So there I was thinking....

[shadow88]

What our heavily boosted engines need in many cases is a higher octane fuel, more fuel and cooler intake charge. Agreed?

Has anyone dabbled in liquid propane injection? It's WAY cheaper than nitrous to refill, while being able to be injected in a similar way? Octane rating of 114 or something like that? It is a fuel. In liquid form it will cool the intake charge.

There's gotta be some reason nobody has tried it before. Please discuss.

[RoadWarrior222]

You're only fuel limited by your injectors and tuning, you can always find a way to hose more in, even if people b!tch about it, they just don't want to mess with it for whatever reason.

Air however, is difficult to get in, hence stupidly complicated Rube Goldberg type devices such as turbochargers come to exist. Nitrous oxide is an oxidiser and is liquid air, so is rather useful, when a motors breathing has hit it's limitations.

It's possible propane could be useful for charge cooling, if it doesn't expand rapidly and displace needed air, when a more "compact" fuel could be shoved in there instead.

[bakes]

Turbo sled guys are moving to barbecue fuel with wicked results but it is there only fuel!!!

[shackwrrr]

Ive always thought of building a turbo CNG drag car. CNG has a pretty high auto ignition temp, about double what gas is. It also has about 130 octane and after you buy the compressor station you have about 40 cents a GGE (gallon gas equivalent). Propane would be the next choice at 112 octane but the price is about the same as unleaded.

[bakes]

I also dont know how legal it is at the track . Never seen it use except in deisels.

[RoadWarrior222]

Turbo sled guys are moving to barbecue fuel with wicked results but it is there only fuel!!!

More BTUs and HP with less boost I suspect.... it's kerosene, very low octane...

[RoadWarrior222]

OTOH, I know with CNG, even with timing adjustments you don't get near the power you get out of gasoline. I believe this is due to taking up much more room, necessitating very high compression ratios.

BTW remember octane = less BTUs, = less power per pound.

[turbovanman²]

Ive always thought of building a turbo CNG drag car. CNG has a pretty high auto ignition temp, about double what gas is. It also has about 130 octane and after you buy the compressor station you have about 40 cents a GGE (gallon gas equivalent). Propane would be the next choice at 112 octane but the price is about the same as unleaded.

Very true, only draw back is the weight and size of the tanks and the fact you use like what, 3 times more propane than gas?

I also dont know how legal it is at the track . Never seen it use except in deisels.

It should be, if certified for street use it should be ok for the track, but then, they do have some funny rules,

[shackwrrr]

OTOH, I know with CNG, even with timing adjustments you don't get near the power you get out of gasoline. I believe this is due to taking up much more room, necessitating very high compression ratios.

BTW remember octane = less BTUs, = less power per pound.

Its the same Idea with methanol, ethanol, or any other "gourmet" fuels. You just have to use more but at 40-70 cents for a gge thats easily overcome. You also have to think about the unit of measure, Gallon of Gas Equivalent, meaning the amount of cng needed to burn to produce the same power as gasoline so its already factored in. And with all the octane you can crank up the timing too, We have a 5.9 cummins at the school that has no other mods other than having spark plugs and a special fuel rail that runs cng with high compression and turbo still. Sounds weird.

[shackwrrr]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_gallon_equivalent

[Juggy]

yeah the diesels guys r using it with great success, ive read some articles where a few trucks almost double hp/tq numbers.

but diesel is a whole different ball game and because propane IS a fuel, they will get increased boost and power because thats how they operate

[turbovanman²]

Its the same Idea with methanol, ethanol, or any other "gourmet" fuels. You just have to use more but at 40-70 cents for a gge thats easily overcome. You also have to think about the unit of measure, Gallon of Gas Equivalent, meaning the amount of cng needed to burn to produce the same power as gasoline so its already factored in. And with all the octane you can crank up the timing too, We have a 5.9 cummins at the school that has no other mods other than having spark plugs and a special fuel rail that runs cng with high compression and turbo still. Sounds weird.

The guy that own's Aurora has flown all over the world converting diesel bus's etc to run on Propane.

[zin]

What our heavily boosted engines need in many cases is a higher octane fuel, more fuel and cooler intake charge. Agreed?

Has anyone dabbled in liquid propane injection? It's WAY cheaper than nitrous to refill, while being able to be injected in a similar way? Octane rating of 114 or something like that? It is a fuel. In liquid form it will cool the intake charge.

There's gotta be some reason nobody has tried it before. Please discuss.

BINGO!!*

Propane is a fantastic fuel, and makes the most sense in regards to "alternate" fuels, but doesn't further various leftist agendas so it remains relegated to minority status. I could go on, but that's not what this thread is about...

