19doug90

My friend mentioned something quickly to me today that i was wondering if any of you have heard of. He told me that his dad (owns a 9 second C4 vette, total gear head) had either been informed of or just decided on his own to start toying around with using propane in the same sort of way you would use nitrous. I dont think hes started doing anything yet but my friend said it would be similar to nitrous except if you ran too much through the engine it would just cause the motor to bog so essentially its like nos, not quite as powerful, but doesnt expose your engine to running too big of a shot. Anyone ever heard of people trying to use propane as a power adder? Even if not could anyone see it working or are there some pretty large flaws with the idea???

a73camaro

Propane is a fuel (like gasoline). Nitrous oxide is an oxidizer. NOS adds oxygen and with more fuel, more power can be produced.

Propane, if injected in its liquid form can cool the intake charge like NOS, but it richens the fuel charge. A big plus from propane is that it's octane rating is like 110, so one could run on lower octane gas at part throttle and inject propane at WOT.

Apeiron

Propane injection as a power adder is for diesels.

19doug90

why does it only work for diesels???i dont know the first thing about diesel engines

D M N

Think about it

19doug90

is it just the different fuel. I'm a grade A moron when it comes to diesel why does that make a difference i dont even know anything about diesel fuel. Also dont diesel engines work slightly differently?

B4Ctom1

I remember seeing pics of a vette that had nitrous and for enrichment it used liquid propane

Apeiron

That's a little different. The nitrous is still the power adder but the extra fuel added is propane instead of gasoline.

How Stuff Works has a pretty good description of what makes diesel engines so different: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/diesel.htm

As I understand it, diesel engines normally burn only about 75% of their fuel, the rest is ejected out the tailpipe. Propane is injected as a catalyst to allow all the diesel to be burned in the cylinder to release more power.

Cronic3rd

Propane is also used in a similar way to water/alchol injection in turbocharged or supercharged engines. It basically richens and cools the compressed fuel/air to ward off detonation.

JHens

One thing I have always heard is propane is very close to gas in it's characteristics, air/fule ratio's etc. I've heard of alot of farmers around here converting gas work pickups to propane, mainly because some of them have huge farms and in the remote areas of them gas stations are few and far between so they can stick a trailer home propane tank in the bed and go 1000 miles or so on it.

90formula5spd

yes diesels use different type of gas, duh!, but the gas is also combusted differently, instead of spark plugs, it is the air in the engine that gets hot and ignites the fuel, although im not positive if this is Y the propane worx on diesel, that is the main difference, i havent ever worked with propane but i would like to hear of the effects on Q/M and HP increases...

19doug90

This makes more sense....the car in question is a 9 second c4 with a built 85 buick GN motor with a massive turbo on it. Would someone care to explain in more detail exactly how this works.....i think i understand it but not completly

CamaroFreak406

OK here is my educated guess as to why this would work. Engine's need air and fuel. More of one with out enough of another is pointless (and possibly dangerous). So if he injects propane he needs more air, but if he is running a boat load of Boost he should have enough are to cause a good mix for the propane.
But if you were to inject both propane (highly explosive fuel) and nitrous (oxidizer) the HP and TQ increase would be amazing but on second thought it might explode the bottom end or blow the head gaskets to crap. But it sounds like it might work.

Later, Garrett

Cronic3rd

Well propane when injected in compressed (or liquid) form it expands and "uses" the heat from the medium is is decompressing in (effectivly cooling everything down) which aids in reducing detonation. It also is a high octane fuel wich also aids in reducing detonation. From what I have read it is very similar to water/alchol injection but works a little bit better. Why that is I couldn't tell you I only know what I have read - no real world experience.

83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

Not exactly. Propane has a higher octane (somewhere around 108), burns slower, has a different stoichometric ratio (about 9:1 as compared to gas which is 14.7:1, in other words, every pound of gas needs to be mixed with 50% more air then a pound of propane).

As others have stated, propane is just a fuel, unlike N2O which in a hot combustion chamber acts like an oxidizer (allows you to burn more fuel).

Typically, on a gas engine propane injection is used to add fuel when running a power adder. It is somewhat simpler to do then adding a lot of gas (easily distributes and doesn’t require you to modify the fuel system that you already have) and it has the added advantage that it has an intercooling effect when injected into the intake.

Finally, the reason it works as a power adder in a diesel is that they work slightly differently. Mostly there is no throttle in a diesel. A diesel’s power output is regulated by the amount of fuel you inject into it. If you inject more fuel you can make more power.

JHens

Well, I stand corrected.

bEtUr4dRustang

Check your PMs. I couldn't get your email to work.

Sorry to butt in like this guys.

regards,
Jason

TA5LiterHO

Propane is actually less efficient than gas when burning it by itself. My father in law owns a propane business and all his trucks run on it as well as his Drag Mustang. I asked him at one time if it would make my car run better to convert it to propane completely. He says it's not worth it by itself. Propane comes from petroleum. (The lighter side) It isn't much cheaper than regular gas either. It does however keep your engine cleaner inside because it burns more completely.

sleepybu

some gn guys are useing lpg


http://www.turbobuick.com/messagebd/

CRZYTRN-92Z28

Propane is like 140 octane. Theres a kit for the gts vipers that includes the nitrous and propane setup. Theres a guy in town running a 250 shot on a stock viper who is using the propane to keep from detonation. It works great because it's gaseous and wont puddle in the intake. The kits like 2500 $ though .

83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

Propane is only about 107-108 octane.

What exactly do you mean by less efficient? You can make more power with it because you can run more compression/boost then you could with gas. You do need to run higher compression if it’s your only fuel because it’s slower burning and wants more compression to get the same responsiveness as you get with gas.