alternative fuels

[Anonymous]

I have surfed the posts a bit looking for info on alternative fuels. I also looked on the internet. I have a 300 in my pickup, and I'm moving about 45 minutes from work. LPG is a poplular conversion; one I thought would be affordable. It seems the only advantage to LPG is emissions. It costs up to 1.59 here in the winter with an .18 road tax and an annual permit fee from the state government. Not to mention engines suck more propane than gasoline. Second option: alcohol. Methanol is 2.00 per gallon, and my motor would use the piss out of it. I scanned over that article at http://www.fao.org/docrep/T4470E/t4470e08.htm To get better efficiancy out of methanol, I would need to have high compression and maybe even a turbo. I don't know anything about ethanol, but someone mentioned it was really easy to manufacture, as well as being cheap. It also seems to have better calorific properties than methanol. The last thing I have heard of is using a gasoline evaporator before the carbuerator. A friend of mine claimed 38 mpg with one of these, although he had some drivability issues. If he wasn't b.s.ing, I could deal with stuttering takeoffs in exchange for that kind of mileage (it was an old chevy inline 6). What do the experts say?

 

[Anonymous]

The only honest answer anyone can give you is, it depends.

What are your goals? Max power? Fuel efficiency? "Environmental responsibility"? Bling factor?

 

[Anonymous]

Regardless of what kind of fuel you burn, you need ot take advantage of its burning qualities and increase thermal efficiency.
I've seen engines built to take full advantage of propane and they got very good fuel mileage, nearly equalling the gasoline engines.

Believe me I feel your pain. I drive 48 miles each way to work. I'm running my truck as efficient as possible and am getting 19 mpg.

I will be running an Ethanol engine some time in the future. But it's for the power and nothing else. I work at a distillery and it's just to easy.

John

 

[Anonymous]

I'm mostly interested in fuel economy. I realize that, for the most part, this includes a great deal of environmental impact, for the good, that is. With that said, I just want to eek a lot out of every tank, and still be able to get up hills. I read on someone's web page that they had to switch to gasoline from LPG just to get up long, steep grades. I hope that this is because they didn't know how to intall and operate the system. Still surfing for your votes, though!

 

[Anonymous]

Well, if fuel efficiency is your primary goal, it is hard to go wrong with a turbocharged diesel. My wife and I just made a trip last week from the SF area to Western Washington (over 800 miles) in our VW Golf TDi. It got 50 MPG on the way up there at 75 on cruise control. My Mom wanted me to take my Dad's old van (a '76 with a carb'd 460), so we drove back at 55 on cruise control.

The Golf got 72 MPG...!

 

[Anonymous]

Hey man, you can't count the miles it was being towed by the van! You're probably right. I have a friend with that new, enormous Ford turbo V8 diesel, and he gets 20+ mpg on the road without a load. I hear of Cummins diesels running 25+mpg all the time. That would be a lot of converting. At least Dodge and Ford have both used NP trannies, so the drivetrain match wouldn't be impossible.