propane injuction lanos as a dual fuel vehicle?

[BCC423]

could somebody tell me what is involved in a propane conversion where i can use gasoline when i want to, is it possible on a lanos(1999 1.6 16 valve)

[Daniel]

This is a common conversion on Daewoo's here in Belgium where gasoline is about 6USD/gallon. Until now .
Most known is Necam-Koltec but I wonder if you can find it on your side of the pond.
This conversion must here be done by authorized workshop and approved by official control center.

Daniel

[PrecisionBoost]

You should consider turning it into an electric Hybrid.... you have a pile of room in the Lanos.... I bet you could get 60MPG around the city if you did a moderate setup.

Propane carries less energy per gram and it tends to burn hotter due to the lack of "lubrication" you get from Gasoline.

Hmmm.... how about Alchohol.... South americans use it all over the place.... it's really clean and your engine won't run as hot.

There are also European Diesel engines that will fit into the Lanos.... just look up the engines available for a 1990 Opel Astra... there should be atleast two Diesel engines.

[BosnianLanos]

Or you could just ride a bike .

I, know man, gas prices are insane @ $2.40 a gallon and rising. Pretty soon, oil will reach $100 a barrel and gas will be $5.00, making it truly inefficient to use cars. Some man somewhere is getting very, very rich. Also, it is interesting that when there is a oil price hike we see it immediatley at the pump, but when the price drops, prices at the pump only flatline and never drop.

And you are correct, the Lanos is not the thriftiest car when it comes to gas, I usually get between 23-28 MPG, which isn't bad, but when you consider that it is a subcompact, it is low. But then again, when I see people in their Lincoln Navigators or Cadillac Escalades or Ford Excursions I laugh, for the days of monstrous SUVs are over and our small cars are the wave of the future.

I don't think modifying a Daewoo to run propane or electricity would be worth it. If it gets really bad though, I'll probally just get rid of it and buy an Insight or Civic Hybrid.

[tango]

I personally think hybrids are the biggest forms of hypocrissy in the automotive world today. They are a cop-out by manufacturers who want to buy themselves some time in order to work on true alternatives. Has anybody ever stopped to wonder what will happen when the fancy electronics et fail in one of these things? And oh they WILL fail. We have enough trouble as it is with simple things such as failing eletric windows! And has anybody even stopped to wonder HOW these battery packs will be replaced when they die? And they WILL die. Not for me thank you. I'll wait for hydrogen power. I'm not a fan of electrics so fuel cell isn't in my book.

I think it would be worth the effort to go for propane conversions. But diesel is a good choice. Remember, you can run a diesel on kerosene, or if u do it right, used cooking oil! Cheapo fuel!

[BCC423]

imo, hydrogen powered cars are not the wave of the future, ask yourself, where do we get hydrogen,you give up", water, separating water with ELECTRICITY back into 2H and O, where does taht electricity come from, mostly comes from burning coal, so essentially all you have is a coal burning car which is stone-aged technology compared to fuel injection. we cant just find hydrogen deposits like natural gas, hydrogen floats, soon as it is discovered, it will escape into the atmosphere, as opposed to natural gas which sinks. I'd ride my bike if it werent so hot and rained all the time

[TheGreatAndPowerfulOz]

It can easily be seperated with solar electrticity.
Collecters charge batteries all day and then that power can be used to seperate the H & the O.
There is some initial cost for the solar setup, but over time, it would pay for itself with fuel cost savings.

[tango]

imo, hydrogen powered cars are not the wave of the future

Regardless of what FUEL wants to be the wave of the future, it beats driving around in electric cars.

ask yourself, where do we get hydrogen,you give up", water, separating water with ELECTRICITY back into 2H and O, where does taht electricity come from, mostly comes from burning coal

Coal? Come now friend. Hasn't your neck of the woods gone natural gas, diesel, hydroelectric, solarelectric, windelectric or nulear yet? No wonder you're worried! LOL.

so essentially all you have is a coal burning car which is stone-aged technology compared to fuel injection.

Let's sort something out. Are we comparing carburetors to fuel injection? Are we comparing steam-powered to internal combustion?

we cant just find hydrogen deposits like natural gas, hydrogen floats, soon as it is discovered, it will escape into the atmosphere, as opposed to natural gas which sinks. I'd ride my bike if it werent so hot and rained all the time

No sir! Natural gas is lighter than air, as is hydrogen. Both will rise and dissipate when released. Propane on the other hand is heavier than air and will settle when released. Be also advised that what we call "natural gas" is atually a mixture of gases (mostly methane but with ethane, propane and butane common in the mixture), while hydrogen is just one gas. What this means is that there is a greater likelihood that there will be unburnt hydrocarbons in it after combustion. Hydrogen is not a hydrocarbon so this is not an issue. Another fact is that the presence of carbon ions in natural gas gives rise to the potential for carbon monoxide creation. Once again hydrogen has no carbon ions attached to it therefore no chance of carbon monoxide creation. So, it seems to me that hydrogen is the wonder gas of the future. Isn't it?

