Propane 4.0ho

Have you guys ever heard of someone converting there 4 liter HO to propane power? My buddy has a 22r toyota that is propane powered. Yeah I know that you will lose some power but you get rid of all the wiring. He used a bunch of parts from forklifts and we could easily set it up on the 4 liter intake manifold, just wondering if anyones done it, or if its possible?
thanks
-cal

If nobody responds, PM some of the XJ owners that live in Europe. With the crazy gas prices there some of them (Chancer?) run dual fuel propane/gasoline setups.

Incidentally I am VERY interested in building a stroker for a J truck and running it on propane-a dedicated Impco system with converter (the flow regulator) large tank, propane carburreator and timing/cam adjustments specifically for maximum power and efficiency under propane not gas.

I may be able to help you out I know a little about the setups. I wouldn't use certain forklift parts, it may be like under-carbureating the engine. Either way, you can find a lot of these items online (ebay for example). Keep in mind that it is not leagal in the U.S. to have the cylinder inside the passenger compartment and thats the whole vehicle on the XJ.

I would say around a quarter of all XJ's here in Oz in my state run on LPG with a dual fuel setup. Some put the tank behind the back seat but most remove the petrol tank and fit the LPG tank in there and fit a 55 litre petrol tank under the floor opposite the muffler. LPG fueled vehicles are very common with 99% of taxis running it and you can buy them from Ford and other manufactures already converted straight from the factory running LPG.

Some of the Goverment Cherokees were daul fuel CNG setups. I think without a compression jump you will lose at least 10% HP. I think some of the setups compensate for this with increasing the distributor timing advance electronically.
Tom

Just out of curiosity does anyone know where i might find out actual data on how much switching to LPG helps fuel efficiency? and how much of a differnce the cost between that and regular fuel is?

I use lpg to heat my house, and garrage. it would be nice to run my jeep off the same stuff.

I looked into it about a year ago when gas was $2/gal. Propane was aropund $1.80/g or so with no road tax.With road tax, it was close to $2/gal. I work at a major diesel engine manufacture. Some of our engines are converted or reengineered to run on propane. I talked to someone in that department. The performance is about the same compared to gas or not much better in an engine specifacly converted to run on propane or CNG. Propane and CNG don't have the maintenace cost though. Our propane engines are mainly sold to city fleets (buses) to help airquality in large cities. The guy told me that if you live in Texas or Alberta Canada the propane cost would be less. CNG cost about $1.34/gal at the time. I figured the saving on CNG at the time as $200 per 15K miles. You see a lot of conversions in England and Europe. Gas there is $4-6.50 USD per gallon. I don't know what propane cost there. Most of that price is taxes as to keep imports down. Propane is also good for hiperformance engines as you need to bump your compression for it to run anyways. So then you'd be comparing it to Avgas.
Tom

http://www.gotpropane.com/

There are kits for the 4.0 available now.
I know several who have these kits on everything from runners to scouts, and they love it.

From the site:

4.0 and 2.5 KITS!!!
We now have a it to run the 4.0 and 2.5 motor on propane. They are designed to run strictly on propane. You no longer need the wiring harness or sensors. You will need to put a distrubutor in from an earlier carbed motor to eliminate the computer. Easily retrofit that older Jeep now without the worries of wiring,fuel pumps,etc. These kits are not E.P.A. certified.

HTH.

thanks for the info guys, yeah I already saw the gopropane.com kits but they are way expensive.
-cal

calvin andrus said:

Have you guys ever heard of someone converting there 4 liter HO to propane power? My buddy has a 22r toyota that is propane powered. Yeah I know that you will lose some power but you get rid of all the wiring. He used a bunch of parts from forklifts and we could easily set it up on the 4 liter intake manifold, just wondering if anyones done it, or if its possible?
thanks
-cal

Click to expand...

.. Few things have ever done so much damage to my brain, as to look up and see that I want to convert my jeep to propane. Man, that really made me spin for a moment.

-Cal

I'm over here in the UK (duh!) and have a '94 XJ running dual fuel. Quite simply, I love it. I really love driving out of the station after filling up for less than half the cost of petrol (i could say gas, but it would get confusing! )

Petrol over here costs about $6 per gallon, yup! Propane (its called LPG here) is about $2.50. Look at it this way, i drove my YJ on a trip of about 500 miles to Wales and back a couple years ago. Cost me about 150 in fuel. I did almost the same trip this summer (actually it was longer, i went all the way to the coast). cost me 60 in fuel. It actually costs less in fuel to run than my folks CRV.

So you can see, at least over here, why its worth it. The insurance companies get a bit fussy unless the conversion is done at a shop. The conversion to dual fuel costs about 1800, but the more you drive, the quicker its paid off in savings. I want to do it to the YJ and the FSJ eventually.

