Converting Gas Engine(8.1 Chevy) to Propane ?

fordy · #1 12/09/14, 05:56 PM

...............Was visiting with a friend who is going to convert his early model 1990's Chevy over to propane ! Says a friend of his can do 'It' for $1,500 or so , but that seems low to me . Anyway , I'm wondering IF it would be worth while to do a conversion on my 2003 , Chevy 8.1 Dually ? He seems to think , that , in several years the gov't will force all old gas powered vehicles to convert or get off the road .
...............He was also saying that a large percentage of 18 wheelers will begin selling them set up to run on Natural Gas , this was news to me . Because the infrastructure for filling stations just doesn't exist , currently , and it will take years of work before NG\Propane will have the same level of availability as diesel . , fordy

collegeboundgal · #2 12/09/14, 06:22 PM

DH has a coworker who just did this. Cost, he said, was around $2000. He's currently working out how many mpg/gallon, but said it's better than gas so far.

fordy · #3 12/09/14, 06:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by collegeboundgal

DH has a coworker who just did this. Cost, he said, was around $2000. He's currently working out how many mpg/gallon, but said it's better than gas so far.

..........Thanks for your help ! , fordy

Old Vet · #4 12/09/14, 07:06 PM

You can convert any gas engine to Propane. Some of them will need hardening valves. All propane engines will last longer and burn cleaner than gas engines.One problem is that in cold weather they are hard to start and need to warm up for best power so short drive times are bad on them. Buying propane can be hard on a long road trip unless you find a place to fill it up like campgrounds or other places that sell propane.

collegeboundgal · #5 12/10/14, 12:19 AM

Oh, and on the coworkers, he has a switch that he can flip to use either gas or propane. So he gets the best of both worlds!

chronic66 · #6 12/11/14, 05:21 AM

Back in the day my Dad bought a brand new 55 chevy belair. He drove it for about a year, then, put about a 25 gallon propane tank in the trunk. He did all the conversion work and it also had a switch that you could flip while driving and run it on gasoline if needed. He would do the same for a lot of farmers also, mostly their trucks. Those were the good old days!

arabian knight · #7 12/11/14, 05:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chronic66

Back in the day my Dad bought a brand new 55 chevy belair. He drove it for about a year, then, put about a 25 gallon propane tank in the trunk. He did all the conversion work and it also had a switch that you could flip while driving and run it on gasoline if needed. He would do the same for a lot of farmers also, mostly their trucks. Those were the good old days!

Yes it is easy on a carbureted one, not so easy now when most cars and trucks are Fuel injected, especially on those that have a separate injector nozzle to each cylinder TBI would be not so hard but not are that.
It was so easy to convert to propane we did a car in auto mechanics class in tech school back in 1971~!

shoen4u · #8 12/11/14, 05:59 AM

Www.delucaduelproducts.com. And ewsews.com. Both sell natural gas and propane fumigation kits. I have been looking at converting a pickup also. There were two nat fas filling stations just built within 7 miles of my home.

AmericanStand · #9 12/12/14, 07:59 PM

With gasoline prices going down it wouldn't pay to convert now.
I do wish Id have been able to find a 8.1 chevy when I bought my 8.0 dodge.

Jcrouch · #10 12/12/14, 11:24 PM

Gas prices may stay down for a while but I bet they go back up. We are a certified installer of CNG and propane conversion systems in Oklahoma. My personal vehicle is a 2001 chevy 8.1L bi-fuel running on CNG, runs great!

shoen4u · #11 12/15/14, 05:35 AM

Are you running a fumigation system or a direct injection system? The fumigation systems look to be way more affordable.

Jcrouch · #12 12/15/14, 09:03 PM

We run the sequential (direct) systems. Started out installing the
mixer style three years ago but had to many problems with them. Our systems are computer controlled and matched to the performance of the engine that it is installed on. The old saying you get what you pay for applies here. We average three installs a month although I think that will slow down while gas prices are low. Paid $1.05 a gallon today for CNG in Thalequah, Ok. It averages $1.65 - 1.79 across the state. You can find all the stations and prices across the country at www.cngprices.com

o&itw · #13 12/16/14, 01:47 PM

many fuels now are sold on their energy content rather than their cost to produce. Us old timers remeber when diesel used to be cheaper than gasoline. It was cheaper to produce. Part of the reason that it is more expensive today is that energy companies realized that it had more energy per gallon.

Here is a chart comparing the energy produced by common fuels.

http://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/fue...ison_chart.pdf

In the third row down you can compare the amount of another fuel needed to equal 1 gallon of gasoline.

One must then multiply that amount times the price of that fuel to compare it's econmy with other fuels on the list.

For instance propane (73% the amount of energy of gasoline) would need to sell at the price of $ 1.82 a gallon to be equivalent to $ 2.50 a gallon gas. For the propane to be cheaper it would have to sell at less than $1.82 per gallon.