just wondering if theres any propane powered engine owners in the form, im up in bc canada and propane is about half the price of gas here so theres a lot of propane trucks. anyone else interested in it?

 

I know some comercial trucks have them but i've always heard that people who bought the used trucks usually swapped them over diesels. I also heard that gas mileage isn't good and it is a pain when u need fill up if you dont have the resources.

 

Propane gets about 75%-80% of the mpg of gasoline.
It is not in any way an inferior fuel, but you must take this into account when determining which is "cheaper".

 

Just straight swapping from gasoline to propane you will get poor results, but still come out cheaper than running gasoline, provided you dont get raped on a conversion kit. Theyre a dime a dozen up here. Propane is easy to find in Canada. If you build your engine for propane you can get 95% of the mileage you got on gasoline. The best thing about propane is its 104 octane, 11:1 is a decent ratio for propane...any higher than that and its hit and miss, more fine tuning needed.
The biggest factor is compression ratio. After that is a cam more suited for propane, one that keeps cylinder pressures high. A good high voltage ignition to throw some healthy spark. Could also benefit from re-curving your dizzy.

 

I agree, I'm not running propane but I've looked into it, you have that extra octane you might as well put it to good use.
I talked to a guy that built his motor kind of for propane and he got about the same mpg
Up here in Alaska, propane cost to much, but since everything up here is heated with nautral gas you could get a compressor to fill your tank at home from your npg line for about 1$ a gallon, the only bad thing is the compressor will set ya back about $4-$5000

 

the distributer advance curve should be totaly different, most of the reason propane got such a rep for bad milage and no power was from the conversions that were done on vehicles in the 80s. most of them were dual fuel systems that allowed the car to run on either propane or gas. to keep it so the car would still run on gas the cam, advance curve, and compression ratio were left alone. this worked but not very well. on a dedicated propane engine your free to play with everything and it can be very efficent

 

hey pud do u have anything running 11 to 1 on propane. im still planning my propane monster and havent decided on compression yet

 

no not yet....in the spring. Theres a propane forum here: http://fuelsforum.rasoenterprises.com/ some knowledgeable folk there. I got the CR from that forum.

 

im working on a dedicated propane big block build... 545 ci, 12ish compression, dual impco 425 mixers, dual quad intake, ported stock heads, rv cam, im still in the planning stages except the 545 parts, those are already here :-)

 

Hey bigblock, my 91 F-250 runs on propane. I bought it at auction from a nearby city. It runs pretty well. Got the 460 engine. Propane here is not a good deal, however. It's actually more than gasoline, and not too many places near me to fill up. For this reason, I am trying to find info on making the truck dual-fuel with gasoline, tho not having any luck finding anyone around here who knows anything about propane powered vehicles. Oh well.

 

well... since it is a dedicated propane engine youll either have to rebuild it or use a big cam to bleed off the extra compression. id say pull the heads off and cc the chambers. see what compression you actually have, and then find a cam thatll bring your dynamic compression down to around 7-1. thats the cheapest solution.