Now for power. Yes you lose some, but not much. I still pull the YJ (SOA, 33"s, etc) on a 14" plant trailer on propane and it trucks up and down the motorway (freeway) just fine. Pulls just like it was on gas, uphill too. If i do need the extra bit of juice the petrol can give, i flick a switch on the dash and it goes back to petrol, flick again, back on propane. Easy.

Other benefits of propane? NO CARBON! Think about it. None of that nasty build up in the engine, on the valves, etc. Oil lasts much longer as it doesn't gunk up. Engine runs a tad cooler too.

Some people have said that running propane can F up the valve seats. Not in my experience. This XJ was converted 5 years ago (according to the paperwork, i've had it 8 months). and there is no problems with that engine.

I know a lot of rigs on the Pirate board have gone propane. You might look over there for ideas.

I used to have my CJ7 with a Ford 351 Windsor running dual fuel and would dyno it all the time as I did a fitters course to do the conversions and they had a dyno there. I would switch between the two fuels while on the dyno and you are looking at around a 10% drop in power. The new fogging ones are only are 3% loss.



Here is an XJ I have worked on with the conversion fitted.



You can just see the tank hanging down in this shot.

It is up for sale at the moment as they owner could not take it back to Germany with him and get it registered there.
http://www.carsales.com.au/pls/carsales/!cs_content.private_vehicle?vehicle_id=2557534&current_rec=2&used_rec=86&total_rec=55&sort_type=&total_rec=55&sort_type=&make_id=23&model_id=79&state_id=7&search_distance=25

I would say the single biggest problem when converting to propane is.... the tank. It's the most expensive thing in the conversion too. You will want a good sized tank too.. and nowhere to put it. The odd shapes the come in, wont fit anywhere. So.. you'll have to go with a custom made tank, if you can find someone to make it and afford it. Maybe someone in Austrilla would know the answer to the tank puzzle for an XJ ?

Dan. mines under the trunk. They take out the stock gas tank, replace it with a 1/2 size stainless steel tank (bonus!) which is way better than the plastic one. In front of that in space created by the smaller tank goes a 55 liter propane tank. Works well. The other place they get tanks installed is in place of the spare tire in the trunk. 80 liter donut tank fits in there. One of my buds has both tanks. Loads of fuel!

I'll go get pics later before it gets dark.

Pics Pics Pics !!!

XJ with a trunk ? thats a new one to me..

Did you mean, the tank was installed in the rear cargo space ? in the US thats not allowed.

Propane conversions are very common up here in Canada, I haven't seen one on an XJ, but most large gas engined trucks are converted to propane, and all limo and taxis run on it. It saves quite a bit on fuel costs. My only complaint is that when you have a propane vehicle and the temperature is well below freezing, its a bitch to get it going. When I drove trucks, I used to have to put a tiger torch under the truck for 5 minutes before starting it up for the day. Once its running though, its not too bad. I hadn't considered it for my XJ due to loss of power, but I think I will think about it a bit more. The other downside up here is that because so many people run it, LPG pump prices are pretty high...

Beej said:

because so many people run it, LPG pump prices are pretty high...

Click to expand...

Dratz! Foiled again!

dan89XJ said:

Pics Pics Pics !!!

XJ with a trunk ? thats a new one to me..

Did you mean, the tank was installed in the rear cargo space ? in the US thats not allowed.

Click to expand...

Really? That sucks. Look at this:

UKJeeper1 said:

Really? That sucks. Look at this:

Click to expand...

That's really cool. Any other shots? Interesting trailer hitch setup in that pic. It would be illegal here...

UKjep1, how many litres does that petrol tank hold may I ask? Never seen a setup like that here in Oz but run a bigger rear LPG tank.
Here at the moment, LPG is not allowed to be sold for more than 1/2 the cost of petrol.
I would love a shot of the donut tank in place of the spare if you can get one too. How many litres does it hold as well?

Yup.



The filler is mounted in its own permanent place just in front of the fuel filler flap.


I can (at some garages, some don't allow it.) fill both tanks at the same time. (BTW, sits nice on its new springs don't it!)

Most towballs here are either permanent mounted or have their own method of removal/attachment. All passenger vehicles registered after '97 have to have a type approval on any mounted towball. Imported vehicles are exempt from that rule. Fortunately my YJ is the '91 i brought back with me from the US, the XJ is a '94, and the FSJ... Well, thats basically exempt from ANY regulations introduced in the last 26 years!!

I'm going to bin the fixed towbar and swap in a 2" receiver hitch, get the departure angle back. I like the way the new petrol tank allows the original angle. That was well thought out.