I am getting ready to convert to propane and have some questions about that to do for a tank.

-What size tank are you guys running?

-Are you running a horizontal permant mount tank or forklift tanks?

-What size tank are you running, and how do they calculate lbs to gal. e.g. how many gal. is a 40# tank?

-how many hours on the trial are you getting on what size tank?

-any good site's on the net to shop for tanks?

thanks for any help and sugestions
Maxx

P.s. its going in a jeep with a 383 stoker motor trial rig

i run 2 forklif tbottles, 8 gallons each. dunno teh #'s on them. i dunno the hours of use i get out of mine at its not dialed in totally yet. but i can do teh trails around here easily. plus u dont have to take the rig to teh station to get it filled where as a perm mounted tank u would! jiMMy

bed of my cruiser, fits perfectly. jiMMy

where did you get your set up? how much did it cost u? how do you like it? got pics? just a little off topic...sorry.

Chris G.

Any forklift depot can help you on the propane tanks. I use them too.

Piece of cake..

Oh yeah, used they are usually $75 or so brand new I think was like $140..

The syandard forklift bottles are 30# and should hold abou 7.5-8 gallons depending on the temp when filled. Supposed run time for a Fork lift is aporx 8hrs for a 4 cyl. truck under near continuos use. It was designed so that one bottle should last one shift. 6 and 8 cyl lift trucks tend to see a decrease in run time of abou 3/4 to one hour per extra 2 cyl from what I see at work.

O choose to run the bottles because LP is not as common for road use in my parts and it allows me to carry as much extra fuel in the tow rig as I could want. I figure I get about 60-80 miles on one tank with a fairly healthey V8 right now cruising it around town. It should do a day on the trail on two tanks OK but I have not had a chance to test that yet.

If you can mount the tanks vertical so the picup will always get liquid. It will run on just the vapor but you have a higher chance of freezing a line with vapor then with liquid running to the converter.

As for a source for tank brakets and parts, e-mail me if you want I work for alift truck company and can normally get a fairly good deal.

Mine are mounted vertical:
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid26/pf814fbe519d412a177462e671a6a5c8e/fd81508c.jpg

how common is propane at gas stations? i know of one place in town that has propane. could you run the tanks that come w/ gas grills for an emergency if you could not find a place to fill you tank? i don’t know jack about propane power but the more i read the more i like it! should some one point me to a site with good info (i have already seen the pirate write up)

Thanks.

Chris G.

Most forlklift LPG tanks have a liquid pick up tube in them to allow you to run them vertical or horizontal.
Most fuel level gauges have a scale for each.
HTH

K.
:usa:

If you use grill tanks or the little colman stove tanks you need to hold them upside down to ensure you get liquid when you run them. Also you normally need to have a little adapther handy to make this work. All forklift size tanks have a horizontal and verticial pickup. However, the horizontal pick up is located near the "bottom" of the tnak and can uncover easy but it is not much of an issue with a pressurized fuel system like propane. Many forlift bottles come with a vapor tap so you could, in therory hook it to your BBQ grill.

Originally posted by The Jerk
i run 2 forklif tbottles, 8 gallons each. dunno teh #'s on them. i dunno the hours of use i get out of mine at its not dialed in totally yet. but i can do teh trails around here easily. plus u dont have to take the rig to teh station to get it filled where as a perm mounted tank u would! jiMMy

JiMMy,
Do you run both tanks togther with a tee or do you run one till it's empty and then swap the tanks?

