I'm getting really concerned about our nations dependency on foreign oil especially in light of the current situation in the Middle East. I have been considering alternative fuels that are local and cost effective. I have a big family and a job that requires a lot of equipment so I have 2 Suburbans and my 79 Ford all of which are gas hogs. For my Candy Cane I have narrowed it down to CNG or E85.

E85 is the most cost effective conversion but it will limit me only to E85 fuel. Here in the Bay Area E85 is about .50 cents cheaper than regular unleaded so if you drive a truck that holds 40 gallons of fuel and gets 10 MPG the savings can add up pretty quick. The downside to this is I would have to plan my trips very carefully because there are not many E85 fueling stations yet outside the bay area. I have also thought about going fuel injection and maybe finding a fuel delivery system (And timing system) that would allow my to use both (Flex Fuel Dent!) Is it possible?

CNG is another consideration. Natural gas is local and very cheap and a conversion cost could be recovered very quickly. The problem is again planning out my trips if I go anywhere outside my normal routine and I would have to sacrifice cargo space in the bed for a CNG tank unless I get creative and the more creativity the more the cost.

What do you guys think?

 

I like your ideas. I've also been thinking about alternative fuels for my dent. I'd suggest you drop a line in the alternative fuels forum of FTE. You might get some better answers there.

 

How about going dual fuel with propane? The conversion installs a mixing hat over the carb. An electric fuel pump with a return line needs to be retrofitted to cut off the fuel when the propane is engaged. Switching back is a matter of flipping the switch back to the gasoline position and let the fuel bowls fill up to take over the combustion process.

Similar to CNG, ya'd still have to deal with the tank. However, propane is readily available.... moreso than CNG filling stations which stores at like 3,000 psi. You can install a CNG dispenser at your home... my cousin drives a CNG Honda Civic and had one installed at her place. Such a conversion may or may not quality for tax credits due to the age of your rig.

This is a 40-gallon tank mounted in a Toyota.. generally the same size as a toolbox albeit not as streamlined.


More info here: Propane Conversion Kits

 

I'm going to subscribe to this as I know nothing about E85. One idea would be to put another fuel tank in the bed to extend your range. When I farmed I had a 75-80 gal "L" shaped tank that fit up under the tool box in the bed. A friend who pulled an RV around the country had a toolbox mounted in his truck where the bottom of the box was an aux tank, he had it plumbed to his fuel system so he could just switch to it when he needed it. His was not a custom fabrication, he bought it off the shelf somewhere.

 

I absolutely HATE ethanol for a variety of reasons.

1) Ethanol contains significantly less energy than gasoline does. Burning one gallon of gasoline will net you 114,000 BTU, while burning one gallon of pure ethanol will only net you 76,100 BTU. So ethanol contains 33.246% less energy than gasoline does. E85 contains only 81,785 BTU per gallon, resulting in a hypothetical gas mileage decrease of 28.259% from 100% gasoline to E85. Moving from E10 to E85 will net you a loss of 25.791%. So if E10 is running you $4.00 a gallon, and you'll save $.50 per gallon by switching to E85, you'll be saving 12.5% per gallon, while burning 25.791% more. You'll actually be losing money by burning more fuel per mile.

2) Ethanol dirtys up oil like no one's business. Toyota (my employer) recommends oil changes every 10k for vehicles running synthetic and every 5k for vehicles running conventional. For Flex-Fuel vehicles running E85, the recommended interval is 2,500 miles. Running E85, you'll spend quite a bit more on oil.

3) Ethanol is hygroscopic and miscible in water. Water+fuel=no good.


LPG isn't much better. It looks like a gallon of LPG will run you around $4.00 or more. LPG contains 84,300 BTU per gallon. So unless LPG burns significantly more efficiently in a IC engine, that too is a waste of money.

CNG is running in the $2.50 range per gasoline gallon equivalent (GGE). By my calculations, CNG yields 114,003 BTU per GGE. So it's looking like with current prices, CNG is the only cost effective way to go.

 

A buddy of mine and I experimented with E85 in his 07 GMC. We filled up at one point (on a long distance fishing trip) with E85 when he was down to about a quarter tank. We then filled up again once the tank was down to 1/8th in order to get the most "regular" fuel out of the system. We then filled the tank again with E85. He regularly gets about 15mpg when towing his lightish boat (boat is about 2500 pounds) but on this trip we got 9.

It is cheaper, but you will get quite a bit worse gas mileage as Devino put so well above.

