The Toyota Landcruiser Owners Club

[The Doc]

I've finally decided to take the plunge and convert my cruiser (2001 3.4L VX Colorado) to LPG.

I've booked it in to a local place - Battersea Autogas in South London.  They are going to fit a split underbody tank (80L LPG, 42L Petrol) so there is no loss of boot space.  For a multipoint system with FlashLube it's coming out at just over £2K all in.

Question:  there are various systems which they can fit - Romano, BRC, Prins. From looking at various forums PRINS seems to come quite highly rated, but costs an extra £250 compared to the other systems.  Does anyone have any thoughts as to which system to go for, and is the extra money worth it for the PRINS system?

Thanks for the help.

[Google]

[DaveB]

You boys down sarf seem to be paying a lot for your LPG conversions compared to us Northern monkeys.

2 years ago I had my 2.7 Petrol Prado Colorado converted to LPG with a similar setup to the one your getting for £1500.

Its a Romano multi system.

Well pleased with it and its currently returning 300 miles for £30 worth of LPG.

Give these guys a ring if you have not had it done yet

01925577216 (Warrington Autogas)

What they will save you would be worth a drive up to Warrington and even a couple of nights in a B&B while they do it.

[The Doc]

Thanks for that.  Did the £1500 include a split external petro/LPG tank, or an internal tank.  The £1950 quoted includes a split external tank, 42L petrol and 80L LPG, as I am not keen on losing boot space.  Having said that I suspect that we do pay more down south, for LPG and for everything else..

As a further point, my local Toyota dealer strongly advised against LPG conversions on Colorados, as they reckon they've seen a couple of knackered engines result from it.  Have you had any problems, and what sort of mileage have you put on LPG?

Cheers

[DaveB]

Well I git a split tank and one underneath so no loss of boot space like yours, 75 litre capacity.

The Toyota dealer sounds like he doesnt know what he's talking about TBH.

Ive talked to a few LC owners with LPG and all have had no problems, none caused by LPG anyway.

The biggest issue is valve seat recession as LPG burns hotter it can cause problems on some engines but a flash lube kit will cure this if fitted from the start.

My LPG installer tells me that they always fit a Flash Lube kit no matter what the engine is. Better safe than sorry I suppose

Done about 20K on mine now and its still running lovely. Dont forget LPG is so clean that even 5000 miles after an oil change the engine oil still looks like new!!!

So that can't  be bad for the engine can it??

Go for it mate it will be the best thing you ever did for your yota

[Zia Chowdhury]

Doc, I'd be very interested in how your conversion goes as I'm considering the exact same mod.

Keep us posted please.

[The Doc]

Sure -

I had a PRINS vsi multipoint system fitted. I also had a Flashlube system fited although the conversion chap didn't think it was really necessary.  I had split tanks fitted: a 80 LPG tank which fits in place of the original petrol tank - the tank guard fits over it so it looks the same from the rear and doesn't hang down lower like some tanks can.  The LPG tank fills to 63 litres (allowing 20% expansion).  The petrol tank is fitted somewhere below the rear seats and fits 42 L.  The filler cap exits just to the right of the petrol flap.  The filler guage and switch has been wired into a spare socket on the dash below the alarm light so no wires visible.  The conversionn cost £2295 all in, including collection and delivery of car and a tank of gas.  This includes 2 year warranty.

I have only done about 500 miles so far, but am very impressed.  The car starts on petrol and changes over seamlessly at 32 degrees C.  When it runs out of gas it flicks back to petrol automatically.  The lights on the guage actually seem to correspond to the amount of LPG left which wasn't the case on my previous LPG car.

The car feels just as fast, if not faster on LPG than petrol - something which certainly has not been my experience with a previous single point on a range rover.  I haven't done a full calculation on ~MPG yet, but seem to be getting about 180-200 miles on a tank (63L) , but this is London driving in winter, mostly short journeys.  This compares with 250-270 miles on 75 litres of petrol which I was getting previously.  LPG costs aroun 51p/l in london, but petrol is 105p.

All in all very happy so far, although will only be truly happy when the converison has paid for itself (about 18months as I don't do high mileages).

Any other questions just ask -

Cheers,

[Zia Chowdhury]

Mucho gracias, lots if interesting info here.

Curiously, I have a single-point LPG RRC 3.9 auto and I'm getting about around 14mpg (= 3 miles per litre) in London traffic too. Doesn't seem to matter whether I'm using unleaded or LPG as it's been custom mapped for LPG use only.

An aside: Sh*t, maybe we're twins!  



Now I'm typing as I think aloud:
From your figures, you're also getting 14mpg (= 3 miles per litre) on LPG.

Q: Is it worth me/you investigating in a £500 custom map session to recoup the alleged (but not by you) 15% loss in power and mpg?

A: Assume 10,000 miles per year and also £500 for the map session and an increase to 16 mpg  (= 3.5 mile per litre) in town stop-start.
10,000 / 3 miles per litre = 3,333 litres
10,000 / 3.5 miles per litre = 2,857 litres

Difference is 476 litres @ 51p each = £243 'saved' over 10,000 miles.

Therefore to 'save' £500, you/I would have to drive 20,570 miles to amortise the cost of the mapping, subject to unknown variables such as traffic, lead-footedness, outside temperature, etc etc. And on the subject of outside temperature and engine warm-up time, how long would it take to recoup a £500 engine pre-heater? This has now become a nightmare within a nightmare!

Conclusions:
1. I'm going to do the remap anyway just to get the 15% power 'back.'
2. I'm going to have to find a 4.7 with LPG already installed so that I don't shell out for the £2,300 installation.
3. RRC's with LPG already done only cost £1,500-£2,000. P38's cost £5,000+
4. Buy someone else's project and continue with it.
5. Oh god, I'm tired! I'll just buy a Yaris for London. And no, I won't be LPG-ing it. Hell, I'll get a '91 Primera/Corolla for £300 and just run it for a year then dump it.


I know, it's not comparing apples with apples - the real issue here is knowing when to stop with the mods!

[DaveB]

Whooooa what all this about re-mapping to gain the 15% power loss back???

You can tweak it but you will NEVER get it back.

1 litre of petrol has a higher calorific content than 1 litre of LPG.

1 litre of petrol has more energy than 1 litre of LPG

Therefore you get slightly more power and performance from 1 litre of petrol than you do out of 1 litre of LPG.

If you really want to get back some of that diference, look at Electric fans, and synthetic oils for the axles and gearbox and motor.

Doc: have they asked you to take it back after 1000 miles or so?? they did with mine and had a little tweak, it improved MPG slightly.

[Zia Chowdhury]

Good points, all of them