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Oddly, my factory Bi-fuel still burns Petrol

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Old Jul 2nd, 2013, 23:18   #21
Pete_c20
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Originally Posted by TomW View Post
Reading more of this thread, I am now wondering if Volvo designed the Bi-fuels to run on a trickle of petrol. Would volvo know the answer to this question if asked? I somehow manage to use 3 or 4 gallons a month of petrol.
I would say not as petrol being consumed at this rate wasn't there when the car was new. My 2002 S40 1.8 now consumes petrol at about 4-6 times the rate it did when new.
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Old Jul 3rd, 2013, 02:25   #22
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..... The fault costs me £150 a year...........<snip>....... we're almost better to live with it. For me it'll take 2 years to pay for itself, excluding the hassle.
£150 that you know of due to excess petrol. But I do wonder if the addition of petrol also impacts the LPG fuel economy?

I was chewing this over today on the backburner and thinking through the injector problem, as it's looking likely they start to weep at some stage. That 42 page thread on injectors looks tasty but will take some reading. But here's at least a couple of cases where 99.9% of the car miles have been LPG so it's not like the injectors have worn out. So I'm thinking they've either become dirty or deteriorated. And if they're dirty I'm wondering about manually or ultrasonically cleaning them.

Another thought was to burn 1/2 a tank of petrol with injector cleaner in it, but I'm not sure if I could bring myself to burn that much petrol in one go. The shame of it!

Nobody has mentioned ECU codes yet. Does anybody have any relevant codes showing? I only have a cheap as chips ELM327 reader for basic stuff but that shows a long term fuel trim of 5% rich. I'm not sure it's related.
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Old Jul 3rd, 2013, 09:23   #23
reggit
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Originally Posted by Pete_c20 View Post

Another thought was to burn 1/2 a tank of petrol with injector cleaner in it, but I'm not sure if I could bring myself to burn that much petrol in one go. The shame of it!
That's only about £20 if I remember back to when I got the car and the LPG wasn't working!

Quote:

Nobody has mentioned ECU codes yet. Does anybody have any relevant codes showing? I only have a cheap as chips ELM327 reader for basic stuff but that shows a long term fuel trim of 5% rich. I'm not sure it's related.
VIDA doesn't store much on the LPG system, I've only seen a stepper motor error on mine - when the stepper was intermittent. The only other code it's thrown was a 'long term fuel trim' when the MAF was duff (I think someone saw me coming when I bought the car!), although this didn't say which fuel it related to.
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Old Jul 3rd, 2013, 10:53   #24
CNGBiFuel
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Default There are little or no codes from the Necam

I've played the Necam code game. There are little or no codes to read from the Necam system. Reading that injector cleaner thread and it seems to bear out here, gas of whichever flavour is actually worse for injectors than running said liquid thru' them.

My Bifuel has 100K odd of almost exclusive petrol miles, and if I understand correctly, yours Pete has exactly the opposite. Injector wear is a factor of mileage, not petrol use. Wear is made greater teh more you use gas. Quite why i'm not sure i understand. I'm readign that injector thread now. Which expalins why your problem is more severe than mine, you've used more gas. A paradox. I have no startign issues, whereas you're on the edge of driveability by the sound of it.

As for the £150 a year, it's not that it is a snip, it persists me off, I don't like buying idiot-juice either. I resent going to the forecourt at all, and save for this I wouldn't. But £150 a year si about all I spend on fuel, (well, on a petrol forecourt anyway).

If you're running a MY1998 Bi-fuel you must have the same injector set-up as my MY1999. Fuel pump cannot be switched off or my valve trick used. We ahve to clean or reaplce injectors. For £4.00 I'm going to put a bottle of Comma injector cleaner in there. Don't bother with STP or wynns I'm told (twice the price and the same stuff). I suspect it will not work but so cheap it si worth a go. I'll fuel my car with the stuff for 3-4 tanks to see it if flushes thru'.

I see used injector rails for 2.4 Volvos go on the 'bay for £20, trouble is I don't knwo what I should be buying. Monkeh tells... seems the T5 is not the same part.

I find Google translate a bit cumbersoem but I got a lot form here, if not, how's your German??...

Try: http://www.erdgasfahrer-forum.de/vie...1f281025101a78

Or Swedish

http://translate.google.co.uk/transl...rum%2F&act=url
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Last edited by CNGBiFuel; Jul 3rd, 2013 at 11:51.
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Old Jul 3rd, 2013, 11:23   #25
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Funny you should mention codes, I keep getting a 'long term fuel trim lean' Code and Knock sensor. With leaky injectors, I would expect a rich code.
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Old Jul 3rd, 2013, 14:31   #26
Pete_c20
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Default Jims Injector cleaning thread

To save folks reading the 42 pages of the injector cleaning thread, here's a synopsis of it, having skim read all 42 pages.

Jim offered a first class and very reliable injector cleaning service for petrol only injectors. He never did diesel as they run at about 19Kpsi as opposed to 44psi.
90% of the thread is people asking for quotes/if it'll work for their type/make/model and Jim responding. There isn't a bad word on there. His results, feedback and turn round times were excellent

In Jan 2012 following a disagreement with a friend and also Jim's wife being rushed into hospital following a suspected heart attack he can no longer offer the service. His friend continued it for a while. In August 2012 Jim mentions suffering a bereavement and that the service has ended.

