Particularly any british blazer owners running a dual fule/lpg conversion. What spark plugs do you run?

The cats is well and truly amongst the pigeons now! I have been advised NOT to use platinum tipped plugs with an LPG (propane) converted car. My blazer is dual fuel so runs on both petrol (gas) and LPG (Liquified Petroleum Gas) apparently platinum tips tend to break down when burning LPG. Thats a bugger as I've just ordered a set of the AC Delco dual platinums plugs from rockauto and they are already shipped so I can't go back and cancel them. I've been advised to go with copper plugs as the LPG reacts badly with platinum plugs. I'm going to try and call AC Delco tomorrow and see what they say about it but in the meantime does anyone have any advice or suggestions, preferably from personal experience. I've been advised to stick with NGK's and I'm having trouble sourcing them in the UK (TR55's)

Any advice welcomed

 

hmmmm................never run LPG before, but i can tell you those Champion Copper Truck plugs are amazing!

ran them in my 1st gens, never had an issue. hardly even had to adjust the spark gap either. checked them every Fall, and only did an adjustment on the gap around the 75K mark. had them in there for 120K if iremember correctly.

and my Jimmy was driven hard on a daily bassis.

 

So just how does one do a dual fuel conversion? I'm looking to add hydroxy to mine but am having fits with the computer. The propane is attractive, though.

 

There are a number of systems around from simple single point systems like mine to complex multipoint sequential systems which are much more efficient. Mine has a vaporiser thats plumbed into the coolant system that takes the liquid gas and wrms it up to turn it into vapour and its then injected into the air inlet, that the same time the controller turns off the fuel pump and injectors. The danger with single point system is that if you get a backfire it can blow the inlet manifold apart. Multipoint systems have an injector for each cylinder tapped into the inlet manifold next to the fuel injectors and the latest ones are very efficient and smooth and theres less chance of explosions. They are much more expensive but in the future I may see how much converting from single to multipoint will cost me. The gas is held in a double skinned toroidal tank in place of the spare wheel underneath but you can have custom tanks made to fit underneath or have a bigger tank in the load bay. Inside theres a simple switch that flips it from petrol (gas) to LPG but it wil normally start on gas and then flip over automatically to LPG when up to temperature.

Petrol (gas) is running at about £1.30/litre here with LPG if you shop around at about £0.75 so a big difference.

 

There is a difference price wise, but remember you do lose some MPG with gas....

 

so you're saying you get better fuel mileage with the propane, than over gasoline?


funny, i don't ever remember my friend's Dd ever saying that.

while it didn't have the range as it did when he was running on gas, it was waaaaaay cheaper, so he really didn't care.

 

It is cheaper, and if you buy a vehicle with it on than yes, instant cheaper running costs.... But, if you need to spend the £1k or so to fit it & remember it needs servicing too, there are people on some other forums who think it will take up to 2 years to get the savings back (If they pay to fit it I mean).
I have only ever kept one car for 2 years, so I would never bother....

 

You get less miles to the gallon with propane as it has a lower calorific value than petrol (gas) so you get less energy from each litre burnt. It does depend on the engine but it can be as low as 75% against what yopu'd get on petrol. That still makes it cheaper for me to run though with gas at just over half the price of petrol here.

 

Have you got any suggested links for me to research? I do like the sound of it, and as the gas stations here in my area have propane refill readily available, it seems practical.
I'll need to retrofit an 89 350 that has TBI.

 

Now to answer the original question before the thread was hijacked. I run the same plugs on propane that I ran on fuel injection. Standard AC delco plugs, all of my Chevy motors seen to crave these plugs and they are cheap. The area you should be concerned about is ignition. A good strong ignition system is key to efficient propane combustion. I run standard GM HEI with an MSD box for maximum output on my 468 big block. With a well tuned propane system you can expect a 10% loss in fuel economy. Power increases are not uncommon after removing the poorly functioning gasoline system. Duel fuel systems are easy to operate but have more parts to keep track of. Also you guy's are confusing everyone when you say "gas". In America "gas" means gasoline. Be a little clearer with "gasoline" and "propane".

Here are a few links:

http://www.rasoenterprises.com/index...ions&Itemid=48

http://www.gotpropane.com/p4.html#Chevrolet