Propane is very close to gasoline in terms of BTU or energy density, about 91.5K vs. 123K for gas... Propane has an octane rating of about 110, depending on the quality. Most BBQs use LPG, which isn't really propane, but a mix of all the flammable gases left over in the refining process (butane, etc). But for our purposes, LPG is fine...

Now for the asterisk part:

Propane if used as a liquid will add some cooling, but the down side to it is that it expands fairly dramatically, taking up valuable real estate in your intake/runners that could be occupied by much more compact fuels. This is ok at lower levels, but gets you to a point of diminishing returns at moderate to high levels.

The other issue is injection/metering. I built systems to supplement nitrous systems with great results, most notably on Jim Giardina's GTS back in 97ish (10.5s stock, slicks & nitrous), as well as a few LS Camaros. A NOS Cheater fuel solenoid will open over 200PSI, (LPG is about 150PSI @ 80*F), so there's your valve, then you need a simple injector, just something to direct the flow and hold the metering orifice. N/S's 23503 gets that done. Now for the more tricky part... At 150PSI-ish, it is difficult to hold back unneeded flow. Nowadays NOS has built some exceedingly small funnel style jets, down to .008"! Back when I was actively tuning these, the smallest I had to work with was a .014"!

Well, before I go on and on, giving away all my secrets, I'll leave it at that for now...

Mike

[zin]

yeah the diesels guys r using it with great success, ive read some articles where a few trucks almost double hp/tq numbers.

but diesel is a whole different ball game and because propane IS a fuel, they will get increased boost and power because thats how they operate

Propane in a diesel is a bit more dangerous than adding nitrous... Nitrous is best though of as concentrated air, while propane is fuel...

Propane adds power by filling in the gaps between diesel droplets, greatly increasing the efficiency of the burn, as well as adding more BTU/energy.

The danger comes when you get a bit greedy. If you add enough propane, you can reach it's lean limit. The leanest mix that will still burn, which is quite a bit leaner than gas or diesel, and that is where you blow the hell out of stuff!

Just about the only way to kill a diesel (other than just overpowering the parts) is to preignite. Impossible on a "normal" diesel unless the injector timing is way off as there is no fuel to burn until it injects it...

BUT, if you put propane into the air intake, it IS there and if there is enough of it, BOOM... party is over!

Mike

[shackwrrr]

Propane is very close to gasoline in terms of BTU or energy density, about 91.5K vs. 123K for gas... Propane has an octane rating of about 110, depending on the quality. Most BBQs use LPG, which isn't really propane, but a mix of all the flammable gases left over in the refining process (butane, etc). But for our purposes, LPG is fine...

All the propane used for car fuel and/or BBQ fuel is HD5 propane, minimum 90% propane 5% propylene then the rest is butane and etc including the mercaptain for safety.

But you are in the good ol' state of cali so you have HD10 which has 10% propylene and is not suitable for an engine fuel because propylene can gum up the engine(basically its plastic).

So you have the right Idea but mis-quoted the types and your statement only applies to California.

LPG is propane just compressed to a liquid, which at room temp is about 120 psi. Its still all C3H8

[RoadWarrior222]

Propane is a fantastic fuel, and makes the most sense in regards to "alternate" fuels, but doesn't further various leftist agendas so it remains relegated to minority status. I could go on, but that's not what this thread is about...

The problem with propane as a mass use fuel is that it is only available as waste/side product from natural gas or petroleum operations. There just ain't that much of it. It is therefore only promoted for niche or minority uses, jut to use up the "waste". It's better than venting it to atmosphere, but what if we talk it up as the fuel of the future, make everybody use it? Then we're burning off natural gas and pouring away oil just to get at the small percentage propane in it... does not compute.

[shadow88]

Thank you for your inputs so far!

So let's say I can get ahold of a liquid propane tank (forklift tank) that looks like a keg of beer, a ball valve and a small "dry" nitrous jet or something that works like it and is adjustable to very tiny jets. That's pretty much what's needed to proceed with the first test?

I was told by another very smart person (lots of them here too!) to not count on the propane as a fuel, as so much more of it is required to produce the same power, it should work well as a chemicooler and the increased octane is a bonus too.

I'm not trying to get rid of my pretty red nitrous tank in favour of this, but I'm just wondering how much propane could help a boosted engine out?

[BadAssPerformance]

Interesting, I've only seen it used as a fuel, not as a cooler...

[shackwrrr]

keep in mind that the expansion rate for propane is 270:1.

[shadow88]

keep in mind that the expansion rate for propane is 270:1.

So it will displace a large quantity of the air charge....hmmm. Bad news.