12 Sec GTA

I've been doing some reasearch on nitrous/propane injection, and need some advice.


What benefit does propane give over fuel in a wet kit?

What's the jetting like for a propane kit? (What PSI do you run the propane at...)

What's the propane consumption like?


I'm moving to a progressive 200 shot, and I am now contemplating going propane..

MikeTTA89

Try www.turbobuick.com there a few guys testing Propane kits to help with detonation. Lots of guys running akly injection that has worked awesome on Turbobuicks.

sleepybu

were you thinking of using the n2o a lpg together

Skweezn87

Why not? One company makes a kit for the Viper .. LPG has a very high octane rating as well.. its a good suppliment for fuel..

Rick

12 Sec GTA

I checked out turbobuick, not much for info there...


I want to do a LP & nitrous setup.


Is a different nozzle needed?

LP runs at 150psi, right?

What's the consumption?

12 Sec GTA

Also curious as to the hardware..


Will a standard "grill type" bottle/valve/regulator setup work?

It looks like it's a rubber (non braided outtter) -4 hose coming from the bottle to the grill...


Mind is running 432788574 mph right now...

12 Sec GTA

And one more question to add to the list.


I read somewhere that propane can freeze in the line.. Which would be just like a fuel solenoid not opening (kaboom)

Which is VERY scary?


Any validity to this? How to stop that from happening?

sleepybu

you'll have to run a fuel pump for the lpg so you have a constint presser cuz out side temp will always be changing the tank psi. Then you need a return line s you can purg the lpg so theres no bubbles in the line. Your going to have to crunch some to get the rite n2o to lpg ratio. The quality of lpg you can gey will afect your set up too. Lpg can range from around 105 to the good stuff of about 115-116. If you going to use this on a na motor you mite have probs iceing the intake.

12 Sec GTA

LPG pump & return lines?

I havent heard anything about that..


I'm not converting the entire car to run on LPG, only for the fuel side of my wet kit.


A regulator and a bottle heater should take care of the consistency...

a73camaro

Ambient temperature will affect the pressure. The higher the temperature, the higher the pressure.

I am trying to figure out LPG with a 5th fuel injector into a turbo 4 banger. With line pressure I was getting the injector to pulse correctly, but some of the LPG was vaporizing before the injector, so I was getting a liquid/vapor sputter out of the injector.

LPG will not freeze when flowing thru a line at room temperature. The injector (a peak and hold style) was getting warm around the coils, but the tip was cooling off.

To simplify the system, one could pressurize the LPG with either compressed nitrogen, or even with the Nitrous Oxide. U'd need a regulator for that.

rhuarc31

I'm way over tired, apologize for the rather rambling nature of this post, but sift through it, I hope it will help.

There's a kit using propane for the viper as well. I also have installed it on a turbocharged sand dragster. Easiest way to run it is just use an additional nitrous solenoid and nozzle instead of a fuel solenoid. You can use a small tank like you'd buy at walmart for your propane torch, or camp grill, you don't need the big one. Here's why, You'll refill your nitrous bottle about 10 times as often as that little tiny propane bottle.
You can inject the propane as either a gas or a liquid, depending on how you position the bottle (put it upside down for liquid). The liquid of course instantly vaporizes when it comes out of the nozzle. Liquid will put an insane chill on the intake charge.
Another reason to run propane is it's higher octane rating (110-114), that's why a lot of turbo guys are running it instead of water/alcohol injection, as well as the much higher intake cooling compared to water/alcohol. As far as jetting I used to have an excel spreadsheet that would calculate the jet size needed for any size of nitrous shot, if I can find it I'll get it out, if not it was a viper guy that gave it to me, you might do a search on the net for it. The wierdest thing to get used to is that your propane jet will actually be SMALLER than your nitrous jet, by a fair amount.
Don't waste your time calling NOS or anyone, as they don't do it, and have real idea about it. Also, propane will cause an oxygen sensor to react, so you wideband guys can still tune with it.
Here's a link to the manufacturer of the viper system, I believe their set up is to run it as a gas. Another resource would be the guys who use volkswagen engines on sand buggy's and such, they used to do this a lot. Good luck
John

sleepybu

where's the link

rhuarc31

sorry, told you I was tired.
http://www.btrviper.com/nitrous.html
http://www.btrviper.com/vetteproducts.php

sleepybu

hehe... it's all good:hail: thanks

12 Sec GTA

I saw the BTR kit last night in person on my friend's GTS (heads/cam/dual stage, etc..)


