I'm considering running CNG on my '59 Chevy panel. Looks like a tank and conversion kit will run $1,500 give or take. There is a 24hr filling station about 1/2 mile from my house. Just curious if anyone here has experience with this fuel? Tried a search, but all the threads were several years old. thanks
I don't know how much help it would be, but I do know IH made heads specifically for propane use with their engines. Perhaps someone with the IHC digest (they have a website) could help?
I do know that most cars that run it from the factory (Honda) have pretty high compression as the octane rating is quite high of CNG. KK
Ask the filling station how long it will take to fill up. I've heard that CNG takes a long time to fill because of the high pressures involved. It's not like propane. You also want to look into the cost of tanks and blast shielding.
Used to fuel up an old propane bobtail when I worked at a freight company. Don't remember it taking long but wear gloves. Remember that kid in A Chistmas Story stuck to the lamp post?
I have friends that run them on very large 4x4 trucks and really enjoy it. It does smell a little funny.
Check into Australian sources for CNG conversions kits. they use Chevy V8's in Holden...they were the last GTO. About 50% of the vehicles are dual fuel and they do export kits. There are also pumps that bolt on the garage wall to fuel up at home.
I looked into this idea recently but talked myself out of it for several reasons: 1. CNG tanks are filled to about 2,000 psi 2. The tanks are really tough, but in an accident, I think the hard line supplied in those kits would be prone to crack/break if crumpled or scraped 3. Leaking nat gas WILL find an ignition source (elec motor, dizzy) and you could end up with a 2,000 psi blow torch So I'm basically just afraid of being blown into the next county. The energy density is lower in CNG so you will have less power than the same motor run on gasoline. I heard that filling up with CNG at a proper filling station doesnt take any longer than gasoline.
Long time forum creeper here. Down here in South Australia (And I would assume the rest of australia), a huge percentage of cars run on LPG (propane). All taxis use it except for those who are starting to run hybrids. All of our busses run on CNG. And a very large proportion of personal cars use it as their fuel source, because it is a lot cheaper to run than petrol. Some Holdens and Fords are avaliable from new running straight LPG, but there are conversion specialists all round the place that will do a dual-fuel or straight gas conversion to anything, Older V8's and big sixes by far the most common. Every station sells LPG, I've never really seen CNG running on personal vehicles though, I'm sure you would need access to a specialty station to get it. In all my years I've never seen or heard of any accidents running either of these fuels. One thing though is that if your car is running LPG or CNG you get supplied with a rivet- on tag that you put on your licence plates to alert people (mainly emergency crews) that the car is fitted with a gas system in the event of an accident. The systems are designed with extreme safety in mind. The gas tanks, you won't destroy one in an accident, well not one that you'd walk away from anyway. There are all sorts of tank sizes avaliable too, you can get them in a donut shape designed to fit in your spare wheel well.
Also in New Zealand there were many cars that ran duel fuel, cng and gas, i used to own a '76 holden that was duel fuel, cant think of any reason why you couldent run cng, on your 59 its just a matter of whether you want to go through the process or not. You say there is a filling station 1/2 a mile from your house, but how available is it elsewhere? that would be my main concern, unless its duel then you'd be fine.
Thanks for the replies fellas. The reading I've done leads me to believe that the systems are safe. I'm not worried about some loss in power either; it's a truck. it doesn't need to go fast. There are home refueling appliances available for about $4,000. They are extremely slow, filling at the equivalent of one gallon every three hours. Ouch! The good news is that we have a relative abundance of CNG stations in SoCal. Here is a link to one of the conversion kits available. It doesn't seem unreasonable at $550. The tanks are about a grand for 13 gallons. http://ews.mybigcommerce.com/cng-co...nder-carburetor-gasoline-engines-model-cngc8/ My project is a frame off resto and I'm starting from scratch with a new motor and new tank. I don't think tank size or weight will be an issue.
CNG and LPG are two completely different things. CNG is compressed natural gas. It is stored as a high pressure gas in a cylinder, which is rated for (usually) 3500 psi. Since it is a gas it takes a lot of space as compared to a liquid. The tanks are quite expensive and if a fail occurs in a tank, valve or high pressure line you will have a serious issue indeed. Natural gas is methane, which as an atmospheric gas takes a lot of volume to have the heat content of propane. LPG is propane, stored as a liquid in an ambient temperature low pressure tank. The propane flows under the pressure in the tank, which is between 50 and 200 or so psi depending on the temperature outside. to a vaporizer and is burned as a gas. Because propane is a liquid in the tank a lot more energy by volume can be carried. Propane, however is not particularly cheap in the US today whereas natural gas often is. Both fuels are high octane and can make a lot of power if you know what you are doing. Propane is "TRADITIONAL" for hot rods, Ak Miller was doing it in the sixties. As far as I know natural gas never was....except that most all the methanol burned in race cars since some time in the seventies was made out of it.