Having read that, and another interesting source of info is to search youtube for injector cleaning/cleaners, I would say that injector weep is looking like a good one to investigate.
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Old Jul 3rd, 2013, 14:48   #27
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Originally Posted by CNGBiFuel View Post
I've played the Necam code game. There are little or no codes to read from the Necam system. Reading that injector cleaner thread and it seems to bear out here, gas of whichever flavour is actually worse for injectors than running said liquid thru' them.
Yep, so have I. At one stage I had the LPG ECU with its pants down and scoped every one of its lines to see if there was a diagnostics code to be had anywhere. While running and also on power up. I could find one that appeared just after power up that looks like a diagnostics code but I can't make sense of it....yet. It'll be in there somewhere!
If you do come across a code you're trying to figure out run it by me as I've been collecting LPG manuals for some time now and anything to do with koltec/necam stuff.

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Originally Posted by CNGBiFuel View Post
My Bifuel has 100K odd of almost exclusive petrol miles, and if I understand correctly, yours Pete has exactly the opposite. Injector wear is a factor of mileage, not petrol use. Wear is made greater teh more you use gas. Quite why i'm not sure i understand. I'm readign that injector thread now. Which expalins why your problem is more severe than mine, you've used more gas. A paradox. I have no startign issues, whereas you're on the edge of driveability by the sound of it.
Hmmn interesting. Yes mines done about 126K miles on LPG and under about 1K on petrol. It's been driven on petrol so little that my other half and I would take the mick out of one another for burning petrol. Buying petrol became a real closet thing :-).

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Originally Posted by CNGBiFuel View Post
If you're running a MY1998 Bi-fuel you must have the same injector set-up as my MY1999. Fuel pump cannot be switched off or my valve trick used. We ahve to clean or reaplce injectors. For £4.00 I'm going to put a bottle of Comma injector cleaner in there. Don't bother with STP or wynns I'm told (twice the price and the same stuff). I suspect it will not work but so cheap it si worth a go. I'll fuel my car with the stuff for 3-4 tanks to see it if flushes thru'.
Be interesting to know how that goes. Not sure which setup I have but will try to figure it out. Will have a look at those links a bit later. Ta.

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Originally Posted by CNGBiFuel View Post
I see used injector rails for 2.4 Volvos go on the 'bay for £20, trouble is I don't know what I should be buying. Monkeh tells... seems the T5 is not the same part.
In Jim's injector cleaning thread somebody asked the question ' Hi would you happen to know what cc the t5 injectors flow please' and Jim answered 'Orange 315cc blues 366cc @ 3 bar. Temperature/humidity dependant'. So it looks like the colour denotes capacity and some other spec too. I'm sure somebody on the wider forum knows a lot about this stuff.
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Old Jul 4th, 2013, 10:23   #28
CNGBiFuel
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Buying some used injectors is where I'm at with this. Like you I buy the idiot-juice only when i have to. If I can get a rail for £25-30 and find 2-3 of them 'shot' so be it. If 2 or more are good I'm in front and maybe I'll have a set of 5 iffy ones to send off to be cleaned by a specialist.
Thus a swap-out set is on hand. If I get a mo' I'll do some leg work on finding out which injectors we are supposed to look for.

I'm thinking this issue may be doing harm too. On gas if one cylinder is running very rich, 'cos it's getting petrol with gas, the lambda/ECU will sense thsi and wrongly weaken down the gas-mixture.

Using petrol to wash bores with is not good for engines. A gas powered engine will last longer, no cr*p in it, but not if it's being fed the wrong mix on one or two bores.

Shame our man on this forum no longer 'does'.
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Old Jul 16th, 2013, 00:25   #29
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Bit of an update. I've just taken delivery of a rail of 2nd hand injectors. I did a quick check of them today, as they came in, with air and they don't leak at 75psi (they run at 45psi). My S40 2002 1.8 Bifuel had Blue Siemens Deka Injectors Part No 8627804. They have 14.5mm OD Orings top & bottom. I've ordered new viton Orings for them and also new filter baskets from Mr Injector. Next step is to build a jig for them to be flushed through whilst ultrasonically cleaning them and then stick 'em in.

I'd love to sit down and build a spray pattern and volume test rig for them but haven't the time at the mo. I know there's people that'll do this for me but I'd want to actually see what, if anything, the problem was. So if this fixes the problem so be it.

After they've gone in I'd guess the next stage was to clear the ECU codes and also a possible oil & filter change?

A kind soul read the ECU codes for me properly using VIDA and it revealed a possible dodgy knock sensor. I don't know if that's a separate issue. It seems right with the way the car performs but I'll leave it for now to see if the overhauled injectors solve anything.
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Old Jul 19th, 2013, 09:52   #30
CNGBiFuel
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Thanks for letting us all know. You're clearly further down the road than me. I threw in a bottle of injector cleaner in blind, vain hope.
I'll get myself a used set of those and take a punt on them fitting my 1999 V70. (not the same engine so will do some digging)

It's reassuring to me that I'm not the only tragic anorak that does this stuff

V. Useful. Thanks
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