i spoke to a man on ebay he was just selling off all his lpg bits from his st,, apparently its wasnt much good so he stripped it off sold it all the sold the st and bought a tdci focus instead

 

I know from experience with my mk1 focus that has the factory fitted LPG on it, that you spend the rest of your life adjusting valve clearances. The lack of lubricant in the fuel causes the valve seats to be eaten away. From what I've seen from Internet research, Volvo engines suffer the same problem.

 

Has anyone on here had it done that you know of?? St is worth nothing these days in part x

 

im sure there was 1 member on here that did it not sure that there still a member tho

 

When I bought mine there was one for sale on eBay. Low mileage one aswell but diddnt seem to do well. I personally don't like gas conversions, they usually run too hot, and slowly kill the lambda sensors.

 

Sure when I had mine mapped at Profile there was one there that had a LPG conversion

 

It has been done but I don't think it was an overwhelming success story.

 

I don't think an ST is the sort of car which should be subject to an LPG conversion personally.
Without wanting to sound harsh if the fuel bill is an issue get something with a smaller engine.

 

I don't think an ST is the sort of car which should be subject to an LPG conversion personally.
Without wanting to sound harsh if the fuel bill is an issue get something with a smaller engine.

i disagree. My mother runs a 4.2 supercharged Jag with LPG, the cost of LPG is almost half of petrol. Thus, meaning that running a 400bhp car becomes affordable. It also means you get a reduction in road tax.

 

Had my car done around 2 years ago, done 40,000 miles on gas. I've had no problems with the conversion, it does around 42-44 mpg equivalent. Thats running on an MP260.

 

Have you had it on a rolling road using LPG?

 

not had it on a rolling road, however there is little or no power loss.

You can switch back to petrol at any time if you want too.

 

I would personally want to see a set of rolling road graphs to be sure.

 

Modern lpg kits are alot better than the old single point injection systems that were available years ago.

The performance decrease is negligible

 

Mate from my old work had his BMW 5 series V8 converted to LPG as he drives to 'the Ring' a lot and he had it rolling roaded on petrol and then again on LPG, Petrol it made roughly 300bhp, on LPG it made 275bhp.

Not the same engine I know but gives some indication of possible power losses.

 

LPG will always be around a 10% decrease I thought, mainly due to the lower calorific value of the fuel (or something like that

)

 

I have a mate that has it done he's not on the forum though on a silver facelift. He claims its no different in power but he's very new to the ST as a car. The only thing that put me off was you lose 1/3 of the boot space with the gas bottle. And it also looks like a mini nuke sat there lol

 

Converting to LPG would save money for a while but if too many people did it, the government would just increase the tax on the gas. When 2 star petrol was phased out and LRP came along, it was more per litre than diesel. The government said it was due to the additives, so everyone rushed out and got diesel cars. Sure enough the price of diesel suddenly started rising much faster than LRP. Its all a con

 

The government said it was due to the additives, so everyone rushed out and got diesel cars. Sure enough the price of diesel suddenly started rising much faster than LRP. Its all a con

Or it's called supply and demand. Surprisingly if more people are buying stuff, there's more demand for it, therefore a higher price. It's got nothing to do with the government, apart from their stupid taxes on the stuff. Gotta love VAT being charged on fuel duty. How can a tax on a tax be Value Added?

 

At the end of the day, if your just driving down the motorway your probably using < 100hp. If you need all the POWER!!! then simply switch back to petrol. At lot of people don't like LPG but it works, and its 40% cheaper to run your car than petrol.

 

How much fitted would a lpg conversion be?

 

For a decent piece of kit you're looking at 1800 quid.
That'd be capable of handling over 300bhp

 

On the millage I do. It'd take a year to break even on the purchase of the kit.

As above. It requires maintainence, and servicing every now and again.

 

i have a ST with lpg..... is a Vialle LPG.... i also have a dreamscience mod X stage, about 340bhp
the car run with full power if i use the petrol....
with lpg i can't use the full power because the vialle is a liquid lpg system and the pump in the lpg tank is for maximun 280bhp engine
now the car had 120.000 km (90.000 with lpg) and i haven't any problem ;-)
sorry for my bad english

 

Just got my st mk2 converted. Went all out and got the best system on the market at this time. Prins VSI with aftermarket injectors from japan. Noticed a difference when I floor it from stand still. The boost doesn't throw you back as much like it does when running on Vpower Nitro + but other than SLIGHT lack of boost it's fine (when you REALLY need it just hit the BEAST MODE button lol instantly switches to petrol)

At the moment I'm getting £20 of Vpower nitro + at £1.38p/l = 50 miles (semi Eco driving) and on LPG at 75p a liter = aprox 100 miles (rough driving/almost no Eco).

