Propane and Kerosene

[oilpan49]

Hey,

I was reading the local paper and in the Autos for sale section was a 92 S-10 natural gas powered truck for sale. This caught my eye and then I started to ponder. I suspect the trucks owner lives out in the sticks and has his own propane supply and or the truck was used as a company truck in which the company supplied the propane.

To my understanding, it's not difficult to convert your regular everyday vehicle to propane. How expensive it is to do it, I don't know but I am curious. To my knowledge, propane powered vehicles have alittle bit more oooomph to them as far as acceleration as well as they burn cleaner and get considerably better gas mileage vs. your regular unleaded gas vehicle. I would like to know more about this and look into as possibly maybe doing it myself someday?? Do I work for an industrial farm or have my own propane supply?? no. Something I like to ponder.

Ok now moving on to Kerosene(aka refined diesel) To my understanding, Kerosene is like race fuel as 110 octane is to a high performance car, correct?? Again to my knowledge, kerosene will give a diesel engine the same effect as far as acceleration and power goes as with a gas powered vehicle running on propane, more ooomph. Am I right??? I wonder, is it possible to convert a kerosene and then at the same time, install a Banks power pack system?? Talk about muchas towing power! Please don't laugh, I'm only free thinking and brainstorming. Thanks,,,,,,AR

 

[XS650]

quote:

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Originally posted by Airborne Ranger:
Hey,

I was reading the local paper and in the Autos for sale section was a 92 S-10 natural gas powered truck for sale. This caught my eye and then I started to ponder. I suspect the trucks owner lives out in the sticks and has his own propane supply and or the truck was used as a company truck in which the company supplied the propane.

To my understanding, it's not difficult to convert your regular everyday vehicle to propane. How expensive it is to do it, I don't know but I am curious. To my knowledge, propane powered vehicles have alittle bit more oooomph to them as far as acceleration as well as they burn cleaner and get considerably better gas mileage vs. your regular unleaded gas vehicle. I would like to know more about this and look into as possibly maybe doing it myself someday?? Do I work for an industrial farm or have my own propane supply?? no. Something I like to ponder.

Ok now moving on to Kerosene(aka refined diesel) To my understanding,

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Propane gives less HP than gasoline. You also burn more if it because it has less energy than gasoline per gallon. You can reduce the loss somewhat by rebuilding your engine to take advantage of the roughly 108 octane rating of propane.

Kerosene has less energy than diesel fuel. Lower power and you'll burn more of it to do the same amount of work.

The US Army has lot of experiance using JP-8 jet fuel which is about the same as Jet-A in diesel vehivcles. The power loss and increase in fuel consumption is roughly 5%. Kerosene has similar properties to JP-8. You can gain some of the power back by using more JP-8, but you can't make up for the economy loss.

 

[Chris142]

You burn roughly 2 times as much Propane as you would gasoline.

I used to drive a Propane powered Propane delivery truck. Had a 429 Ford industrial engine.

We were always having problems with the "Carburetor" thing on these trucks and it was very expensive to replace.

 

[Steve S]

I have experience with propane powered vehicles . In converting to propane there is at least 10% loss of power and feul mileage unless engine mods are done to raise the compression quite a bit, maybe a turbo. I can't remember the octane but it is around or over 110 . Kerosene is used in diesel engines in some ground equipment at airports "jet feul" I am not sure of a difference in power.

 

[Steve S]

I knew XS650 would know ,just too fast for me

 

[Steve S]

quote:

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Originally posted by Chris142:


We were always having problems with the "Carburetor" thing on these trucks and it was very expensive to replace.

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I made lots of $$$ changing " carburetor" things.

 

[oilpan49]

Hey,

**** ! I was wrong on just about everything I originally posted. Nuff said, lol,,,,,AR

 

[John K]

If I'm not mistaken, kerosene lacks the lubricity of diesel fuel, and is lower in btu value. I used to add kerosene to the tank of my diesel Rabbit when the temperature got really low(around 0 F, because it would help with starting. Without the kerosene added you had to worry about waxes forming in the fuel lines. I remember reading that you should avoid adding more than 15% or so....... I never had trouble with starting it.

 

[eljefino]

They mix kerosene in with the pump diesel in winter anyway to prevent gelling. You notice it when things get doggy and mileage falls through the floor. Adding untaxed (red dye) kerosene could land you in some trouble... and $/mile probably wouldn't even make it worth it.

