First drive on the supercharged 400ci on propane.

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SensualBeefLoaf@reddit

i feel at home in this sub because i see your projects and mine sometimes pale in comparison insanity wise to what i’m doing and i get to feel normal instead of trying to explain to normies why my 500 dollar volvo has 10 grand in abs and brakes.

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Mavrosian@reddit (OP)

Doesn't matter where you start as long as you get a little sharper each day. I hear you about people not getting it, though. I have a twin brother and he's the only one that really gets what I'm doing, typically. My wife is fantastic and tries to get it, but she doesn't have the same mechanical proclivities as my brother and I.

Volvos are sweet, though ;)

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SensualBeefLoaf@reddit

my wife loves her old european cars and generally lets me get away with whatever i want regarding them. the only rules are "not too fast" and "there needs to be space in the driveway". she daily drives one of our w201's.

are you running on only propane? i keep mulling over doing an lpg conversion or dual fuel conversion on one of my cars like the europeans do.

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Mavrosian@reddit (OP)

Strictly propane. There's simply no way I could safely run gasoline through the supercharger and intake. If it was my only vehicle or a daily, then dual fuel makes sense. as a "for fun" car, I can just hop into the daily for a tank of propane and not worry about range.

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fiddlythingsATX@reddit

Been considering a GotPropane kit, this just makes me more tempted

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Mavrosian@reddit (OP)

I bought the kit secondhand with only half the instructions and was still able to get everything up and running pretty easily. The universal four barrel kit is very nice. The kit came up for sale locally on Facebook Marketplace after I had called the gotpropane guy about getting a kit, and he was super helpful.

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fiddlythingsATX@reddit

What’s your tank setup?

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Mavrosian@reddit (OP)

I'm just using a standard 33 gallon tank with the tank brackets from got propane. I replaced my trunk floor with a 1/8 inch plate and used bulkhead connectors to run the lines from the trunk under the car. That gave me all the rigidity to safely mount everything.

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fiddlythingsATX@reddit

Nice! I’ve got a truck so it’s trickier, less enclosure protection unless I sacrifice some bed space. I’ve browsed DOT rated tanks, might be an option.

I’ll go check out got propaneagain, thanks!

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Warm-Collection3411@reddit

But why propane?

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Mavrosian@reddit (OP)

Lots of reasons. Simplicity of tuning, compatibility with the blower, and higher octane are the main ones.

Pulling liquid fuel through a supercharger with an integrated water:air intercooler will just drop everything out of suspension and create a literal bomb with first backfire. On top of that, this particular blower isn't designed to have fuel run through it -- who knows what could happen to the rotor coatings or the grease in the bearing?

The propane mixer simply feeds propane in direct proportion to engine's demand for air. There are only two adjustments: Idle mixture and power mixture. Both are adjusted OUTSIDE the mixer -- no jet swaps and no computers.

Lastly, this particular engine is prone to detonation, and there's no way you could supercharge it safely and run it on pump gas without a lot of care. Propane is in excess of 100 octane and only ONE DOLLAR PER GALLON at the Ace up the street.

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Supahmarioworld@reddit

I am probably very uneducated compared to people like you, but this is mainly just to add octane?

I know people run e85 or meth for octane as well as cooling for boosted cars, does propane provide cooling as well?

Would this work on a modern engine? I have a supercharger and have gone as far as I can on pump gas, but everyone tuning them wants a $2000+ fuel system before I can switch to e85. It would be awesome to find an alternative

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Mavrosian@reddit (OP)

Octane is just one of the benefits, but it's a big one. As far as cooling -- kind of. The propane system requires a vaporizer and mixer. The vaporizer takes liquid propane from the tank (\~200 PSI) and both returns it to a vapor and reduces the pressure. That propane is fed to the mixer based on the air flowing through the mixer (very much like a carburetor). The vaporizer can actually freeze solid from the propane's phase change. You are intended to run engine coolant through it to keep the vaporizer warm, but I've run the coolant from my water:air intercooler through it instead to add cooling to my intake charge.

If your engine has a computer to manage fueling, you will find it very difficult to swap to propane the same way I did. If you're using a carburetor, they can be a bolt on upgrade, with the exceptions of a bracket for the vaporizer and mounting the propane tank and lines.

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therealhairykrishna@reddit

It's possible to run a computer controlled injection car on propane. You basically just need a piggyback ECU and a second set of injectors. "Autogas" conversions to a propane/butane mix used to be fairly popular here in the UK. I ran an RX8 on it for a while.

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Mavrosian@reddit (OP)

Certainly possible, just not as easy as this was in my opinion.

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therealhairykrishna@reddit

No, it's very easy with a carb.

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SensualBeefLoaf@reddit

because hank hill says so. who are you to question a god

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Comfortable-Shoe9543@reddit

Taste the street not the heat

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Metallica_Is_Bae@reddit

Is that an XR Falcon?

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Mavrosian@reddit (OP)

I don't know the naming scheme in Australia. It's a US '66 Falcon Futura.

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Metallica_Is_Bae@reddit

Ahhh right okay, the taillights look identical to the Aussie XR Falcon

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Mavrosian@reddit (OP)

Ah, it's the almost same sheet metal. The tail lights are a little different.

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Metallica_Is_Bae@reddit

Yeah okay, very nice build tho, sounds tuff as

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ILostMoney@reddit

Are you running a single Impco carburetor? What size tank?

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Mavrosian@reddit (OP)

It's an Impco 425 and Model E vaporizer from gotpropane. The guy that runs the place does something to get the rating up to \~425 hp continuous. I couldn't really get many details from him since I bought the kit second hand and didn't want to waste his time.

The tank itself is 33 gallons.

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Dunksterp@reddit

I have the same setup on my Chevy G20 van. Works great, been on there several years and had very few problems with it.

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Spike_Spiegel@reddit

One gallon of propane contains approximately 27% less energy (roughly 91,500 BTU) compared to a gallon of gasoline (roughly 112,000–124,000 BTU). While propane has lower energy density by volume, it has a higher octane rating (104 -112 vs 87-93) and burns cleaner, often providing better efficiency in specifically tuned engines, but it generally yields lower fuel economy in vehicles.

$1/gallon? Sign me up

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redsox985@reddit

I'd wager $1/lb was misstated as $1/G, especially at the local hardware store. That said, getting a bulk delivery to fill a 1000G tank can probably bring prices under $2/G.

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jmhalder@reddit

Energy density means nothing without figuring stoich.

Looks like stoich is 15.6:1 Air to fuel... So it is going to be less power.

E85 is also less energy dense than unleaded, but also has a fatter stoich, and is about a wash for power.

But at $1-$1.50/gallon, it's still a killer deal.

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resolve_it@reddit

How much hp?

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Mavrosian@reddit (OP)

Beats me :-P

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ClosedL00p@reddit

Roll it on the scales and down the strip and you’ll have a pretty good estimate

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ThePandaKingdom@reddit

Best answer. Who fucking cares. Im having fun.

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spaghetiwires@reddit

So much torque the chassis twisted coming off the line

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Bangbashbonk@reddit

Does it freeze under throttle after a while?

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Mavrosian@reddit (OP)

Coolant from the water:air intercooler is run through the vaporizer to keep it from freezing and to further cool the intake charge. Normally you're intended to run engine coolant through the vaporizer, but it doesn't seem to freeze up with the lower temp intercooler coolant.

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