Advice from LPG users

[hainzy]

I have both the above.

I have a VH with a VN injected 304. Goes awesome as i had a bloke program a new chip where he calibrated it to the car. Ie. gears, exhaust system etc.. Havent had it on the highway much but it will be my daily driver for the most part so i hope its reasonably economical. He said he's set it so its nice and economical on the freeway in 5th so I guess ill see!

What Byron says about it bolting straight in is true, cept you might need to get a gearbox crossmember made up. Its straight forward but theres lots of extra little things that add up and blow the budget waaaaay out so plan to spend a few more than you hoped. But it is a very reliable and gutsy conversion. I would certainly consider that for your van cos it still sounds tough as!

My sandman is a 308 5 speed manual on straight gas. Goes really well and when i finish getting stuff done to it and blow the cobwebs out Ill get it dyno tuned at Micks pro gas here in ballarat. He does a great job and is the guy that re programmed the VN chip.

I have an impco 425 which is a fantastic flowing gas carby and you can sit a normal old school air cleaner on it so it looks the goods. Mick also ran the gas plug out the petrol outlet and remade the cap so the old school chrome one screws into the gas outlet. Very neat. Youre right that you can tune it much better to straight gas and get much nicer performance. Otherwise on duel fuel you set the timing halfway in between i think. The only downsides are the gas pipes in the engine bay (if you want the oldschool look) and where to put the spare tyre...? Oh and what Alien said. Dont run out of gas, or join the RACV..

Better and cheaper than using petrol if you dont have to. You might be able to get a goverment subsidy for it too if it hasnt already been claimed. Its a gas coinversion! ha.

[Q set]

G'day Tony and the rest of yooze.
Our van is dual fuel on the good old solid 202. We had the 253 in the Panno when we got it, but threw the 6 in for economy and for the fact that our 202 was brand new. We didn't know what the history of the 253 was.
The 8 was tuned up for gas when we got it and when we ran it against the petrol 8 in my ute, there wasn't much between them in performance.
With the 202 gas and petrol differences are minimal out on the open road. The thing is now tuned up toward the gas, but not so much that it looses out on fuel. We have a long legged diff and LPG suits us for long distance driving. We switch to fuel when we hit the edge of town to give us a bit extra poke on the lights and we find fuel is more drivable for stop-start driving.
We had the system checked over well when we bought the van, and our mechanic tidied up the hoses etc. now the carby runs a standard looking air filter and the hoses are tucked away for a clean engine bay.
I usually have a yarn when I see anyone filling their old Holden at the LPG bowser to see how they run and hear a full spectrum of pros and cons. My dual system starts better in cold weather on gas than petrol. It doesn't like hot hot weather slow driving and often splutters if you are around town on a hot day. Power is better on fuel (I run premium) but a get damn good economy on gas and it seems like I can drive forever on a full 65 litre tank. Combined with a half tank of tiger, we can head most places without gas and know we can get to the next place that has. We have no problems switching over between the two on the go.
I would like to hide the spare tyre out of the back, but the problem is minor compared to the savings on gas.
Shop around. The job that was done on our van was a sin and whoever did it should throw their chainsaw in the bin. It was a shocker.
There's me two bob.