Propane Injection

drtydzel · **Posted:** Sat Aug 30, 2008 1:18 am

Has anyone or does anyone here currently have a Propane Injection kit installed on there truck. Can you tell me if it is a MPG helper or just a HP helper im looking to install one on a 2.5L intercooled turbo diesel. When I leave Japan I want to bring it stateside and install it on my powerstroke or my wife's CRD Liberty. I am leaning on the wife's CRD more and am looking more for MPG gains but let me know your experiences on HP uses or MPG uses good bad or indifferent looking for that 30 MPG liberty!!!

SBosco · **Posted:** Sat Aug 30, 2008 12:12 pm

I have not had propane injection on any of my cars but from what I understand it is supposed to increase the overall efficiency of the engine, and consequently increase both fuel mileage and power/engine performance. I considered propane injection for my CRD but decided I didn't want to lose what precious little cargo space we have with a propane tank. There were many companies who make systems/kits but most are designed for the larger trucks with powerstrokes, cummins, and duramax engines. Although I know some are adjustable because they have been used on VW TDIs.

warp2diesel · **Posted:** Sat Aug 30, 2008 2:40 pm

..Just adds more fuel to replace the fuel flowing through the injectors. Back in the old days when fuel was cheap and before electronic diesel injection, Over The Road Trucks had a black smoke trail, on some trucks propane was injected as a torque topper to get the rig over the hill. Since our CRDs don't blow black smoke when they are running well, adding propane injection will little more than add a little torque and replace some of the ULSD in your tank.
Here are some bottom line facts:
Propane has less than 100,000 BTU per gallon and Diesel has 138,000 BTU per gallon

With Diesel at $4.00 per gallon if you want to break even on propane and your installation costs were free you would need to be able to buy propane for $2.85 a gallon :!:

Another thing to factor in is the road tax, Some States (Illinois Does) will go after you if they even suspect you are driving a on road vehicle that is not generating them tax revenue.

Soon this will apply to plug in electric cars as well, after all most politicians can't seem to control their spending. Those Elected Officials who do cut our income and property taxes only do so to grow the economy and put more money in the revenue coffers so they can spend more, not balance the budget as individuals and companies have to do.

curtis · **Posted:** Tue Sep 02, 2008 10:33 pm

warp2diesel wrote:

..Just adds more fuel to replace the fuel flowing through the injectors. Back in the old days when fuel was cheap and before electronic diesel injection, Over The Road Trucks had a black smoke trail, on some trucks propane was injected as a torque topper to get the rig over the hill. Since our CRDs don't blow black smoke when they are running well, adding propane injection will little more than add a little torque and replace some of the ULSD in your tank.
Here are some bottom line facts:
Propane has less than 100,000 BTU per gallon and Diesel has 138,000 BTU per gallon

With Diesel at $4.00 per gallon if you want to break even on propane and your installation costs were free you would need to be able to buy propane for $2.85 a gallon :!:

Another thing to factor in is the road tax, Some States (Illinois Does) will go after you if they even suspect you are driving a on road vehicle that is not generating them tax revenue.

Soon this will apply to plug in electric cars as well, after all most politicians can't seem to control their spending. Those Elected Officials who do cut our income and property taxes only do so to grow the economy and put more money in the revenue coffers so they can spend more, not balance the budget as individuals and companies have to do.

Actually, Propane is a much faster burning fuel so as a result more of your diesel fuel burns in the cylinder instead of burning as it heads out the exhaust. So you get more power due to burning more of the diesel when it counts (during the power stroke) and you also end up with a cleaner tailpipe for the same reasons listed.

The major draw back is carrying the extra tank around.

On a side note, When the world go's to electric cars to help the environment, what ever will we due with the 5 to 10 times the amount of batteries that we will be replacing? Those batteries have some nasty stuff in them.

geordi · **Posted:** Wed Sep 03, 2008 1:36 am

I'm inclined to agree with Curtis, except on one minor point: Propane is a slow burning fuel, it just happens to burn faster than diesel, which is a VERY slow burning fuel.

In the current issue of a diesel magazine (not in front of me, sorry, I'll get the title later) they looked at propane systems. One guy who owns a performance shop and sells chips installed it on his Ford diesel work truck. It went from 14mpg to 26mpg with the same driving conditions.

