I have a KE 3.5 litre Verada Sedan, stock as a rock. With petrol prices as they are, and likely to remain for some time, I'm strongly considering running the Verada on LPG.

I've had a previous car converted (NC 5.0 Fairlane, bloody heap of :swearing: ) and it was just as good on LPG as petrol, only losing power when REALLY pushing, towing up hills and the like. So I'm familiar with the conversion process.

Anyone out there had their 3.5 litre converted? How did it go? Is the power loss discernable in normal driving?

I've heard there is a reasonable power loss going to LPG..like 5-10% but I've also read that you can defeat most if not all of the power loss with a re-tune of the engine.. the theory being that the power loss with LPG isn't due to some innate deficiency of LPG but rather that your engine is configured for the combustion properties of ULP. By re-tuning for LPG you reverse the situation and end up with an engine that performs around factory rating on gas but runs less efficiently on regular petrol.

Unfortunately I can't remember where I read that, and if there were any internal mods required or if it was just a re-map.

I have a KE 3.5 litre Verada Sedan, stock as a rock. With petrol prices as they are, and likely to remain for some time, I'm strongly considering running the Verada on LPG.

I've had a previous car converted (NC 5.0 Fairlane, bloody heap of :swearing: ) and it was just as good on LPG as petrol, only losing power when REALLY pushing, towing up hills and the like. So I'm familiar with the conversion process.

Anyone out there had their 3.5 litre converted? How did it go? Is the power loss discernable in normal driving?
do the maths... a gas conversion will cost you over $1000 (not sure exactly but well use this for the example)
now...
say you fill up ULP at current $1 per litre full tank 70L = $70
say if goes to $1.1 (big rise) thefore $77 for full tank

extra $7 a fill it will take 142 full 70L fills until you're on top!!

now say you use 70L every 2 weeks (i do 70L every 3 weeks)
2 x 142 =284 weeks = 5.5 years!!!!

(edit: if it goes to $1.20 it will take 2.7 years obviously)

i hope you see my point here... unless you're doing some hell amount of kms, its not worth it!!! and thats before accounting that you'll still have to pay for 5 years of LPG!!!

i'd suggest finding out how much a conversion (+tuning) is!!

do the maths... a gas conversion will cost you over $1000 (not sure exactly but well use this for the example)
now...
say you fill up ULP at current $1 per litre full tank 70L = $70
say if goes to $1.1 (big rise) thefore $77 for full tank

extra $7 a fill it will take 142 full 70L fills until you're on top!!

now say you use 70L every 2 weeks (i do 70L every 3 weeks)
2 x 142 =284 weeks = 5.5 years!!!!

(edit: if it goes to $1.20 it will take 2.7 years obviously)

i hope you see my point here... unless you're doing some hell amount of kms, its not worth it!!! and thats before accounting that you'll still have to pay for 5 years of LPG!!!

i'd suggest finding out how much a conversion (+tuning) is!!
Dude, the point is that gas is considerably cheaper.. even with it being less fuel efficent, I'm pretty sure it still works out less then 3/4 the $$/km of petrol.
Plus I don't think the price fluctuates nearly as much, being that it's Natural Gas, & so, not subject to changing oil prices. Would i be right there Iron Man?

The savings are simple - $70 for 70L petrol or $23.10 for 70L gas... do it again, and its $140 and $46.20... because gas is less fuel efficient you might need 140L of gas to make up for the 70L petrol (highly unlikely) but then its still $46.20 compared to $70!

When the TE came out (3.0L) , you could order an "LPG compatible engine"
from the factory. Something done to the valves, I think.

Anyway, there wasn't much power loss. With the 5-speed it was still
a commo's nightmare. lol

why dont people be a tight ass and put the extra 3 dollars of fuel in gees why drive v6 if u worried about fuel if ur cars is heavy have u thought about fuel filter change ? cause made big diff on my te :D

I read somewhere that if you convert your engine to permenent use of LPG (which means no more unleaded) and the engine is tuned for performance with the use of LPG, it will actuallly be as good or better then the use of unleaded!