Paid £1800 for the system and would recommend Alternative fuel company on river road in east London.
If your gonna do it, do it properly and get the BEST system, otherwise leave it.

 

Sounds like a good option. So if you don't mind me asking how many miles do you plan to do per year and how many years are you keeping the car for?

 

Ron value is lower but the calorific content is higher as far as I'm aware.

LPG used to be renowned for poor performance and eating valve seats.
Stuff has moved on, and a lot of the decent systems aren't a great deal off the performance of petrol.

My dad's been fitting LPG kits for over 20 years, although admittedly he has removed more kits than installed (thanks to the planks that think they can diy fit these kits)

My mums 400bhp a type r has been running a dogs danglies landi system for the last 6 years and the performance losses are not really noticeable.
I wonder how much she's saved in fuel money over the years....

 

Well for 4500 miles - that's £1800 so you get 9000 miles that's nearly a years worth of driving so I make it roughly £2200 saving a year !

I dunno if my maths is off it's not my strongest point

 

It's roughly a 9000 pound saving on my mums car based on the difference between petrol and LPG being 40%
She does around 200-250 miles a week and averages 22mpg on LPG.

 

If mine was a daily driver I'd probably go for it ! Then I could get a new turbo, manifold & plenum at the end of the year

Shame they don't do something like this for diesels I'm spending £120 every 10 days in my work van !!!

 

They do LPG for diesels.

But instead of it just running on LPG it runs on both.
This doubles your range, but the savings aren't as great as you still have to use diesel.

It's also VERY expensive.

 

Really wow that's cool sort me out

I'd get it done on the van straight away it's tax deductible and vat claimable so worth it IMO

 

@MrRimmer

I use my st EVERYDAY and I just got it 6 months ago so planning to keep it for a while. Hence the convention.

I'm still waiting for my last empty tank to £20 fill to finish then I can get a perfect reading and double check that I am getting that mileage. There may have been a slight miss calculation before. A £20 LPG fill gets me between 3 and 4 LEDs on the gauge and after 31.1 miles I'm on 2 LEDs out of 5. However the temp of the car plays on the tank sensor so on a cold morning it shows less gas than what's in the tank. I will post a full update at the end of this run.

The only other 'error' I get is the ECU gets confused. I have a quater tank of nitro+ at the moment and the 'distance to empty' keeps counting down even if I don't use petrol. So the low petrol light on the dash is on but I have just over a quater tank left. Lol.

Due to the weather I haven't been able to really push it but I CAN feel a drop on performance but ONLY when you floor it and kick that turbo, feels like 20% less boost I would say (I do STILL have a months driving to do and then I'm due back at the garage for a final tune up to increase power). But the system I have, Prins VSI, has instant switch for petrol. No slowing down needed. Hit the button and GO GO GO!

 

so how much gas does a tank take, how much does that cost and what's the range on gas alone. doing 600 miles a week at the mo! have been for a year and likely another one.

G.

 

Depends on the size of the tank you fit.
A 90 litre tank will hold about 70 litre of gas.

If you're doing 600 miles a week. I'd serious consider buying a diesel

 

I still have to go back in 3 weeks time for my final tuning session. Will prob get more power once that's done. My last fill of £20 is still going and I'm on 86.3 miles so far. That's also very rough driving. No Eco what so ever. =P

 

How are you finding the conversion?

Ive had my 330ci Clubsport converted for a while now and love it and was thinking of getting my ST done. I have ben speaking to my local installer who fitted a BRC kit on my E46 and he said he can do the Valve Lube system but also set it up so up to say 3.5k the ST will use LPG but anything above that ie when I put my foot down it will auto switch to petrol. Therefore ill see nice mpg on LPG on the commute to work but will still get the performance when I want it.

Sounds like a good compromise to me and im tempted to get it done in the future, the block mod will be first though.

 

No. That is a half baked job. Petrol blending is only used if the components used are of poor quality and cannot cope with the engine demands. A well installed system will cope throughout the power range and not switch back to petrol in any circumstance. After all if you want to use petrol, all you need to do is press a button. The switch over is instantaneous.

In addition the Focus needs flashlube to protect from valve seat recession or VSR.

The wife has a RR SC that runs on LPG and I have never had it switch over to petrol. 510 bhp if I recollect correctly.

Rowe's posts are all sensible suggestions re: conversions. Except the RON value. LPG is about 113 (depending on the mix). Its the calorific value that is lower and affects mileage/max power.

Savings on LPG are approx 10 -12 p per mile. Maybe more in lower powered applications.