e85 Conversion

Okay, here is the deal ! With the rising cost of fuel what are we to do withe older Trucks ? I have a '94 & '91 both are 7.5L EFI. What can be done to convert these to work with e85 at a reasonable cost ? Can it even be done ? I would rather run US made fuel/oil than some other foriegn crap. I have races all over the western US this season and I want to do it at a reasonable cost, not break a bank I don't have.

First you better research the availability on your traveling route if they even sell E85. But to tune your EFI you will need some one that can REMAP your ecm as it burns 33% more fuel. I have made the switch on one of two race cars and like it but there are some draw backs. If we race out of state I really dont want to carry 55 gallons of fuel unless I can get a fuel tank mounted under the trailer for just this reason.

Ace

I have been thinking of going propane myself every town has a gas company and even with road tax it is still a dollar cheaper per gallon and similar mileage to gas. I talked with few people with the flexfuel vehicles and they say there is no savings by running E-85 because it uses more of it.

bigblok2000ranger wrote:I have been thinking of going propane myself every town has a gas company and even with road tax it is still a dollar cheaper per gallon and similar mileage to gas. I talked with few people with the flexfuel vehicles and they say there is no savings by running E-85 because it uses more of it.

What does it cost to change over to Propane ?

A carb to propane conversion is ~$1200 FI to propane is probably a bit more.

Buy a 7.3 diesel 99 or newer.

Ace

powerstrokeace wrote:Buy a 7.3 diesel 99 or newer.

Ace

and burn veggie oil to save money.

[quote="bigblok2000ranger"]

powerstrokeace wrote:Buy a 7.3 diesel 99 or newer.

Ace

and burn veggie oil to save money. [/quote
But don't run any bio fuel made with Chicken fat or any other animal fat oils. They have bactieria in them that are detramintal to diesel engins and pumps.

bigblok2000ranger wrote:I have been thinking of going propane myself every town has a gas company and even with road tax it is still a dollar cheaper per gallon and similar mileage to gas. I talked with few people with the flexfuel vehicles and they say there is no savings by running E-85 because it uses more of it.

Don't know that you will get similar mileage to gas using propane. Know the local school buses certainly get less mileage on Propane. Propane does keep the oil clean, has better emissions, and some setups allow switching between gas and propane. Do know propane is hard on valve seats. May need to have hardened seats and better valves installed.

Steve

I was basing my mileage info on a friend who has a couple 460 F-250's and 2 are propane and 2 are gas and he claims the propane does just as good as the gas on fresh tune-ups and the propane unit lasts longer between tuneups due to burning cleaner.

Yeah maybe, guess depends on what LPG and Gasoline cost where you live. Think those buses likely not best example either.

The local gas company converted all of their trucks to propane and said mileage was almost identical but the service schedule has gone alot farther out with the cleaner burning propane. If I was the OP I would buy one of the Price Motorsports carb adapters for the EFI intake and buy a straight propane kit from a place like GotPropane.com and look for a large tank used. The kits come with a 20 gallon tank and brackets for around $1200.

The kits come with the same tanks they use on forklifts so if one did not tell them it was for a street driven vehicle their would be no roadtax further increasing the savings. I figured it would take 2 years or less at my average driving per week for the kit to pay for itself buying the roadtaxed propane.

Did they do anthing with the heads? LPG is hard on the valve seats. Just wondering if the EFI 460 seats and valves are good enough, they may be don't know, just wondering what the experience has been. LPG is certainly cleaner and better for the engines as far as oil and service schedule. Thanks for the information!

Steve

I know both trucks have over 250,000 miles on them that have the propane.

a easy conversion would be to buy new injectors that are 30 percent larger than the ones in it currently, when tuning for street 30 increase is about right and the computer wont no any diff.