Your right about that. My nephew works for the Gas Company and their vehicles run on CNG and they leave them hooked up to the gas pump overnight because it takes a looooooong time to fill up the tanks.
It depends on the system they use. The high flow tank backed ones can fill a 30 GGE tank in ten minutes or so.
At one time a lot of well pumps here used automotive motors running on propane. I have seen propane fueled motors with 30+ years service come apart as clean, internally, as they were when they were first assembled.
I've thought about it, around here the cost equivalence is about $2 per gallon so you can save some money in the long haul.
Crank case oil will come out almost as clean as it went in. I'd do a duel fuel system then no matter what your covered.
Every time I go to a state auction and they're selling off CNG state cars and trucks they show in the "noted defects" section "Engine" ... some run, some don't. You have to figure out exactly what's wrong on your own. In fact, sometimes they won't sell them with the tank intact, they take it out.
I have been working with cng vehicles since 1992. Current system run at 3600 psi. Tanks expire after 15 years. Some of the new ones are good for 20 years. They can not be recertified. Don't let anyone tell you other wise. There are some important things you should do to make a safe and reliable installation. Several codes apply as well, check out NFPA 52 for all the details. PM me if you have questions. B
Dual fuel means it won't run the best in either fuel, mostly especially the propane version. Then the person thinks propane sucks and they disconnect it all and go around telling everyone how much propane sucks. Because of the octane difference, you can get a gas motor to run on propane ok, but a propane motor can't run gas because the compression will be too high and it will knock. Build a dedicated propone motor and optimize it to run on propane properly and you won't have that problem. Yes, as noted, a CNG system (tank, lines, and fuel feed into the motor) is way different than propane. I put a propane system on my old '53 flat head 6' motor. It was pretty easy and has run pretty well for about 5 years now. Only 1 good local source for the auto fuel propane though and is a pain to get. Is only open 9-5 on weekdays. The regular propane is the same exact stuff except for the road taxes which ups the cost quite a bit. And they require different filling fittings to try to insure you pay the road taxes for an automotive use that is registered to use on a road. Propane is actually a byproduct of refining gas and therefore comes from the same companies - which always seem to price the propane (with the taxes) about the same or more as gas coincidentally enough. My guess is that they do this intentionally. With very rare exceptions that I have noticed, the propane is always a bit more per gal. than regular gasoline.
I think you will find the Holdens are dual fuel LPG (Liquid Propane Gas) / Petrol (Gas). Not CNG. Filling at home is also not legal for LPG.
I ran a Falcon XB Panel van in the mid 80s with a dual fuel CNG setup. Never had any major issues [ that werent self inflicted ] Gasoline has a higher BTU and Faster burning than CNG so you really need a duel curve ignition system to run both fuels. Because CNG has a lower BTU you need to run it a lot richer air/fuel ratio [ luckily CNG was really cheap ] My Falcon had a 250 ci engine in it, I fitted a set of 200 pistons in it [ flat tops ] and zero decked the block. I also fitted a short duration cam. They love high cylinder pressures. The idea is to have it behave like a diesel with low down torque [ the long stroke 250 ford was a good candidate for this ] My engine was on the borderline of detonation with gasoline [ even when the duel curve ignition retarded it ] Youll need to run a full flow hot water system through the CNG regulator ,these things ice up easily [ the self inflicted part I learned ] The commercially available kits are safe , I believe theyre still popular in Italy
Been doing more research. It looks like the vendors are just re-selling components and not making any of the gear in house. They are all dual-fuel and include a computer to advance the timing for CNG. As I'm not so interested in running dual fuel, I'm looking at sourcing the components myself. It looks like the main components are the tank, a pressure regulator and a mixer. Once the timing is set, all the tuning takes place on the regulator. It couldn't be that easy could it?
