Gas Conversion

[Scott_C]

Hi all, I think someone here mentioned that an Aurion has a gas conversion kit or something... with the Kluger having the same engine, (and drivetrain?) Im wondering if a gas conversion is possible?

Anyone know roughly what gas conversions cost? I thought around $1200 - $2000 but havent looked at it in years.

Thanks.

P.S. with the announcement today by Caltex Australia that petrol will hit $3 a litre, perhaps we all need to go gas.

Oh, and any disadvantages going gas? I know the engine loses some power, but 3.5L V6 is already plenty powerful. Thank goodness the Kluger isnt a 4 cylinder SUV, gas would make it a slug.

[Scott_C]

Well talking to my brother-in-law (who has a gas vehicle), he's of the opinion that the computers might get confused with the changing of fuel mixtures etc. I guess its a valid point - the car is monitoring itself these days, and gas might completely confuse it.

He mentioned that the conversion is around $4k but that you get a $2k rebate from the government.

Edited March 5, 2008 by Scott_C

[Cookie]

I was quoted ~ $4500 by a company at Taren Point, Sydney. Toyota warranty seems to be a grey area though.

[Scott_C]

Thanks Cookie. Throwing the Toyota warranty into doubt cans the idea for me.

Thanks for letting me know.

[Cookie]

Hmmm, might have to make some more inquiries, I filled my ford up on gas today at 59.9 then filled the Kluger up at 148.9....ouch!!!!!

Has anyone else inquired from Toyota regards warranty?

[Scott_C]

Ill ask my dealer, petrol prices are insane now. The only consolation I have for when my Kluger arrives - currently Im filling up with Premium unleaded. Lexus wont take below 94 ron. <_<

[Cookie]

Be interested in what you find out Scott, here's a couple of links....

http://www.drive.com.au/Editorial/ArticleD...=37517&vf=1

"The Aurion's kit was developed by Victorian companies Apollo Gas Products and Lpgas1.

Lpgas1 director Brett Coventry says the Aurion's system produces a 5 per cent power improvement over conventional LPG systems and a 50 per cent reduction in operating costs compared with petrol.

The company says the Aurion's LPG kit is compliant with Euro IV emission requirements and is covered by a three-year, 100,000km warranty. Toyota Australia says the conversion kit does not alter the car's factory warranty providing it's correctly installed."

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0...5010760,00.html

"The kit uses the Toyota electronic control unit (ECU) which means all the Toyota features are also optimised on LPG," said Brett Coventry, director of Lpgas1 which produces the kit's specialised bracketing, wiring and programming. "It starts on petrol and automatically moves over to gas.

"If you run out of gas it moves back to petrol again. You'd never know the difference, though, because the system offers no power loss."

Coventry said the system produced a 5 per cent power improvement over conventional air valve and venturi LPG systems and a 50 per cent reduction in operating costs compared with petrol."

[Scott_C]

Thanks Cookie, thats great information. Id really like to do this gas conversion, its the closest we'd get to having a Kluger hybrid for a while. :)

Ive just got to nut out the issues with Toyota.

[Captain Kaos]

I've been doing some calling around,here's what Iv'e found. You can get this Apollo system fitted to the new model Kluger,"Premier Auto Center" (http://www.premierautocentre.com.au/index.htm) in Sydneys west have done a couple now. They cost $4495 but you get $2000 back.The 54 L tank is a "Donut Type" that lives where your spare use to be. Where the spare will live after the conversion is up to you. The filler connection goes in behind the fuel cap door next to the petrol filler. Toyota does not warrent anything to do with the conversion but you can buy an insurance policy from Premier for $199 which covers you for anything that Toyota wont honor for the same period as the orriginal warranty. Alternitively if you live in N.S.W. you can go to "Apollo's" website ( http://www.apolloproducts.com.au/index.aspx ) and ask for your local installer. Apollo only supply the kits. At the moment, there is a 1 month wait untill you can get in. The Premier website has a "savings caculator" on it and according to that,I will recover the conversion costs in the first year. The mechanic also told me that the new motor (3.5 L) handels the gas well and they have had no complaints or failures from any of the vehicles with that motor that they have converted. Lets see who will be the first to bite the bullet and have it done...

