Running your car on LPG
By: suresh_ponnan
By: suresh_ponnan
A whole lot of LPG conversion kits are available in the market to convert your petrol car to LPG. Most of these kits are made in Italy. Italians are the pioneers in using LPG in automobiles and they have been using it in Public Buses for the last 30 years or so with a single mishap.
Unfortunately a lot of duplicates of these Italian brands are now available in the Indian market. Basically there are 2 models. The electronic model and the vacuum model. the vacuum model is the most common. Costs about INR 7000/- for an all imported kit (Italian Solenoid valves and vaporiser and locally made control panel switches, plumbing and pressure gauge). If you settle for indian solenoid valves and Italian Vaporiser it would be about Rs 1000 less.
The conversion involves provision for belting down a LPG cylinder horizontally in your boot. Plumbing the gas to the vaporiser via a copper tube running either under the car or under your carpet to engine compartment and into the vaporiser via a solenoid valve. Another solenoid valve is fitted on your petrol line just before the inlet to the carburator. The vaporisor does what the name suggests, vaporiser the liquid gas and releases it as gas in the air intake of the carburator. It takes the heat input from the hot radiator water (coolant is re-routed through the vaporiser for this) to vaporise the gas and regulates the flow using the engine vacuum as the input in the case of the vacuum model or the unregulated alternator voltage as an input for the electronic version. read more. . .
Pros: Economical
Cons: Very Unsafe when done unprofessionally