I'm not sure about how CNG compares, but the propane setup I did was easy in retrospect after I finally figured it all out. But, figuring it all out was a giant pain in the ass. From what I could find on the net and trying to talk to the meat heads at the local propane place as well as other sources like parts suppliers, etc. it was hard to just get the big picture and then figure out exactly how to do it. I'm not exactly an expert mechanic to begin with, but I'm no total fool either. So, I knew enough to try to figure it out, but not enough to just get a little info. and adapt things to suit the propane and call it a day. As soon as I mentioned I wanted to do this on an old 50's Studebaker pickup with a flathead 6 motor, most people just wished me good luck. To top it off, I wanted to use an old Edmunds dual carb. set up. So, I had to figure out a lot of things on my own. First I had to just understand how the hell a motor burns propane and what a complete system was. Then I had to figure out the best parts and how to get them all. Getting the parts wasn't exactly like just going down to Napa and getting what I needed. The propane parts sources don't sell direct so I had to get most stuff from the local propane place and those guys were only variously helpful when they were around. Actually only one guy knew what he was talking about and he was difficult to get ahold of most of the time. But, eventually I was finally able to get it all together and installed. On first try to fire it up, go it going but just barely and it was running way lean or something. It ran but didn't throttle up well at all and made the headers glow orange pretty fast. I thought, WTF is up with this propane crap! How frick'n hard can this project be. Turns out I had the ignition wires going in reverse. Once I changed it, it ran great and has ever since. If you can find someone local who knows what the hell they are doing, it will likely save yourself huge amounts of aggravation. I was just messing with propane so wasn't that concerned about my lack of expertise. But, CNG as noted is way different in psi. You will need to be pretty sure about how to put that system together properly. I'm not sure I'd just try to gather up various parts here and there unless and until you really know what you are doing. Some minor mistakes could possibly lead to some serious problems.
On the old Impco style mixer systems, tuning is done at the mixer, which is a simple carburetor. Propane and CNG are similar once the fuel is reduced to a low pressure vapor, but natural gas has to be mixed in at a lot higher volume. I think the Impco style mixers were the same for either fuel with some parts changed. LNG required the intricate two path system which was different and complicated. On a timed system the fuel delivery might be quite different, but both are designed to be controlled by the factory computer with a firmware reflash. Those get expensive. I have talked with some companies that are selling mixer systems with a Tartarini regulator and Impco or Vialle mixers. Vialle was refusing to sell to the North American market for a long time so they may be bringing them in independently. These are non EPA systems for old cars, offroad or in states where they don't care. Dual fuel was a piece of shit in the old days but on modern computer engines it can be done with surprisingly good results. I drove a Ford F150 with the approved factory endorsed system: there is no performance loss and you can not tell which is in use. I was seriously thinking about CNG for my Dodge truck but the cost of tankage and system and poor fuel availability has turned me off for now. CNG at today's prices with good availability would be very hard to resist, plus engines run forever on it.
From a seller of gas fuel parts: THE MODEL 225 CARBURETOR IS A SINGLE DIAPHRAGM AIR VALVE CARBURETOR/MIXER. IT OFFERS A DOWN-DRAFT AIR INLET THAT CAN BE USED FOR REMOTE AIR FILTRATION OR OPEN-ELEMENT TYPE AIR FILTERS. THIS UNIT IS AVAILABLE FOR PROPANE, NATURAL GAS AND DIGESTER GAS APPLICATIONS. IT HAS BEEN SUCCESSFULLY USED FOR OTHER HYDROCARBON BASED VAPOR FUELS AS LOW AS 500 BTU. THE MODEL 225 IS ALSO AVAILABLE FOR FEEDBACK APPLICATIONS WIHT THE 'FB' DESIGNATION. THESE FB MIXERS ARE AVAILABLE IN TAMPER RESISTANT CONFIGURATION, INDICATED BY THE PART NUMBER SUFFIX "-TR" ON THE PART NUMBER. TWO SEPARATE AIR VALVE VACUUM SUPPLIES ARE AVAILABLE WITH THIS MIXER. ADDITIONAL LOW SPEED MIXTURE CONTROL CAN BE OBTAINED TO LEAN AIR-FUEL MIXTURES WIHT OPTIONAL SHIMS. CHECK THE ACCESSORIES SECTION FOR MORE INFORMATION. ALL 225 DG SERIES MIXERS REDUCE AIRFLOW BY 30% TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS FUEL TYPE...........................................METHANE/PROPANE (550-2500 BTU) MAXIMUM FUEL INLET.....................PRESSURE 8.0 IN H20 Impco is the "Traditional" gaseous fuel option, that's what Ak Miller used on all his propane hot rods. I think most of the other American suppliers are gone or only make stuff for small engines anymore.
Yes, Impco stuff, that is what I used. They weren't exactly helpful in giving me advice on what to do for my truck. They basically told me to look at the charts and figure it out on my own. So, I just did rough calc. on needed cfm's and divided it by 2 and picked the mixer I thought would be the best. The stuff is pretty primitive looking and is basically forklift level technology and looks it. It actually does look sort of old school visually and definitely doesn't appear to be too modern looking for the truck, especially now that it has 5-6 years of well used "patina" on it.
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