[DHOUS]

Hey Guys

with the rumour of Fuel going up to $8-00/ltr over the next ten years, doesn't look good for the pocket, we can talk about fuel economy and we have just about done that to death with numerous postings, but surely now is the time for alternative fuels, LPG is starting to look good to me, does anyone see a danger of gas prices rocketing up in the future??

[Taka]

Taking out spare is not quite the ideal situation. If run-flat tyre is available for Kluger size that it will be interesting

I am keen on it, although $5K installed hmmm....

[RICE RACING]

I hope you all realize that the rates of tax on LPG are changing soon, and the cost of it is going up similar to petty Its funny how the price of LPG has gone up so much in recent years! when it has nothing to do with crude oil prices either lol.....

Its all a pretty big scam if you ask me, con people into changing onto LPG or CNG then pump them in A tax wise to make up for lost revenues lol.

Gas totally roots any engine, unless the more is made with very very hard valve seats and special valves then they will not last much past 100,000km before vanishing, its hot running (so say good bye to towing reliability) and you need to run a colder spark plug due to the excesses heat, I know lots of old boys who have run multiple gas powered/converted engines over the years and not a single one looks or feels nice after a long period of running on this crap.

The distance you get is much lower

The power *in reality* is much lower

You need to be a Taxi and do 750,000km and change you oil every 2 weeks to see any benefits from it in cost saving and then throw your car away if it was not specifically designed to run on gas.

IMHO if it were worth while ALL government vehicles would be running on GAS? go add up how many are running on GAS you wont find any/many lol cause its a false economy unless your a Taxi service.... thats teh facts boys.

[Taka]

Oh ok.. thanks for the advice. Have thought of some of your points b4.

May be wise to invest in a small diesel car like the Golf TDi for work then.

[PaulG]

What you need is a Tesla!!

http://www.teslamotors.com/

[DHOUS]

I hope you all realize that the rates of tax on LPG are changing soon, and the cost of it is going up similar to petty Its funny how the price of LPG has gone up so much in recent years! when it has nothing to do with crude oil prices either lol.....

Its all a pretty big scam if you ask me, con people into changing onto LPG or CNG then pump them in A tax wise to make up for lost revenues lol.

Gas totally roots any engine, unless the more is made with very very hard valve seats and special valves then they will not last much past 100,000km before vanishing, its hot running (so say good bye to towing reliability) and you need to run a colder spark plug due to the excesses heat, I know lots of old boys who have run multiple gas powered/converted engines over the years and not a single one looks or feels nice after a long period of running on this crap.

The distance you get is much lower

The power *in reality* is much lower

You need to be a Taxi and do 750,000km and change you oil every 2 weeks to see any benefits from it in cost saving and then throw your car away if it was not specifically designed to run on gas.

IMHO if it were worth while ALL government vehicles would be running on GAS? go add up how many are running on GAS you wont find any/many lol cause its a false economy unless your a Taxi service.... thats teh facts boys.

Thanks Ricy for the doomsday report, but I am not sure all your facts are in order.

I did convert a R16TS myself some years ago and that car completed half a million Kms without a rebuild and the engine was fine when I sold it, the only problems I encountered was on cold mornings on the Geelong road the inlet manifold got too cold and lost power, I had to redirect more heat from the exhaust to overcome it.

Yes it does take a lot of Kms to overcome the cost outlay, but the same can be said for diesel, but now both petrol and diesel have started spiralling out of control and there seems to be no chance of that stopping, therefore that cost recovery for gas conversion is going to pull back dramatically.

The facts are Petrol is going to be unaffordable for those doing high Kms,

Diesel has no real advantage with the current pricing that is why most of us have bought Kluger's.

Taxis have proven longevity with extremely high Km's

Australia has an abundance of LPG and is self reliant.

The gas conversion Engineers claim cleaner and longer life, see LPGAS 1 website as shown in earlier posting and see quote below.

Autogas also reduced the build-up of carbon on internal engine components, reducing engine wear and enhancing reliability, he said.

Keep an open mind and dont write off the best and maybe the only alternative fuel we have available at the moment.