 

[tom slick]

quote:

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Originally posted by eljefino:
They mix kerosene in with the pump diesel in winter anyway to prevent gelling. You notice it when things get doggy and mileage falls through the floor. Adding untaxed (red dye) kerosene could land you in some trouble... and $/mile probably wouldn't even make it worth it.

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i believe winter diesel is called diesel #1.

 

[MAJA]

The last time I bought kerosene it was about 60 percent higher than gasoline. That should put it around 17 dollars a gallon today. Seriously, it is higher per gallon, and not as readily available.

Old tractors in the 30's, 40's, and 50's used kerosene, also called distillate. They had relatively low compression, to cope with the kerosene, and low horsepower. It wasnt until the compression was increased, to use regular gas only, that the horsepower increased. Maybe that should tell us something.

 

[seotaji]

I wrote a paper on this when i attended college.

LPG is a wonderful internal-combustion fuel. For automotive iron produced before approximately 1980 the advantages are pretty much as I describe them I believe -- a hands-down winner. This is because these old cast iron engines are so terribly inefficient and broadly-tuned to begin with (eg. '63 Rambler) that the enhancements made via LPG retrofit amount to "picking the low-hanging fruit".

However, modern designs like run-of-the-mill Honda Civics have already picked all of the low hanging fruit, easy to do when you have a crew of engineers, a budget and five-year plan: computerized closed-loop (OBD II, etc), excellent metallurgy, accurate hydrodynamic modelling, etc. A horsepower per cubic inch used to be the realm of $1M race cars; now every cheap import's got that. My Rambler's 232 cubic inch motor gets about .35 HP/cu in! I love it dearly, it's a pleasure to drive and work on, but it's as big and heavy as two Civic's complete drive trains.

Let's say LPG on a mid-60's engine gives a 50% improvement in tailpipe pollutants (just a hazardous guess). An equivelant 1995 motor with air mass, tailpipe O2, knock sensors and fuel injection has long ago grabbed up that "easy" 50% improvement, and then some; ULEV cars are barely measurable. Adding LPG to the mix would get it... 5% better? 10%? 1%? bang per buck, it's not worth the overall increased system cost.

 

[rol1]

LPG=liquified petrolium gas=the way it is shipped in cean tankers.

CNG=compressed natural gas=as used in vehicles dispensed from equipment hooked to gas utilities lines.

PPG=butane=as despensed from trucks to customer's storage tanks.

JP4, JP8, jet fuel=kerosene=was cheap when used for lights, now the airlines have driven up the price.

 

[deepsquat]

My dad converted his Ford F 150 over to propane back during the last gas crunch during the early 80s ...is cost him around 1000$ is advantage was the 70 gallon prpane tank! ..also price of propane at the time was .70c a gallon when gas was 1.29 he only lost 1 MPG went from 12 to 11 mpg oil stayed much cleaner ..but lost a slight amount of power //....and that crboratour thingy did go out on us once and left me stranded !

 

[oilpan49]

hmmmmmm, less power, need something to bump the compression such as turbo or supercharger, gives you slightly less MPG's but oil stays cleaner.

I imagine if you were going to use a FI system instead of carburetors, you would need to build one of your own or heavily modify a your system. Just random thinking,,,,,AR

 

[Shannow]

Airborne Ranger, there is an Oz comapny doing just that.

They use high pressure fuel injectors to inject liquid propane into the normal injection point for modern FI engines.

The latent heat of evaporation goes into increased charge density.

 

[oilpan49]

My ex place of business they used Hyster(sp?) forklifts that used Chevy 1.8L 4cyl engines running on propane. While I never had the oppurtunity to really study under the hood of those things so to speak and would someday like to gander at a few to get a better idea of what needs to be done to a motor in order to run on propane.

I would imagine you would still need to change oil maybe just not as often with propane? am I right? Thanks,,,,,AR

 

[Steve S]

quote:

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Originally posted by Airborne Ranger:
My ex place of business they used Hyster(sp?) forklifts that used Chevy 1.8L 4cyl engines running on propane. While I never had the oppurtunity to really study under the hood of those things so to speak and would someday like to gander at a few to get a better idea of what needs to be done to a motor in order to run on propane.

I would imagine you would still need to change oil maybe just not as often with propane? am I right? Thanks,,,,,AR

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Airborne I think the hyster engines are 3 liter chev engines. With a non fuel injected engine all that is needed is to add a fuel lockoff valve and a vaporizer and a propane carb.