F-Body Europe

Hi folks,
unlike in the US Gasoline is outrageous expensive in Germany. Anyone of you ever thought of converting to Liquified Petrol Gas (LPG, Autogas)?

Gunnar

Maybe if I lived in Holland where it seems to be plentiful at a lot of petro stations.

LPG is a power killer and not recommended with Alumium heads as temperatures raise pretty high on LPG.
Here you see plenty of OLD us cars running on LPG as they have Iron heads.

I think the idea of LPG on a 4th gen is not right also, if you really can't afford the gas try a V6.
I live in Holland and maybe drive 3000 Km's a year, the rest i do with my Volkswagen so it's not that bad.
Germans shouldn't complain as the difference PER liter of gas is about 50 pfennig so that's an easy 30 DM per tank !
Plus German don't pay a roadtax of 360 DM just to own a vehicle.
You thought you had it bad ? Think again !

Gunnar, don't be too worried - if you don't push an F-Body, you can get by with pretty decent milage ... I've gotten my V6 as low as 8.5l/100km ... my worst milage on a tank has been 11.6l/100km ... (and that was with LOTS of up-to-the-governor driving ...). Oh, except for Bitburg racing - I used a good 10l for 35km of driving ...
With a Z, add a liter per 100km for the minimum (I guess) ... assuming you won't be using a Z as daily driver, it shouldn't be a problem ...

P.S. - I've seen a Camaro of 'bird on one of the car sales webpages, converted to car gas ... (don't know which one)
Hey, how about putting a BMW 3l Diesel motor in an F-Body? Finally, a daily driver ... (I run my BMW on 5.9l average ...)

Thank you for the lot of response, but most of you did not hit the point.
First: I do not want to drive a pretender, so mounting any diesel engine or driving a V6 (although it has double the power of my current car) is out of question.

I want this Z28 for everyday use, because the 20km curvy, almost empty road to work is so much fun, that I always arrive in the office showing a wide grin.
That is why I would prefer a big, bulletproof V8 to any Turbo, V-TEC etc. gimmicks. The car should last at least for 200000 mls.

But I appreciate the tip not to use LPG in combination with alu heads. I will get in touch with some LPG experts, which have converted Jaguars and other sportscars in the UK.

I do not want to argue about road tax and fuel price differences (car tax for a current Camaro is 570DM per year in Germany), because the situation is bad through whole Europe with only minor differences.
But I hate to hear: If you cannot afford the fuel price go for a small car. I will find a high performance car that can run on LPG, but I would be sorry if this is not the Camaro, because this car surely stands out from the crowd.

Cheers.
Gunnar

Here in Holland we have been driving with LPG since the beginning of time.
Now with the new LPG-I (Injection version) the loss in performance is minimal so a car could still get pretty good performance.

However, this setup is NOT cheap and for the amount of installation you could drive quite some time on normal gas.
Plus it saves on the space in the trunk which is not royal anyway, or an underbody mounted kit is an option but costly.
Mind you that LPG doesn't give good gas mileage but it's ofcourse always cheaper than Gas.
Needless to say that a V8 gets good mileage unless you 'hammer' it as Garry stated.

Lasting 200k miles on LPG is just wishfull thinking as LPG wears out an engine much quicker.
I'm sure today these drawbacks can be prevented with modern LPG-I kits but it comes at a price.

It's funny that you mention that you don't want to be a pretender. Isn't driving a V8 on LPG pretending ?
A v8 on LPG is in my opinion pretending as there is only one way to drive that car, and that's on ordinary gas.

I've been driving a 6 for years and i want to upgrade to a 8 since i got used to the power and want more but i never had the feeling i was pretending, it's not wearing any Z28 badges so i don't feel like a poser in anyway.

Good luck,

Oh btw, the F-bodies are Great cars and can be fun in the corners even (with suspension upgrades) but it's NOT FUNNY in winter time, believe me !
It's about last on my list for being an All Year Round car.
This comes from 5 years of all season driving in Europe and having my fair share of close calls

I converted my 88 camaro 5.7 to LPG a year or so ago. I used to get 21 mpg on petrol and now get 17 mpg on lpg but as it is half price in the UK I am getting the equivalent of 34 mpg.
Performance is very similar, but hey if you want to drive real fast just switch back to petrol.
Engines are supposed to last longer on LPG as it does not carbon up at all. The oil lasts longer as there are no piston blow past products to contaminate it. Bit like gearbox oil.
In the past people had problems burning out valves but this was because they required lead that was present in petrol but not LPG.

Simon

Sergio, forget the close calls, I've been there, and done that, and it SUCKS ASS BIG TIME!!!!

I had my 1988 iroc 5.7 on lpg. Now I thinking about converting 1995 Z lt1 to lpg. only lpg injection system.

thats not true that lpg is gonna do some damage to alu heads.

the combusion temperatur is little higher but thats doesnt have the influence to heads itself.

really important is the afr ratio. bt I think nobody here is talking about real cheap lpg vacuum controlled kits without any electronics.

modern injected systems are very good and performance quality is very high.

there was even bugatti EB110 with option powered by LPG, and it had more vmax than petrol powered.

also another advantage of lpg is that is has~octane level lot more than 100 so possibility of detonation is a lot less.

check out these propane powered monsters in usa
http://www.alternatefuelsracing.com/

Well, a driving school in Fulda has a Boxster running on of lpg (or the other gas ... not sure which) ... sacrilegous, but I guess good to cut the power for the new drivers ...

with lpg injected systems decreas of power is ver small or even unnoticeble. boxter isnt a powerful car

Well, it's not quite as powerless as a Golf Diesel ...

Wow, someone really dug this one up!

yeah:0
I was looking about lpg in fbodies

That's cool. I hope it was of some use to you.

well not really.
I was looking for information what systems are people using on lt1 with what effect and if there are some sytems specially designed for LT1.

Oh dear!
The LPG issue! Again!
Its very funny and a bit embarrassing to read, how naive I was three years ago.
Fbody for everyday use- good joke!

LPG: Some weeks ago I found an advert for a multipoint injection LPG system for 8 cylinder engines for 3000EUR.
But I will not take the risk. It would take 3 years until it will pay back with my annual mileage. Space is already limited in the Fbody so I do not like to carry a big gas tank around and lose the rear seats, which are my favorite storage compartment.
A small tank instead of the spare wheel is pointless. Do not like to loose the space for the t-tops either.

A friend of mine in Australia is driving a Isuzu Trooper on LPG and has 40% more fuel consumption on LPG (well, that is not normal). He said, LPG is okay for cruising but not for full throttle.

Then it definitely wouldn't work for me!