Cheers and start worrying about motor racing it will be next to get the chop. (alternative?? crushed Rice crackers)

[Taka]

What you need is a Tesla!!

http://www.teslamotors.com/

Yum :)

I will not let the CEO know that the car is electric and I come to work early to get the parking spot closest to the socket....

[Cookie]

A friend of mine had his '08 Grande converted to LPG about 2 wks ago.

I was going to have mine done as well but am now waiting on the new Liquid Injection LPG system that claims more power and within 5-10% (or better) economy as petrol. The new Li LPG system has only just been released a few days ago for Fords, Commodores and Territory coming soon. Selected installers are now attending courses for certification to fit the new system. Australian LPG Warehouse is supplying the systems and has said there will be a kit for the 08 Kluger available very soon.

[DHOUS]

A friend of mine had his '08 Grande converted to LPG about 2 wks ago.

I was going to have mine done as well but am now waiting on the new Liquid Injection LPG system that claims more power and within 5-10% (or better) economy as petrol. The new Li LPG system has only just been released a few days ago for Fords, Commodores and Territory coming soon. Selected installers are now attending courses for certification to fit the new system. Australian LPG Warehouse is supplying the systems and has said there will be a kit for the 08 Kluger available very soon.

Now thats good positive feedback, thanks Cookie, keep us posted.

[DHOUS]

Ricey was right about one thing a tax is to be introduced 2011 but gas will still be cheaper, given the fuel spiralling costs lets hope the gov rethinks this one.

[Taka]

2011 is an election year?????

[Colonel]

Funny how this thread died as soon as oil prices plumetted.

Anyone get the new LPG system? Probably not really worth the hassel with oil at current prices and likely to fall.

[Cookie]

I had the new JTG Liquid Injection system installed a couple of months ago.

Mine is the 1st and only Kluger done with this system (as far as I know) and was a custom install.

ALPGW has since done a JTG Li kit for the Aurion (same motor)

Edited November 21, 2009 by Cookie

[DBR]

Hi All ,

Has anyone heard of or have some knowledge of O2 sensors burning out with a LPG conversion. My Aurion has had 4 O2 sensors burnt out ( P00031) in one go. The car has 12 months to go on the new car warranty and Toyota says as I have had LPG installed my warranty is not valid. They are blaming the LPG for burning out th3 4 O2 sensors. The car has done 30000 klms and has only travelled 9000 klms under gas. All the LPG installers I have rung claim that this sensor burnout is unlikely. Does anyone have any ideas on this subject. Any comments appreceated.

DBR

[RICE RACING]

Hi All ,

Has anyone heard of or have some knowledge of O2 sensors burning out with a LPG conversion. My Aurion has had 4 O2 sensors burnt out ( P00031) in one go. The car has 12 months to go on the new car warranty and Toyota says as I have had LPG installed my warranty is not valid. They are blaming the LPG for burning out th3 4 O2 sensors. The car has done 30000 klms and has only travelled 9000 klms under gas. All the LPG installers I have rung claim that this sensor burnout is unlikely. Does anyone have any ideas on this subject. Any comments appreceated.

DBR

LPG does burn much hotter than petrol typically. To give you an idea the Kluger already runs at stoichiometric mixtures on petrol and this means the EGT (exhaust gas temperature) will be quite high (in the order of 900deg C) the only way LPG will run at this temperature is for it to be run chemically rich (more fuel over the ideal economical amount) and this is not the way to set it up as your km's you can get to a tank will be low.

I would say given all of this that the likely hood of your 02 sensors being overheated are very real (as indicated by you going through 3 of them thus far!) and its a high probability in my experience of measuring the EGT of many vehicles and tuning them as well (although not tuning the Kluger) < but this can and will need to be addressed to stop the sensor failures.

The scientific way would be to drill into the exhaust manifold near the sensor and put in a thermocouple and measure the gas temperature for both fuels, I think you will find that the LPG will be over 1000deg C and the petrol below 900deg C.

[Cookie]

A friend of mine has done over 20,000 k's on lpg with his '08 Kluger with no problems at all.

I've only done around 4,000 k's on mine with the liquid injection.