Very simple "kit"


Not even a regulator is used.


Why are you recommending a nitrous solenoid instead of fuel? For the pressure rating of the noid? My NX fuel solenoid is good to 400+ psi, plenty for propane.


Don't forget, fuel solenoids have a teflon plunger, nitrous ones don't.


I've got the propane side of the kit pretty much done, and am actually working on designing and marketing an entire kit for it.

Stay tuned


Thanks for the help everyone.

sleepybu

acording to the btm site the fuel noid in only good for around 100psi and they run the propane at 140 to 160pis...

I'd think if on ran LP they could run a low psi that would making jetting simple.

But whats the point on a n/a motor, theres less energy(hp) in propane over gas to. The n2o takes alot of the heat out of the intake already. If you put this on a blower or turbo motor it should work gangbusters...

rhuarc31

If you can get it to work with a fuel solenoid great, I just used a nitrous one cause it seemed to make logical sense, and the fuel solenoid I had wasn't good to that kind of pressure. And yes there's less energy in propane than gas, but with the additional octane and temperature drop you can run a bigger hit *shrug*, but you are correct it kicks butt on boosted motors. Matter of fact I've used propane as fuel enrichment on boosted motors like the buick guys many times, works great.

a73camaro

True that propane has less energy per pound than gasoline, but propane's stoichiometric ratio is about 10:1, where gas is at 14.7:1. Since more fuel is used, more energy goes into the bang.

Supervisor42

12 Sec GTA, are you still out there?
I'm interested in putting LPG and N2O together.
Just need some jetting info.
I have plenty of free LPG stuff (tanks, solenoids, hoses and an unlimited supply of LPG)

loneroad

iTrader: (3)

wow this thread is 5 yr old, id love to iknow how it turned out. i was thinking of running a fuel cell and seperate pump for my kit. I kinda like the idea of just screwing in a camping propane tank in stead

Supervisor42

Well, I think you'll need a bigger tank than that and one that feeds liquid.
LP has about 85% of the energy compared to gasoline. This means you'll need about 125% verses the amount of gasoline per bottle of nitrous. Someone said you'd need a smaller LP tank than your nitrous bottle. That has to be way wrong.
The setup will be much more simple than a gas/nitrous setup. No seperate racing gas or tank, no extra gas pump etc. Besides being over 110 octane, the LP will also cool the intake charge in addition to the N2O. I don't see why a 200 shot would be that hard to do since detonation wouldn't be a problem.

3rdGenFireFox

Bringing this back from the dead after coming across it on google.

Basically I want to run propane as my fuel on my nitrous wet shot set-up.
Anyone have a jet size chart for propane? i've been looking around for hours ;/

I'm going for a 250 shot on my built 400 SBC
Running a bottle heater on a pressure switch at 200psi on the propane.


Reason why i want to run propane as the fuel?
-dual cooling of nitrous and propane
-the 110 octane
-no fuel pooling/better atomization
-no need for fuel regulation since the bottle is pump and tank in one package.

Drac0nic

I've thought about this for some time, as I used to work at an LPG plant. Fisrt off lets get down to what (IMO) you should have to do this.

-A fork lift tank, with a high flow valve. They tap liquid not vapor. They can also be had in aluminum which is nice. The high flow valve is so that you don't run out of fuel. They have a flow limiter in them to snap the valve shut if the line breaks. Could be a problem at higher power levels.
-This is where things get a bit hairy, I would do this 1 of 2 ways. First off, I would use a cryogenic regulator for the liquid. Mcmaster-Carr sells them, they are bank. The second (IMO preferred) way would be to have a bottle heater on the LPG tank too, then use a valve set at about 175 PSI to make sure that the pressure is constant.
-Nitrous kit I would think that as mentioned you would want two nitrous noids and use one for fuel. These are cryogenic style solenoids so they would likely hold up better to the vigors of the LPG.

The advantages would likely be these:
-Less chance of issues due to puddling
-high octane as mentioned
-LPG is very cold -42F vaporization point if I remember correctly for the liquid
-Could be put through an intercooler easily whereas liquids like alcohol can not.

