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Running a 9000 on real gas - lpg. Long Msg
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Posted by Gavin Short (more from Gavin Short) on Sat, 24 Feb 2001 15:05:34 Share Post by Email
In Reply to: Fascinating! Please tell me more, Bill Davies, Mon, 19 Feb 2001 14:36:41
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Bill

I have already posted my lpg experiences on The Saab Pages 9000 Bulletin board, Yahoo pages (SAABec and lpg forum) so apologies for those who have seen it before but I will repeat them here and give an update at the
end. Apologies about the length of the post but hopefully it will be of
interest to those who are curious about running a car on Autogas
(lpg).

For those in the US who are thinking why on earth would anyone do
this:

unleaded petrol 76-82 pence per litre
lpg 36-42 pence per litre

I'll let you do the maths and check how much a US gallon of unleaded
costs here and you will fuly understand the Brit interest in lpg!


LPG in a 1992 SAAB 9000 CSE 2.3 Turbo Auto (new shape with all the toys): I bought my car in Mid Nov 00. It had been fitted with a Landi-Renzo second generation lpg conversion (Italian maufacturer) in July 98. The firm that did the conversion are no longer trading, for non-lpg reasons. The sole importers of my system are Eco Gas systems ltd at Bidford-on-Avon
http://www.ecogas.co.uk/index.htm
and they have many trained and approved fitters throughout the
country. The system fitted can be viewed at http://www.landi.it/
with my particular system at
http://www.landi.it/catalogo/gple/sgpl1e.htm
which comprises a 85 litre tank in the boot behind the rear seats
which can still fold down which will take 68
litres (80% of tank capacity) to allow for expansion. Toroidal tanks
(doughnut shaped) in the spare wheel well are now available. There is
a filler neatly plumbed into the bodywork. Under the bonnet is a
vaporiser (reducer) that takes liquid lpg and turns it into gas
(engine coolant routed through the vaporiser keeps it from freezing -
expansion of gases!) and the gas is injected into the inlet track.
The flow is controlled by a stepper motor which is managed by the lpg
ECU, which uses the lambda probe and other sensors to control the
flow of gas. There is another box that emulates the action of the
injectors so that the orginal SAAB ECU is happy. On the dash is a
simple 2 position switch - petrol or gas which you can change over on
the move or when stationary. There is also a 5 led gauge (4 green, 1
red) as a crude indication of the gas remaining in the tank.

When selected to gas the car starts on petrol, and after about a
second automatically switches over to gas (when the lpg ECU senses
that the engine is running it opens the various gas solenoids).

I have driven 3,300 miles on gas (I think the car has done about
18,000 miles on gas before that). No problems! One bonus is that the
car heats up in the mornings a lot quicker (lpg doesn't need a choke
to enrichen the mixture on start up).

I can't tell the difference between lpg and petrol in terms of
performance despite switching back and forwards on a number of
occasions. The engine is slightly quieter on gas and the exhaust is
certainly a lot more pleasant (a bit like a gas heater).

There are 638 lpg outlets in UK. see
http://www.lpga.co.uk/fr_ab_lp.htm for more details. Prices are
typically between about 36 and 42p a litre.

The tank gives a range of about 250 miles before needing a top up.
There is 74% of the energy in a litre of lpg compared with petrol so
direct comparision of mpg is not very helpful. Pence per mile is. I
have averaged 9 to 10p per mile vice on petrol 13-14 p per mile (the
petrol cost is an estimate as I still have a full tank of petrol from
when I bought the car) - its uncanny looking at the full guage after
3,300 miles.

An advocate of lpg is Tim Hewett who has an excellent web site at
http://www.dotslashslash.com/LPG/LPG.htm with plenty of links to more
info. He has a picture story board of his set up (lovato) but the
principles are very similar to mine.

I know of 3 other SAAB 9000 lpg conversions (one being a Griffin).
The latest SAAB owner's club magazine has an article.

I think my car's lpg mpg could be better and I am going to get it gas
analysed and the lpg ECU checked out on a laptop next month.

The only down side was that the original installation was not upto
the Code of Practice standard (COP 11) and as a professional engineer
I couldn't let that slide. So it has cost me 16 hours labour and some
more bracketry to make the tank location, lpg fuel pipe to engine bay
and vaporiser bracket top line. Annoying to have to have it done but
my peace of mind is much better.

Overall I am very happy. The car is a very different beast to my
previous Carlsson. 'More a mature businessman's express rather than a
turbo boy-racer' as my wife puts it.

The lpg industry is still new in UK (mature in Holland, Italy and
Australia). There are a lot of new installer's out there and as
expected there are some less than happy customers as a result. But
1,000,000 Italian drivers and 400,000 Autralian drivers can't all be
unhappy! If you think about it the problem for the installer is that
he has to match the ECU mapped characteristics of your car (as
developed by the manuafacurers at great expense) with the lpg ECU
characteristics that he is installing - some installers will be more
skilled at this than others). Typical installation can be from about
£1200 to £2000. Depending on your mileage depends on how quickly you
will recoup the cost and make saving. My car had the bonus that it
was already fitted.