Thats a healthy result, and enough to convince me that it's not just a driving style change. I'm going to look into one of these systems, just as soon as I can stop looking for hurricanes.

warp2diesel · **Posted:** Wed Sep 03, 2008 6:13 am

..use diesel as a source of ignition and propane or natural gas as the fuel source. In a truck this would increase the MPG of the diesel fuel. Go with the bottom line for comparison. Duel fuel options are as old as the internal combustion engine :!:

Pablo · **Joined:** Thu Feb 02, 2006 10:06 pm **Posts:** 1201

These MPG numbers, how are they figured? Are they a combination of the diesel and propane usage? It is a bit confusing. If I inject 95% propane, I could certainly expect to use 95% less D2 now. So if I get 40 MPG on d2, how many MPG am I getting on the propane?

UFO · **Posted:** Wed Sep 03, 2008 1:40 pm

Propane is a fuel and must be considered when calculating mpg. It's tough to make an mpg statement, as propane and diesel are like apples and oranges, so stating mpg is a little misleading. For example, claiming 150mpg in a plug-in Prius that has been precharged and only driven to the grocery store.

Sir Sam · **Posted:** Wed Sep 03, 2008 2:24 pm

UFO wrote:

Propane is a fuel and must be considered when calculating mpg. It's tough to make an mpg statement, as propane and diesel are like apples and oranges, so stating mpg is a little misleading. For example, claiming 150mpg in a plug-in Prius that has been precharged and only driven to the grocery store.

I think the best way to factor it in would be to calculate the cost of propane per mile driven, then convert that cost into gallons of diesel.

basically, if $20 of propane lasts 1 tank of diesel then your fillup cost would be $100 instead of $80. then divide out that $100 by the cost per gallon to find gallons, then do your miles per gallon.

geordi · **Posted:** Wed Sep 03, 2008 9:47 pm

I don't think the systems are injecting that much propane. Firstly, a stationary or mobile engine that is designed to run on LPG is going to be running on LIQUID propane. The systems I have seen are all designed to pull VAPOR from the tank, not liquid. As a matter of fact, one of the companies mentioned that if you didn't have a safety that prevented liquid entry... Boom.

So it's only injecting propane vapor. Several systems I have been looking at talk about a "trickle" and the system is only active above a certain boost level. Obviously, if you live with your foot riveted to the floor, you are going to burn more of anything. I don't think any of us are going for that however.

Sam, you make a good point about the calculations, and I will make an effort to figure out specifics and work out the costs fully. I'm going to do that not only for the group, but for myself. These systems are all expensive, so I'm not going to make a $500 jump without some GOOD intel and solid answers.

Pablo · **Joined:** Thu Feb 02, 2006 10:06 pm **Posts:** 1201

The thing I am thinking is that the big rig drivers and the companies that use them watch fuel expenditures like hawks. It would seem that if propane saved them cash-- they would all have propane injection. Of course, our stop and go usage pattern is entirely different than over the road trucks, as is our displacement. However, I work for a logistics company and we do stop and go deliveries in town, but no propane injection that I know of.

Sir Sam · **Posted:** Wed Sep 03, 2008 11:36 pm

Pablo wrote:

The thing I am thinking is that the big rig drivers and the companies that use them watch fuel expenditures like hawks. It would seem that if propane saved them cash-- they would all have propane injection. Of course, our stop and go usage pattern is entirely different than over the road trucks, as is our displacement. However, I work for a logistics company and we do stop and go deliveries in town, but no propane injection that I know of.

Except that propane is not as widely available as #2 is, running an OTR truck you would not be able to fill it very often, meaning your savings aren't always there, yet the cost of the equipment is.

nursecosmo · **Posted:** Thu Sep 04, 2008 4:23 pm

when factoring the cost of propane per mile driven look at the BTU value of propane v diesel. Propane has ~91500 BTU per gallon, diesel has ~140000 BTU per gallon. At last check the cost of propane in this area was ~ $2.50 per gallon so it do the math in your area. Currently propane has a slight advantage over diesel in cost per mile driven but that may change at any time depending on the market fluctuations.
On another note, Propane does help diesel burn cleaner and more efficiently especially in older diesel engines but in modern small displacement diesels such as ours the gain in efficiency would be hard to measure when running at stock settings.

Propane Injection

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