DUG,
thanks for the offer. I will bookmark your e-mail and contact you when I am closer to putting things together!

you cant run teh tanks together, they will just fill each other back and forth and not full pressure will go to teh carb, run it bone dry then swap it. like 2 min to move the line from one to teh other! jiMMy

Damn that fast:D thanks. I was talking to one guy and was saying something about a hydrostatic tee or something like that. sounded like a pain in the ass and more money to me. I don't mind the idea of swapping bottles, like you said, it only takes a couple of minutes. I hope to start rounding up parts next week. From what I have read, people talk about some power loss, have you experianced any and is much of a loss?

i never ran my engine on gas, but its got 300 ponies and lpg is suposidly around 103 octain or something so i dont see a power loss anywhere. i ran it with 410's and 42's for a hwile with gobs of power, now with 7.17's its sweet!!!!!!! also you dont have to change your oil often at all either, no carbon deposits! jiMMy

I'll be running it in my jeep on a build 383 stroker motor pushing 39.5's with 4:10 gears(for now)

Originally posted by jeepmaxx
I'll be running it in my jeep on a build 383 stroker motor pushing 39.5's with 4:10 gears(for now) youll have fun, advance the timing a lil more too (cuz u can) and just dial in teh idle screw and air fuel mixture screw on teh mixer and FUN FUN!

You can run a tee, the tanks will equalize but still feed the carb from mutual pressure. The down side is when you run out you are OUT, both tanks will be dry. I run each tank till empty and then switch. I try to make sure the 2nd tank is a fresh one whenever I take the Jeep out. I figure that way I will always be able to get back from wherever I went on the first tank :)

As for power, expect a 10-15% decrease in power on LP unless your motor is built specifically for it. A LP motor would have higher compression then normal and a slightly more aggresive cam to get the same power as a gas motor. The cam selection would lead to an iddle not favorable to crawling so accept some p[ower loss there. The best way to get back some of the power is to re-curve the distributor for more advance faster. LP likes more initial timing and it likes the advance to come in faster. This is because octane rating basicaly comes down to how hard something is to burn or how slow it burns. The higher the number the longer it takes to burn. An air/fuel charge of LP at about the same mixture and volume will take considerably more time to burn then a gass/air mix. You need to allow more time for the combustion event to make use of all the energy stored in the fuel when running a higher octane fuel. Of course the higher octane allows you to run high compression before the threat of detonation so you can make up some power there. Also switch to a much hotter plug and be prepared to get used to changing them. LP burns hotter and is hell on plugs, if you have idle or performance issues change the plugs if even if they look OK before you do anything else. Chance are your problem will be solved.

I experiance a little power loss ion my 350 after the swithc. It is mostly a HP thing, the torque on tap seems to be the same but it will nto build power quite like it used to. I still have more then enough for my rig tho'.

HTH

jerk did you build your motor for Propane? i here is plays hell on exhaust valves. so far i have not found a site you can buy the stuff from. how much did your setup cost you? ican get fuel injections for 700 bucks, so would propane be worth it?

Chris G.

Originally posted by Chrisjeep7
jerk did you build your motor for Propane? i here is plays hell on exhaust valves. so far i have not found a site you can buy the stuff from. how much did your setup cost you? ican get fuel injections for 700 bucks, so would propane be worth it?

Chris G. nope the motor was built for gas but it has a 10:1 compression anyways so i lucked out, plus the motor was only run on gas for 500 miles or so. theres a place in town that sells all teh stuff, or look here on ebay, ( http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1856552843
i just saw this, the 425 is the mixer for the small blocks. jiMMy

cool thanks...for that much i think it would be worth it to just try it.

Chris G.

i have som elinks a thome for online stuff too. or if you despratly want FI look here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1856906287
jiMMy

how far or how long can you go on a fork lift tank full? cuz i dont have but liek 2 places to get propane around here. i have a 360 what is an aprox miles per gal?

Chris G.

stated above in one of dugs post i m guessing 4 hours maybe 5, i dont drive mine on the street so i have no idea. its all about getting it diale din just right. goo dthing about eh fork lift tanks is you dont have to take the rig to get it filled just take the tank out. jiMMy

where gan you get tanks? i was talking to a bud that has a fork lift and he sadi he just has his filled by some guy. how much do they run?

Chris G.