[DomWoo]

my state uses damns for electricity.... there is even a little tiny town in Alaska that has a nuclear power plant..

[Audacity Racing]

oh yeah baby.... the mr. fusion!


hahaha


until a true alternative fuel car become available for usage, i think we should have all our vehicles use the toyota synergy drive, or the ford version of the same thing (found on the tonka truck).

the ford version stores hydraulic energy and is all mechanical, no electrical parts to fail. if i could get one, i'd love to outfit my lanos!

[BosnianLanos]

Yeah, the coal thing is true. To separate water into its separate parts, they use power from burning coal, which is copius in pollutants. Just heating it won't do anything expect make water vapor. I don't think that solar energy would be efficient enough to produce enough pure hydrogen for the world. Sun power is unreliable, which is why most of our electricity still comes from coal burning power plants. Bottom line, production of hydrogen will create pollution even if hydrogen-powered cars will not.

Hydrogen won't go mainstream for a while, especially with the oil companies making so much profit and with hydrogen production being so damn costly.

Vegetable Alcohol powered cars will never be anything more than a backyard invention because the amount of farmland on earth is far too small to create enough fuel and to feed people and animals on the earth.

Electric Hybrids are the best thing we have so far. Yes they are slow, yes they are complicatedly computerized, but they are worth the money. I'm sure the battery packs will dry up, but engines and transmissions also blow up, and people replace them. At 60 MPG I will take that chance.

I'm just not looking forward to giving up gas because anything they create to replace the internal combustion engine will most likely be slow as hell.

[Audacity Racing]

if we stick with internal combustion... they need to make them really fuel efficient...

hemispherical combustion chambers
direct fuel injection (like a diesel)
quasi-turbine engines
etc


the veggie diesel idea is great i think. they offer it here and all the busses and such around here use it. it smells like mcdonalds... but it works and it's like 40 bucks for a 55gallon drum at the co-op. good stuff

my brother runs his f-350 on it

[PrecisionBoost]

Electric Cars are far more reliable than Gasoline vehicles.

The motors last for hundreds of thousands of miles with next to no mantinence.

I can remember the manufacturer name but they make a 50hp electric motor specificly for automobiles..... the only maintinence is changing the brushes every 200,000 miles (at a cost of less than $50)

These motors have been tested in the "real world" (which means California) and they have exceeded 1,000,000 miles with no signs of slowing down.

Electric motors are two to three time as efficent as gasoline motors so they get two to three times the gas mileage for the same energy content.

Now you might say 50hp isn't enough but you have to remember that your Lanos doesn't make 50hp until it hits something like 2500RPM.

An electric motor will do this from stall (0 RPM ) and it has incredible torque..... so a 50hp motor will feel more like a 70hp or 80hp gas motor.

If geared correctly they can produce 600lb ft to 1200lbft of torque.... enough to do a wheelie on a rear wheel drive mazda RX7

Sure you have to replace the batteries ever couple of years but the savings in gasoline and regular engine maintinence is fairly significant.

All vehicles will end up being electric one day.

Why do you think all the new Locamotives are electric/diesel hybrids?????

The diesel runs at it's peak efficency and feeds the electric power to the drive motor through a generator.

Diesels are the most efficent engine..... but running them at different RPM levels and load levels decreases their overal efficency by a significant factor.

Hydrogen is easily the best source for energy.... it can be cracked off methane, methanol, ethanol,ethane, propane, butane, hexane and a number of other light gasses very efficently.

It is however impossible to contain Hydrogen in a bottle without running into problems.... the hydrogen atoms are so small they can go inbetween whatever you are trying to contain it with (such as steel cylinders)

The problem gets worse when you pressurize it.

So far the best hyrdrogen is made from carbon and it's electricly charged to attract the molecules to a center electrode.... but even this won't give you more range than a convensional electric car.

[Audacity Racing]

i'm sad no one laughed at my mr. fusion

[PrecisionBoost]

Maybe people didn't recognize it from the back to the future movie...... ..

Mr Fusion isn't that far off in some respects.

I'm not talking about a Fusion reaction.... but a machine that will make energy (light petroleum gas) out of anything.... throw in a banana and you will get fuel out and a pile of "extras" in the form of Potasium, carbon and what ever else the banana is made out of.

Currently there are several of these machines in various locations around the USA undergoing testing.... eventually they might put the oil companies out of business.

Right now they are located at pig farms since pig crap has a high methane concentration and pig crap is bad for the environment.

So far they are showing a slightly positive effect which is to say that they can produce more power than the machine requires to do the high pressure molecule cracking.

Their hope is that they will be able to increase the efficency of the machine as they do testing which will result in a machine that can make a return on investment.

Even if it ends up not making huge amounts of power it will be usefull for breaking down matter for recycling.

It can even break down plastics and foams which normally lay in our landfills for 20,000 years before they start to break down.

I have an article on it.... perhaps I will scan it in one of these days if I get a chance.