Propane

[moonrunnah]

Okay well my mind is always trying to come up with something new i can do to my vehicles im always trying mod stuff..
so here it is the other day  this viper came in to my work to be detailed. in the process of the recon guys cleaning it we poped the the trunk to find a massive bottle of nos and an other tank witch we found out was propane . i have seen set ups before on off roaders but what about my bike?
does any one know how to do this?

[andyb]

Injecting propane is a way to add a fuel, not more oxygen.  So you'd want to use both propane AND nitrous, unless you've got another way to add oxygen to the mix (otherwise, under normal use you'd be exceedingly lean).

For some reason, it's popular with vipers?  Very strange to me, I have to think there's a plumbing reason for not just going with either a wet kit or a way to boost fuel delivery on demand.

Seems like an awful lot of bother to me.  Just use a standard wet nitrous shot and be done.  That'll save you the bother of trying to find space for a pair of bottles, one is hard enough!

[moonrunnah]

i was mis leading sorry

the propane is ran in place of gas because gas pressure will drop off when using a wet system of nitrous the propane maintains constant fuel pressure

i do not want  to put nos on my bike the damn thing has enough power i just want to replace the gas with propane because its cheaper mostly and there is a little more power as well and the fact there are not many bikes running propane on them and it would be cool

by the way the viper that came in with the nos and the  propane blew 735 hp and 950 ftlb of tourqe and as the guy left i got him to roast the tires it was a great day at work 

[andyb]

Fuel pressure does not have significant drop in a well-designed system; if it's dropping, a secondary fuel pump should be used.  Nitrous does, it's more temperature related than anything, so a severe drop means an undersized bottle.

I guess I fail to understand what you're looking for then.  If you added a propane system, it would just cause you to go filthy rich.  Might be useful if you were using carbs that don't have a choke circuit (i.e., lectrons) but otherwise the only practical application would be converting everything over to run on propane rather than gasoline.

Converting the entire setup to use propane... I suppose if you really wanted to have an exhaust that smelled of forklift, you could do it.  You'd need to replace the fuel tank (just cut the bottom off and keep the shell, likely), you'd have to come up with a way to keep the bottle(s) relatively isolated from the heat of the motor sitting just below them (or hang them off the back or something I suppose?), and you'd have to remove the carbs and convert over to a propane carb system.  Don't know that I'd want to ride around with a pressure vessel right under my chest and face, personally, but it's your body.

[moonrunnah]

haha yea i know have pressurized explosives is the only bad part of it. 
i thought it might be interesting and if i did would either have them mounted on the back or make a caged setup (just incase i ever went down)  its just a thought for now and i would probably be better off converting my car to run off propane. I believe it would be better in the long run plus its much cleaner burning and has been proved to make engines run better and last longer.

[Arnie]

There are a lot of cars and small trucks operating on LPG (propane) over here in Australia.  Most of them are aftermarket conversions of petrol engines so you can choose which fuel to use at any given time.  These conversions are "off the shelf" kits made by several manufacturers, but they must be installed by licensed installers.
Car conversions get a LPG tank located in the boot (trunk) and these are typically 80-100 litres in capacity.  When refilling, the system prevents filling (of liquid gas) past 80% of capacity.
In use, you typically get 70-80% of the mpg you had with petrol (gasolene) and 70-80% of the power you had on petrol.  The main benefit is that LPG is only about 1/2 the price on a L <> L basis, plus the increased range with both systems in place.
There was certainly no improvement in power on my Ford Econovan (Mazda E2000) when using LPG.

Arnie

haha yea i know have pressurized explosives is the only bad part of it. 
i thought it might be interesting and if i did would either have them mounted on the back or make a caged setup (just incase i ever went down)  its just a thought for now and i would probably be better off converting my car to run off propane. I believe it would be better in the long run plus its much cleaner burning and has been proved to make engines run better and last longer.

[tmkaos]

There are a lot of cars and small trucks operating on LPG (propane) over here in Australia.  Most of them are aftermarket conversions of petrol engines so you can choose which fuel to use at any given time.  These conversions are "off the shelf" kits made by several manufacturers, but they must be installed by licensed installers.
Car conversions get a LPG tank located in the boot (trunk) and these are typically 80-100 litres in capacity.  When refilling, the system prevents filling (of liquid gas) past 80% of capacity.
In use, you typically get 70-80% of the mpg you had with petrol (gasolene) and 70-80% of the power you had on petrol.  The main benefit is that LPG is only about 1/2 the price on a L <> L basis, plus the increased range with both systems in place.
There was certainly no improvement in power on my Ford Econovan (Mazda E2000) when using LPG.

Arnie

Ditto here in NZ.. LPG is reputed to stand for "Lacks Proper Go".. Many taxis use the dual system. We also have CNG, compressed natural gas, which I'm not sure of the exact composition but you lose even more power, CNG = "Cough 'N' Go".

James

[moonrunnah]

i knew the mpg went down but the price is sooo cheap and i was under the impresion that you got more power out of them as i stated about the viper (when the propane was on the gas was off) its a 650hp car out of the box and with propane and nos its well over 700 and it has 950ftlb of torque

[Arnie]

Yeah, and what would the bhp and torque numbers on that V10 Behemoth be if they could provide enough gasolene to it when the NOS valve is open?

The price of LPG used to be soooo cheap, as it was an unloved byproduct and it didn't have most of the taxes put on petrol (gasolene) and diesel.  When I had my LPG van the lpg was about 25-33% the cost per liter of petrol.  About 2 yrs ago the price rose to between 50-60% and is now almost 70% the cost of petrol.  That wipes out most if not all the price benefit it had.

Arnie

i knew the mpg went down but the price is sooo cheap and i was under the impresion that you got more power out of them as i stated about the viper (when the propane was on the gas was off) its a 650hp car out of the box and with propane and nos its well over 700 and it has 950ftlb of torque

[moonrunnah]

i saw the viper and i thought it would be cool to see a bike with porpane on it, but if it is going to lack that much power than i would not bother with it.