Great for city-go'ers, but if you travel alot into the country, then this is downright unfeasible, unless country fuel stations now have LPG pumps...

my 3.5L TH Magna has had the gas fitted. was a work car from my dads work. so i don't know how hard it was to put in. but yeh. cost me $15.35 for a full 60L tank of gas today after the 4c off thing. power loss.... all i really find in power loss is that u may have to push the pedal in a cm or so more to get the same effect as petrol n all. Also i find ripping burnouts in a stand still straight line harder too. but all in all there is not much power loss and it is MUCH cheaper on lpg

You havent been to the country lately have you? Pretty much every country petrol station has LPG, except the few mum and pop places but its mostly BPs and Mobils.

One thing ive heard is apparently i think its the valve seats, if you run LPG all the time they will dry up and crack so youll lose compression, you need to run it on ULP every now and again to make sure they dont dry out. Of you want you can have them changed to a different type they use in LPG only engines.

I have seriously considered LPG conversion, id do most of it myself naturally, and can get most of the stuff pretty cheap, however i dont think i can sacrifice 1/2 my boot for the tank, and somewhere im gonna have to put the filler thingo, dont wanna drill me car!!!!

My Dad's TH 3.5 Wagon has LPG,and runs fine has done for over 150,000 odd k's :D :D

LPG has a higher Octane rating than ULP (105-110 or something) so if tuned correctly you should be able to get more power than ULP. The common misconception that Gas saps power is because most setups are dual fuel where it is tuned to run equally well on both gas and petrol, best bet iis to get it tuned for gas as this is what you will use most of the time and then if u cant get gas at the time in the country or what ever just put petrol in, will run dogish but will run.

One factor to remeber is that in 2008 Gas will be taxed by the government (god knows why, f*$k wits) anyway this will push the price up to 60-70 cents making it not worth it. So you will prolly only just have paid off your gas system so at this stage its not really worth it unless you plan on driving alot of kms between now and then...

if u run on petrol after tuning for gas.. how dodgy willl it be?

It's a Bit Rough Choonga,have been in the TH when my Dad has had to switch to Petrol,Runs a bit like a B I O T C H :confused: :confused:

It will be rough, unstable idle, slow acceloration etc but it will be good enuf untill you can find gas.

my 3.5L TH Magna has had the gas fitted. was a work car from my dads work. so i don't know how hard it was to put in. but yeh. cost me $15.35 for a full 60L tank of gas today after the 4c off thing. power loss.... all i really find in power loss is that u may have to push the pedal in a cm or so more to get the same effect as petrol n all. Also i find ripping burnouts in a stand still straight line harder too. but all in all there is not much power loss and it is MUCH cheaper on lpg
damn! price of LPG in NSW at least in sydney & newcastle area is around 50c/L = at least $30 a tank... gotta remember that you cannot completely empty a LPG tank (will always be some left) and all they do is equalise between the car tank and the supply tank... therefore you will never actually pay for 60L of gas with a 60L tank....

i still stand by my point that you won't save a lot of money in the long run.... doing a google... from http://www.travismorien.com/FAQ/thrift/petrol.htm
Conversions cost around $1800 to $2200 for the typical Falcodore Australian V6 car, however may be a great deal more expensive for some engines that also require upgrades of the valves and valve seats, doubling the cost. Service intervals can be extended in LPG cars because of the inherent cleanliness of LPG fuel, however additional maintenance in the form of an annual check to the system and a test of the pressurised fuel tank is required every 10 years. An LPG conversion is likely to pay for itself after about 70,000km in an average Australian-built car. For smaller cars the conversion may take over 100,000km and performance may be more sluggish due to the very heavy weight of the LPG gas tank. In addition LPG conversions do not reap their full return in improvement to vehicle resale values. There is very little point converting a small car to LPG, the expense is not justified on an inexpensive car and at any rate a small vehicle is likely to have running costs as low as any large car on LPG. Also if you do not drive a large number of km every year the conversion will not make sense.
that is based on WA figures for price and subsidised installs.... you'ld have to check your local state for what they do!!

at any rate.... $2000 is a lot of PULP!!! (and thats before buying the equivalent amount again in LPG so you can go as far!)

