the hydrogen thread got me thinking. the turbo buick and viper guys are using propane (the kit for the buicks is the "pro pain" kit).

the gas has high octane, is cheap, won't break down like alchy, and is relatively forgiving. only issue is calibration and watching the bottle pressure (like nitrous) so a bottle warmer would be needed.

has anyone done this on a FI vette. I'm not much of a pioneer but quite a few folks have had some great success with these setups but I've never heard them mentioned by the vette crowd.

thanks for any thoughts.

 

I know of a guy who was using propane for his F/I applications on his 3000GT VR-4. I don't belive anyone here has yet to do a propane system to help them increase their octane.

 

 

i have heard of cars running 100% propane, but not as an adaative on petrol engines. i have heard of guys running it on deisels and amke BIG gains from it! they run ALOT quieter to!

also heard of a guy (with a 27ltr merlin engine out of a tank in a car!!!! ) running his engine on it!

hummmmm whats the octane rating of propane? its would basically just be like adding more fuel right? you might get some cooling benifits to. be nice to see some results!

Chris.

PS got any links to the buick stuff? would like a look. hehe

 

I used it on my car back when it had my single turbo installed. I switched to alky because none of the propane systems effectively metered the amount of propoane. It was difficult to tune with and you always had to worry about tank temp/pressure. With the alky, as long as the tank is full and the pump is working everything works as needed you are fine.

 

That sums it up nicely

Keith

 

I saw this guy at a college football game. He had a hose running from his car to his barbequer and was cooking bratz and steaks.

 

 

A friend of mine has been using the "Pro Pain" kit on his Viper for years now. He put a Roe blower on it years ago and was worried about the stock fuel system not keeping up. The stock fuel system kept up fine, but then he got the wild hair to put nitrous on the car as well, then he really got concerned about fuel. We started talking about possible solutions, not including a complete fuel system upgrade, and alcohol and propane came up. He's been using the Pro Pain kit for 3 years (maybe 4) as a fuel suppliment for the nitrous he sprays into the engine.

He chose the Pro Pain kit since it has a controller and a proper regulator that wasn't available for the propane kit that was being marketed by a Viper guy. As proven results, though, the Viper kit has gone well into the 9s on a few cars. Tuning the propane has never been a huge issue either. He can make two passes, one on the spray and the other off and determine if his propane is set correctly. If it's too rich, turn the regulator down a touch and vice versa if it's lean.

I'd say that for FI cars, alcohol is a much better solution since it has a net effect of air charge cooling that you don't get with propane. However, propane works wonders as a fuel suppliment for nitrous if you don't have enough fuel system to keep up.

 

Nitrous and Propane are much different than Nitrous and turbo/supercharger. What typically happens is that the Propane, unless regulated meters the same amount of gas at 2psi as it does at 15psi. Its tricky to get the A/F right and when the tank gets low or it gets cold out, the amount of gas injected is incosistent. I first learned about propane injection on the buick site and saw some use on NOS/Vipers. If somone could develop a progressive controller it might work better, but at time that I ran the ProPane kit, it was off/on.

 

Here' s thread with mucho info, might be able to gleen some insight.
Propane/Nitrous Thread
Robert

 

You run the same issue with the solenoids with propane. I worked on making a progressive controller for propane 3 years ago. Problem came back to the solenoid.. if you tap.tap.tap.tap.. it beats the seat to hell.. and then you have a nice propane leak.

Bottle pressure is also hard to maintain, and bottle pressure plays with consistency. Then you have when it runs out.. your out. You wont know until you lean out one day. A small bottle of propane can last a month.

There are positives and negatives to everything. I think its better suited for the diesels.. they''ll burn anything. And only a very very few turbo buicks I know of ever messed with propane. Cant same the same for other cars.. it was popular.. and fizzled out.

HTH

 

Tony has yet to have an issue with the propane being off/on. He's running Jay Carter's Pro Pain kit for that was developed for Buicks. When he's running the nitrous/propane on the car, tuning air/fuel hasn't been a huge issue. The Pro Pain kit is regulated where lots of the other kits on the market are not, and that's why Tony chose that kit. So to clear things up, Tony is running a Roe blower along with nitrous/propane. In the beginning the propane was used as fuel suppliment for the nitrous since his stock fuel system wouldn't have kept up with demand. The fuel system has been upgraded on the car at this point that it wouldn't be an issue, but he's keeping the propane on there since he's able to tune it the way he wants fairly easily.

There is a guy that was selling nitrous/propane kits for Vipers, and his kit was unregulated. That being said, his Viper has been well into the 9's on his setup, so the results are there.