 

The problem I always see is that when people "convert" to run off e85 all they basically do is make sure it wont eat the lines and such and maybe tune it different. Same thing with the flex fuel vehicles, all they do is make it so the fuel parts are resistant to the e85. I read about a engine/car that volvo makes, it is turbo charged and when running on e85 it increases the boost making more power and iirc it got better mileage on the e85.

If I was going to build a truck to run on e85 I would probably run high compression or some form of boost to take advantage of the higher octane rating of e85.

The thing is if the government subsidies go away for the ethanol industry it will actually be more expensive than gasoline. But you would be supporting American farmers instead of foreign countries that mostly hate us.

 

Ethanol is a false promise and only a "feel good" story because it is renewable resource. However, redirecting a food source to a fuel source only increases its commodity cost. I think it is crazy to burn our food instead of eating it. You not only pay at the pump but at the feed, grocery,and department stores as well. Corn and its derivatives (polymers, proteins, carbohydrates, oils, etc.) are used in a wide array of products.

CNG or propane. Otherwise, it's "Drill baby, drill".

 

I don't disagree with you, but also the byproduct is used in feeding cattle so it is not all lost. We will probably have to kiss a lot of alternate fuel frogs before we find the prince in all this. The technology is still being developed also, it hasn't been around all that long. Still nice to have some alternatives other than a prius or volt.

 

I like the cng system and having it installed would be very interesting. My shop teacher actually had his 1990 5.9 12v cummins converted over to run on cng. In his conversion he has around $8,000 to swap it over. Also I dont really know how you would swap a carbeurated 400m to run on cng? Keep us posted

 

I come from a farm and ranch background. I would stay away from ethanol for the reasons stated above, plus more. The crops grown to produce ethanol are, for the most part, food crops. We are actually taking food people could eat and making fuel from it. With the drought in the mid-west last year, corn prices skyrocketed. Another year like that and you will probably see this have a large impact on prices in grocery stores. When that happens the crops grown for ethanol production will have to be shifted back to food production. The cost of ethanol will then skyrocket due to shortages. The only thing making it 'affordable' right now is the government spending our tax dollars to subsidize ethanol. Without the subsidies it would be much more expensive now.

I'm looking at building myself a new work truck. I plan on running it solely on propane. Today in my town I can buy propane highway fuel for $2.15 per gallon. Even if I have a slight mileage loss it will still save a ton of money. However, since I plan on running on propane only, I'm also building a slightly unconventional engine to power it: a 300 I-6 with a turbo installed. I'm shooting for mid-teens in mileage, but hoping for slightly better.

 

What about diesel? You can find it everywhere, with the cummins in my 77 I'm getting about 17-18 mpg.

 

Good input from everyone on this subject. Right now I'm just thinking out loud. I'm getting more concerned about our dependents on foreign oil by countries that hate us but love our money. OK sorry, end rant.

I may convert Candy Cane to CNG or my work Suburban. Ether way it is very expensive but the payoff would be pretty good. A long time ago my work truck was Propane and back then Propane was cheap. Now its about the same price as regular gas, Kinda frustrating.

 

in my opinion they need to continue making smaller more efficient diesel engines do you remember the lil ol mazda pickups with the 2.2l perkins they weren't super fast or strong but the got like 30 mpg or better or the Mercedes diesels 35-50 mpg and those vw rabbits got better than that....... i say if you are gonna worry too much about fuel prices that's the way to go in my book have a DD that gets you around cheaply doesn't matter how goofy it looks it still looks better than most of the crap they put out on the market these days .... i am not a diesel freak but i see the benefits of using them i am not trying to start a diesel vs gas war but there are some amazing possibilities to be had if only they would let the good ideas out without killing the inventors....another story in itself.....cng is pretty good but the start up costs will eat up enough that you could drive it regularly for a year or two before your benefits would even be shown (end of rant)

 

The other benefits of running propane is a clean engine. My 56 F600 was converted to propane and started life as a LPG delivery truck. The inside of that engine is as clean as the day it left the factory; shiny and without sludge! But they do benefit from higher compression ratio's. A 400 being a low compression engine will run ok but on LPG will loose power in the process, on CNG even more. Maybe run a turbo to regain some of that loss....

VocaTexas, good luck with your project! I have a 1985 15kw Onan genset I picked up with only 118 hours on the clock. It was setup to run propane only. I was amazed to find the compression was 190psi! A gasoline version is only 120....

CNG or Propane is the way too go for a combustion engine not running on gasoline.... Ethanol sucks! Corn is a food/feed source....
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