2001 V70 P2 converted to LPG
 

Glad the forum's back again. When it was off air I had my V70 converted to LPG. Here's a few words and pictures for those considering it.

I've had my V70 for two years now, it was relatively cheap from a car supermarket and what I've earnt in business mileage has paid for it. Two years on and I'm still happy with it, but decided I'd dip my toe in the LPG market and see what its like.

In May I took it to www.gas4cars.com and for £1600 they converted it to LPG. It took 2 days and I had a great service from Stuart than runs it.

Included in the price was a colour coded cap.

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The filler locks onto this brass fitting. It's a bit awkward to fit, and can be a bit scary when you disconnect after filling as the gas escapes. You can get cold burns from it, not that I have, but it escapes with a whoosh as you disconnect. But like all things you get used to it, but some connectors are more awkward than others.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...0/DSCN2857.jpg

The tank is in the spare wheel well. It was only a space saver anyway, and included in the price was a can of squirty inflator. You also lose the black plastic tray that sits below the boot floor, but there's a bit of storage around the tank for toolkit, spare bulbs etc. The tank is 61 litres, but for safety it only fills to 80% capacity so I generally get 52 litres to full.

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Here's the heart of it. The computer is the purple box in the bottom right, there's a filter on the rhs of the manifold and there is a separate injector for each of the 5 cylinders.

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The gauge/control is a small discrete button. It displays reserve (as shown) and up to 4 bars of fullness, but its so variable I just use the trip meter. The square button turns it manually from gas to petrol and back again.

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It starts on petrol, and when its up to temp it switches to gas. I can only tell by the light switching on the gauge, it doesn't sound or feel any different. Performance wise gas is not meant to have any loss, and I can't say I've noticed any myself. Although if you're heavy on the pedal when low on gas it can't cope and switches to petrol, even if there's another 20 odd miles left if driven easy.

I used to spend just over 20p per mile on petrol (calculated when it was 110ppl). On gas its generally between 10 and 12p per mile (based on 52 - 62ppl).

Downsides are smaller tank and range on LPG of 250 ish miles, although combined with the petrol I have a range of over 700 miles. You queue more, usually having to wait for the pump to come free when people are filling diesel/petrol where the LPG is. Also hunting places that sell it can be a pain, but you can get a glovebox atlas or satnav overlays.

I've done over 12k miles so far including a 4.5k road trip to Sweden, around the Baltic Sea, and back. I had to buy 2 different converters for Europe, a cup type (that worked most places) and a screw type (that worked in Germany). Ironically the only place I couldn't get gas was in Sweden as they have a pipe type fitting, and the LPG stations are signposted 'Fordonsgas' and I wasn't!

It's been faultless so far, touch wood, and I'm well on the way to paying for the conversion. I'm glad I took the plunge.

How long does it take...
 

for the car to switch over to gas when started first thing? I do mainly short journeys 2-5miles so I am wondering if I will be at my destination before it switches to gas.
Thanks
Mark

A few hundred metres when it was warmer, maybe half a mile now its colder. That's from cold in the morning. If the engine's still warm its pretty much straight away.

Thanks you...
 

its nice to hear from someone with first hand experience. I looked at the installers site and couldn't work out which make of Sequential Gas Injection yours is. Prinz, BRC etc. Could you tell me please. The price is good.
Mark

Thanks for the interest Mark.

It's a bigas system, [PHP]http://www.bigas.it/HomePage.asp?lang=eng[/PHP]

BRC would have been £50 more, PRINS £125 more. Stuart made no attempt to sell me a more expensive system, he said the Bigas system was as good as any.

I've had 2 'services' now. Which is a chap coming out with a chipped mug of dilute washing up liquid and an old paintbrush to check for leaks! No problems :thumbs_up:

Hi Fordy

The LPG job looks very neat.

I had the conversion done almost 4 yrs and over 110,000 miles ago - and I've been really pleased with it.

If I may, I'd recommend that you get that filter swapped every 10 to 12k - LPG is actually a very dirty fuel, and it's amazing the c*@p that collects in the filter.

If the filter gets too dirty you'll get a pressure drop and running problems.

Cheers

Jack


PS: My leak tests are done with squirty bottle of soapy water rather than an old paintbrush!

Thanks capt jack, I'll check out the filter :thumbs_up: