Hey all!

Thinking of upgrading to a third gen... wondering if anyone has one on LPG, and what are the best systems to run them on, also the pros and cons? Did trawl the forum but couldnt find exactly what i was looking for...

Live in Melbourne, so if anyone knows best place to get it done (and cheap haha) let me know...

Cheers

Lorenzo.

Years ago I had a 3.0l TE exec on dual fuel. It had an Impco atmo LPG system that was fitted at about 180,000k.

I bought the car damaged about 3 months after the LPG system had been fitted. It always went well. I sold it with about 260,000k on it.

From memory Mitsubishi do not condone the aftermarket fitment of LPG. As you know though, there are thousands of Magnas, Pajeros, Tritons and Challengers happily running around with LPG on them.

You need to decide whether you want to go with a simple atmo setup or the more expensive but far superior injected system.

I have no knowledge of installers in the Melbourne area.

When you find an installer/workshop ask if you could see some of their previous installations. Do they do a lot of installations? Is LPG their primary business? What equipment do they install? What is the guarantee they offer? And most importantly the price!

Remember, as with anything. Good is not usually cheap and cheap is not usually good.

Shop around and ask a lot of questions. You are making a fairly big investment and depending on your mileage it can take years to recoup the cost of LPG.

Given the choice, I would go for LPG direct injection. However, this is more expensive. The main advantage is that the gas is injected close to the head, not way back at the start of the manifold. Should a backfire occur, you only have a small amount of gas from one cylinder to go bang. When you have a misfire with a throttle body injection system, you have a whole manifold ie 6 cylinders and a long run to each to go BANG. However, I would say that most LPG systems are throttle body and they all work fairly well.

As for economics, when I had my vehicles done, it was typically 25000 km before the cost of the installation was recouped. After that, every 25000 km it returned the installation cost again. I had a NL Pajero and a TF Magna. The Pajero installation cost was $2600 and the Magna was $1650. The break-even point depends on the relative prices of LPG and petrol. I suspect that the difference is now a lot less (LPG is 99.9 c/Litre where I live and petrol is $1.55 or thereabouts). The calculations are fairly simple - determine how much petrol you would use to do 1000 km. The repeat the calculations for gas. Typically, you use 25% more LPG than petrol. Calculate how much to do the 1000 km on gas and petrol, and subtract gas price from the petrol price to get the difference. This is how much you save per 1000 km. It may be $100 per 1000 km. If the installation costs $2000, it will take 20000 km to pay for the installation. Every 20000 km after that you will save another $2000 and the process goes on and on. Theoretically I could have parked both my vehicles onthe roadside and walked away from them and they would not owe me a cent because the savings I made on fuel paid the total cost of the cars. Naturally, I didn't do that and sold/traded them in on new cars which sadly cannot use gas. The gas prices are much higher these days, so you may have to drive a lot further to recoup the installation cost.

Lot of Gen 3 Magnas out there already on LPG . We have had 3 gen 3s on LPG . Two of them were TF autos with Imco systems . I could get 400 km out of a 64ltr tank around Melbourne semi peak . Both cars never backfired .
The car l have now is a Tj Auto Wagon with a Parnell gas injection system . We can get about 380 kml out of a 54 ltr tank

Our TF sedan (manual trans) used to get 550 to 600 km from a 60L usable tank - mostly open country running at 100 km/h. I was disappointed at this, because I reckoned I should have been 10% better. The Magna backfired only once - after the final dealer service when they replaced the front spark plugs without properly releasing the HT leads. Needless to say, they denied any responsibilty for that.

My Pajero was a different animal. It used to backfire easily because the HT leads were only 5 mm dia instead of 7 mm for the Magna. Beleive me - when they backfire, you know it. The airflow meter used to have honeycomb aluminium which created turbulence at low airflows. Used to, because the backfire blew it beyond repair. Magna was OK though.

My TW sedan has a suction gas system. I get about 600Km max from 65 to 70 L. Typically 11 to 11.5 L/100K. It works fine.
I have a mate with a Holden ute injected system and he gets about 10% max better economy. These figures are for country type running. I think the problem with the suction arrangement is the inability of the computer system to control the gas quantity. My mates system, I believe, uses the oxygen sensor to control the gas quantity.
My view is that the injected system using the oxygen sensor would be the way to go. Gas will only get more expensive over time and in NSW recently, gas was around 90c/litre.
Most car makers advise against gas unless they design it. Our Toyota Land cruiser is on gas too, but if you listen to them, gas is a nono.
The big problem with gas is remembering to check the upper lubricant bottle.
hope this helps.

Thanks for the replies, heaps of info there. cheers :happy: