Re: [Amc-list] LPG 258

[Tom Jennings <tomj@xxxxxxx>]

Jim Blair wrote:
> Yesterday I was chatting with an LPG agent and he told me that as of
> 2001 the US has started blending Butane in with the LPG and his truck
> which ran excellent for years on the old stuff, now pings. The octane
> equivalent of LPG has dropped to 104 from 130 so if you go past
> 10.25:1, your motor will ping.

It's always been a propane/butane blend, but I imagine that the ratio
went to crap in 2001.

My 9.5 to 1 or 10:1 or so propane motor (232ci) did ping. It never 
COULDN'T ping, I mean depending on timing etc.

Sad to say (or not) modern EFI gets you everything that LPG carburetors 
will do. And LPG is still petroleum, the price tracks the rest of the 
stuff.

In practice it's not much cheaper than gasoline, for two reasons:

* fewer BTUs per unit mass -- you use more fuel (about 15%)
* it's not always cheap

Price can be very good if you buy at big tank farms, but they are open 
8am - 5pm Mon - Fri and are often out for lunch, "driver's out making 
deliveries, come back at 3", you name it I heard it. So more than half 
the time I bought from smaller retailers, and the price was not much 
less than gasoline, because of THEIR cost.

(From the mom'n'pop stores you get the rest of the LPG fuel-up woes:

  * pop doesn't know how to pump it, come back when mom is here
  * we can't sell you road fuel (this is true, it's not legal
    unless the retailer has a road tax certificate, true most states)
  * we don't have that adapter (1-3/4" ACME)

I drove my Classic on 100% LPG (no gasoline tank at all) for 19.75 
years, and I did more than one cross-country road trip, the longest 
being 11,000 miles in 1996. Believe me, I did every trick and heard 
every excuse! It can be done but you gotta be dedicated...


If you drove only in town, had a BIG tank (25+ gallon capacity, not tank 
rating), and you lived such that M-F 8-5 fillups were OK, and you were 
near a tank farm, it'd be not very inconvenient. That's what most fleet 
use is like (laundry trucks, etc). Else fanatical dedication.

My engine sure ran clean though! Here's a photo of some cylinder taken 
this July. What appears to be scores are just wipe-off crap. Built in 
fall of 1987. Valves were toast though.

http://wps.com/AMC/1963-Rambler-Classic-550-Cross-Country/Howell-TBI/images/piston4.JPG

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