before turning the engine off. Petrol evaporates from around the injectors and can leave deposites blocking them.

The car also takes 5 miles to fully adjust to a particular fuel, after running out of gas the car ran a lot better after 5 miles and after I refilled it ran better again after 5 miles, this is the ECU learning. It is of little consequence but useful to know.

There are not very many filling stations, and the ones there are tend to be in pockets, however I have only once ran out of gas, and I had a full tank of petrol to fall back on. Filling a tank usually takes about 5 or 6 minutes.

Installation, this is the most critical bit, there are quite a few different types of systems, the best for a modern multipoint fuel injected car is the Sequential Gas Injection system (SGI) this works on the following principals.

Tank, liquid gas flows from here to the evaporator heated by the cars cooling system. From here the gas travels to the gas manifold where it is connected to the injectors, the injectors squirt gas into the inlet manifolds.

SGI uses the cars own ECU to control the gs injectors, it uses interface cables to the petrol injectors which tell the gas system when to fire and for how long, it also prevents the petrol injectors from firing.

Other systems are single point injection and mixers but I do not know too much about them.

A good installer can be difficult to find as certain cars need certain techniques, a good example is mine, you need to get the water for the evaporator from one pair of pipes or it does not run too well.

For Omegas there is a good resource at http://www.omegaowners.com written by myself, a good site for systems is http://www.autogasworldwide.co.uk

If you go the DIY route you need to have good support and know what you are doing, I took a total of 30 hours to convert mine, this includes fitting a tank, fitting pipework and wiring, fitting T pieces into the heater circuit to supply hot water for the evaporator, and fitting injectors to the engine.

Was it worth it?

Yes, I save over £100 on fuel a month and a professional install is around £1800, DIY around £800