Its like buying a Toyota Prius over a Corolla or something of similar size.

The Prius is uses less fuel but costs approx 16K more.

It would take a freakin century to recoup the extra cost of the car so unless you care about the environment :blah: why bother. Or buy the Corolla and plant some pretty trees like what BP do.

So after that, yeah probably a waste of time. Oh yeah petrol smells nice and gas stinks:sick:

damn! price of LPG in NSW at least in sydney & newcastle area is around 50c/L = at least $30 a tank... gotta remember that you cannot completely empty a LPG tank (will always be some left) and all they do is equalise between the car tank and the supply tank... therefore you will never actually pay for 60L of gas with a 60L tank....

i still stand by my point that you won't save a lot of money in the long run.... doing a google... from http://www.travismorien.com/FAQ/thrift/petrol.htm that is based on WA figures for price and subsidised installs.... you'ld have to check your local state for what they do!!

at any rate.... $2000 is a lot of PULP!!! (and thats before buying the equivalent amount again in LPG so you can go as far!)
Moral of the story... if it's just a stocko magna u use for work, buy an ex-taxi with LPG already fitted & swap in a fresh motor if ur worried about kms.

LPG would almost be worth it for me... it's only about 30c/L & I do about 500/600km a week, by the time a go to work & go out a few nights.

Hell I might even buy a ex-taxi gas EL Falcon to get to work, & garage the magna! :redface: I've already put about 15000kms on in 6months!

dingo > I have done the maths and believe me, your maths is TOTALLY OUT!! I paid for the conversion on my Fairlane (bloody heap of :swaering: ) in less than a year. I expect to pay for this conversion in about the same time period.

yeah I did some calculations of my own, i do generally about 35,000k per year, I pay $50 (which is going up, currently at 107cents) of fuel each week, and I almost drive the car every day.

If I ran LPG, i'd be paying around $30/week (From the prices you've given me), and I'd be saving around $1000 per year.

Also add to the fact I don't get a new car every three years.....


dude if you get the Prius, you'd also be saving the environment :P

yeah, well after doing more maths and that i only do between 20k-25k km a year in nsw, i can now see that it would pay off if you doing more than 30k... as long as prices stay at the current gap you will save some money after a year or so... but it would take me at least 2 years to get it back... and then i like a quick fang which means that i'd have to spend more money making the think more powerful to conteract the weight of the new tank! anyway.. each to their own... i just think theres better ways of spending the money!

i think that if u bought a big car bec among other reasons u need a big boot, getting lpg defeats the purpose and u may as well have a smaller more econ car. - u lose about 1/3 the boot to the gas tank unless its a factory under the floor job.

i had an AU falcon company car on factory fitted LPG only, and it was only noticably lacking power if u wanted to smoke it up or really drive hard. filling up takes longer, and it used about 20% more gas in litres than i reckon it would have for petrol.

what sucks is the govt is trying to get ppl to save the enviroment the same way they trying to get ppl to save more super, by planning to add another tax. from 2008 i think, they offering 1000$ rebate to anyone who fits LPG but at the same time introducing taxing progressively. F#$%ing greedy morons :nuts: .

LPG is all good guys but i have been reading that in 2008 the government will be implimenting a 8c tax on LPG which is just another bull s@#*% excuse to get more money from us. If you are doing larger K's in a year it may be worth looking into. I have heard that if you live in cooler parts of australia you can have the injectors freezing over and the space needed for the tank is a big consideration in it own.

what sucks is the govt is trying to get ppl to save the enviroment the same way they trying to get ppl to save more super, by planning to add another tax. from 2008 i think, they offering 1000$ rebate to anyone who fits LPG but at the same time introducing taxing progressively. F#$%ing greedy morons :nuts: .
what sucks even more is that we are getting doubley taxed (at least in NSW)!!! :mad:

base fuel price = X
NSW gov adds their tax Y, get X+Y
Aus gov adds GST, (X+Y)*10%... the more the NSW gov tax the more the damn Aus gov get in GST!!!! now that really ****s me!!!!

Same here, too, Dingo.

$@!#ing Government double dipping!