Oh and a final bonus... I haven't had to queue at an lpg pump yet!

The update on this post is that I pick up the car from Howe
Engineering, Hertfordshire this afternoon after having the timing
chains and balance chains (sprockets, guides and tensioners) changed
as a precaution (at 137,000 miles). Stuart Howe has 25 yrs experince
with SAABs and is now doing gas conversions. Initially EMMgas and now
Landi-Renzo. So you have an expereinced SAAB turbo specialist with
gas expereince - a rare commodity. Hence the reason I was happy to
travel from Swindon to Hertfordshire to get the work done. He has
had problems with Landi-Renzo second generation sytems in turbos
(backfires) and now fits the third generation system (IGS) which is
slightly more expensve. 2 stepper motors and a 'distributor' to
inject gas to each clinder in turn which results in more precise
metering. He was very interested in my second generation system and
that it was working with no problems.

In addition to the chains I have asked them to check out the
boost/apc solenoid and dump valave as I thought I was only getting
half boost. It has been checked out extensively and tuned. The
injector emmulators have been adjusted to prevent the check engine
light coming on. Performance and the emissions are now good. They
have also tidied some of the gas and cooling water pipework to the
vaporiser.

They have also fixed the Cruise control,slow speed radiator fan and
low starting revs which could have been associated with the gas
installation - but weren't.

Keith Washburton has an indentical model SAAB turbo to mine and has
had a third generation Landi-Renzo system fitted. His experiences
are detailed in the last 2 issues of te Saab Owner's Club 'Driver'
magazine.

Stuart Howe has converted a 9000 Griffin as a demonstrator. It has a
later 2.3 Turbo Griffin engine fitted and an EMMgas installation that
he did quite early. In my SAAB lpg enters the air stream just at the
entrance of the inlet manifold, through a mixer - pretty
conventional. In the Griffin the gas is mixed into the air stream
just after the air filter. So the lpg air mix travels almost the
whole length of the air route to the engine, including through the
intercooler and then the turbo , before entering the inlet mainfold
which is a pretty scary concept! His later conversions are much more
conventional you will be reassured to know. The Griffin goes like
stink. He also demonstrated the power available when the MAP sensor
(which limits the ultimate boost) is disconnected. The turbo can run
at max speed with no wastegate dumping the power - truely awesome and
impractical fo every day use. It dispels the my that you get less
power from an lpg convertion.

However the demonstration did allay my concerns over a SAAB turbo lpg
conversion, namely that with petrol boost is limited by a knock
sensor that backs off the bosst (using the apc solenoid)and an
absolute pressure sensor which will shut off thepetrol supply if the
boost limit is exceded. In lpg mode you won't get knock (lpg is 112
octane) the knock sensor still controls the apc solenoid but the fuel
shut off feature is not present. So if you have a wastegate
malfunction and get maximum boost, you will know about it but your
engine won't self destruct because of knock. So I am convinced that
my engine is still protected from accidental maximum boost due to
wastegate failure.

Needless to say the boost levels are set as standard for the model,
rather than stupid level! There is no difference in power between
petrol and lpg.

In my installation there appears to be a flap in the inlet manifold
near the mixer (possibly to prevent blow backs). Tim Hewitt and I
have pondered as to its function. Hopefully I will get more details
from the mechanic who took it apart when he removed the engine for
the timing chain replacement. This may have an effect on the overall
ability of the engine to 'breathe' but that is just supposition at
the moment.


In summary. Get your car converted by an installer who understands
SAABs totally and you should get a good installation. If you were an
installer who hadn't worked on SAABs then you would be understandably
reticent of fitting an lpg conversion! If I were fitting a system
today I would chose a 3rd generation system despite the extra
expense. I was lucky that the car had been converted 2 years before I
bought it.

If I changed my 9000 would I have the new one converted - yes! I haven't convinced my wife to get her 1989 900S 16V converted yet; she appreciates the large continuous boot space available in the 900 with the seat folded down. She does however appreaciate the £10- £11 fuel saving on lpg for my round trip from Swindon to East Cornwall each weekend.

Hope this is of interest

Gavin
'92 9000 CSE 2.3 Turbo Auto lpg


A further update: Have done 1,000 miles since the timing and balance chains have been replaced. The car is running very smoothly. Plenty of boost for an Auto. The installation now is tidier under the bonnet. The device attached to the inlet tract is a 'variable orifice' which Stuart Howe believes prevents 'blowbacks' which can occur in some installations.

The 'tune up' has improved the mpg figures by 8%. I am now getting 19 mpg (imperial on lpg) which equates to 9.3 pence per mile.

The figures for this week's round trip to work (East Cornwall to Shrivenham and back, some cross country the remainder at 80mph on cruise control A30, M5, M4). Cost of lpg £33.41 for 369 miles 9 pence per mile.

I gave a colleague a lift back to work - she couldn't believe how quiet the car was at 80 mpg.

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