Supervisor42

That would be the $64 question. We're just waiting for a couragous person such as yourself to do the experimentation.
The orfice diameter is going to be very very small due to the 160-200 psi.
I don't think you'd need to use regulators or a tank heater unless the system will be used below 70° or above 85°.
I also don't think calculations will do much better than get you in the ballpark.
Hanging a system on a "mule" and actually trying stuff is what's needed.
It wouldn't be that hard to do.
Optimal mixing could be achieved by blowing the nitrous thru the LPG stream with a coaxial injector instead of side-by-side injectors.
Five-Seven can tell us how many pounds of nitrous will be needed to burn a pound of LP. Since we know the jet size for X number of lbs/hour for nitrous at 750 psi the ballpark jet size for LP would be to derate the flow rate to 200 psi and calculate the difference in density of the 2 liquids.
~or~
Someone could do some experiments...
EDIT: p.s. solenoid valves for liquid propane are on most forklifts and not that expensive. The seats in nitrous valves are special making the valve expensive.

3rdGenFireFox

These should be close
160PSI PROPANE AND 900psi NITROUS

#42 NOS + #24 PRO = 50 WHP
#46 NOS + #26 PRO = 75 WHP
#52 NOS + #30 PRO = 100 WHP
#64 NOS + #36 PRO = 150 WHP
#72 NOS + #40 PRO = 200 WHP

Turns out that the propane jetting is about the same as Fuel injected(42psi) gasoline jetting.
The propane is 46% less dense then gasoline and has less btu's per gallon, so the increased pressure gives about the same fuel energy as FI gas jets


Also the BTR kitted viper guys are saying they use 10lbs nitrous per 1 lbs of propane.(10-1 afr?)
They fill a nitrous bottle with propane by just connecting a bbq tank to the nitrous tank and shaking the bbq tank upside down which fills the nitrous bottle.

Supervisor42

Finally! after years!
Now, someone start making some smoke!
BTW the fuel to oxidizer ratio is going to be much different than the air/fuel ratio because air is 20% oxygen as opposed to N20 which is...
(I used to be able to do chemistry)

3rdGenFireFox

Yea I cant wait to test this out.
I have a wide band so i'll tune the jetting to more real world #s instead of mathematically guessing.

air is 23.2% o2 by molecular mass. n20 is 36.35% o2 by molecular mass


To a73camero's post from like 9 years ago, the stoichiometric air-fuel ratio of propane is 15.5 with regular air.
With n20 as the air it takes it to 9.98 to 1 afr for propane and 9.382 to 1 for gasoline as per that article's math formulas.
http://www.brighthub.com/engineering...les/15235.aspx


I wish n20 wasn't so expensive.
I'm going to put both bottles on scales and "run" the system like i would on my car and shoot for 8 or 9 parts nitrous used to 1 part propane used by weight to get a baseline for when I put it on my car.

Supervisor42

I just love young people! They seem to have found all of the braincells we have destroyed in the past 3 decades.
Find a 150,000 mile mule to drop it on. The already have the wide clearances in the motor.

MotorMouth

I have a very serious question you need to think about. Have you thought what would happen if you was in a wreck and they was a fire? Having N20 and propane in a vehicle without a very tough firewall is very dangerous. In the event of a collision it would not be hard to knock off the valves of both and you would not stand a chance.

project89

iTrader: (1)

its not that dangerous, it would have to be a very serious accident to rupture or knock the valve off the bottle, granted the n20 bottle is much thicker and stronger then an standard lpg bottle, but they do make dot aproved propane tanks.

if i were going to use n20 with propane i would deffinatly have a dot aproved lpg tank and the urst disk would be vented outside the car

Drac0nic

Almost all LPG tanks are DOT approved. The only ones that aren't really are the ones at houses. The collars that they use are there to protect the tank's valves. Not only that but it's actually fairly common to use it as a motor fuel. The plant I worked at had about 8 vehicles that ran on LPG.

Supervisor42

First of all, we're not talking about a gas grill LP tank; they only send out vapor.
Shown below is one for liquid that has been used in industry for decades.
Besides having a very substantial collar, the supply valve has a device in it called a "slam valve" which closes if the hose or valve are broken off. This stops the flow of LP to a trickle.
Even in the worst case, I would prefer an explosion to being pinned in a car with 16 gallons of flaming unleaded spreading out underneath...

project89

iTrader: (1)

really? didnt knwo that, there is a company out here that does lpg conversions on cars and they offer all sorts of tank sizes specifically for use in automobiles i figured there was a difference in the tanks

3rdGenFireFox

+1

I would rather have 1-5 seconds of fire if the the valve somehow broke loose compared to 15 minutes of flaming gasoline

On top of a "purge" line on my tanks, I also have a steel nitrous bottle for the propane.