5/5/2006
Due to reasons I am not privy to, nor can I fathom, my job has relocated our office from Appleton, WI, about 34 miles northwest of where I live, to Milwaukee, about 81 miles south of me. That means a commute on the order of 162 miles per day. That’s 810 miles/week, and 38,880miles/year.
Lately gas prices have hovered between $2.899 and $2.999 per gallon here. Of course, until we devolve back into the nomadic pre-industrial society, or wake up and start REALLY developing and using bio-fuels on a global scale, gas prices will continue to worsen. Europe’s gas prices – er, sorry, petrol prices, have been over $4/gallon for quite a few years, since well before 9/11.
At today’s prices, if I low ball it and assume $2.899/g, it will cost about $39.14/day, $195.68/week, $9392.76/year to make this commute with my Dodge Ram with a 5.9l V8 which gets about 12 mpg. No, it’s definitely not the ideal commuting vehicle. If I lived in a perfect climate, it would cost $9.78/day, $48.92/week, and $2348.19/year to ride my Harley every day which gets 48mpg. Every day? It’s Wisconsin, not even remotely likely. It’s not even likely I’ll be able to ride it every day in a single week in the summer.
So, I had to find another vehicle, but I also had a hankering for trying some of the things that are happening on the alternative fuel scene. My first choice would have been a diesel so I could get the better mileage and the opportunity to do the biodiesel and WVO thang, but after searching and searching I gave up on finding anything that met my cost needs. Let me put it, rather, that I delayed my purchase of a diesel until another time.
So, I decided that a cheap, little, light car with a 4 banger and a good mileage reputation would fit the bill. Problem is, most things fitting that description look like ass. Except one, unless it’s been drastically abused, Fieros always look good, and never show rust. Der, that’s cause they’s plastic on the outside. They look good, and they can be had for a song, sounds just right for my cheap ass. They’re also really fun to drive; I had one in my 20s and always regretted getting rid of it, which can’t be said for many of the vehicles I’ve had.
I’ve driven the Fiero to work in Milwaukee for a week now, and I’m getting about 31.5mpg. That means $14.86/day, $74.29/week and $3578.19/year. Not bad, and quite an improvement over the Ram.
Ok, but what about alternative fuels possibilities? Not many; compressed natural gas (CNG), liquid petroleum gas (LPG or propane) or ethanol. Ethanol is a fantastic renewable resource that is carbon neutral (it’s consumption adds no more carbon to the atmosphere than the plants it’s made of took from the atmosphere, but unfortunately if used in high concentrations (such as the ever more common E85) it requires certain gasket and seal materials be installed when the engine is manufactured or rebuilt, and requires extensive computer modifications or an expensive processor. CNG and LPG installations are essentially the same, using the same equipment, aside from different adjustments. The real differences between CNG and LPG are the tank, filling and availability. CNG has to be stored at a much higher pressure than LPG, therefore the tank must be more robust, and more expensive. CNG is actually much harder to find a place to fill up than LPG. There are CNG filling stations, but they are few and far between, and most are privately owned by large corporations for fuelling their fleet vehicles. I will say that Fuelmaker has a fantastic device out now called Phill, a home refueling station that compresses the natural gas piped to your home. Talk about convenient, though it takes quite a while to fill up your tank. Finally, LPG can be had almost anywhere, though you do have to put some forethought into when and where you wil
l refuel, it’s not quite as convenient as gasoline. On the plus side, you can usually negotiate your price with your supplier if you buy in bulk. You pay for a whole bunch at a time, then fill up when you need to. Negotiate in the warmer months, and get enough to last over the winter, the cost goes way up in colder months.
I’ve been researching propane as an automotive fuel for quite a while now. Generally you can assume a 10% mileage loss with propane. That means I’ll get about 28.35mpg. Propane costs much less than gasoline, I’ve been assuming a very poor price of $1.50/gal for propane in my calculations. $8.57/day, $42.86/week, and $2057.14/year. I may be able to get as low as $0.85/gal if I buy in bulk, which would be $4.86/day, $24.29/week and $1165.71/year.
Sleeping yet?
Your first choice to make when converting a vehicle to propane is will it be dedicated or dual fuel. Dedicated systems can run only propane, dual fuel systems can run either propane or gasoline. Dual fuel seems like the obvious choice because you can switch between gas and lpg, but dual fuel will always be a compromise between both. It’ll never be the best propane system, and it’ll never be the best gasoline system. The gas side will suffer from the increased air flow restriction caused by the mixer, or propane carburetor, and the propane side will suffer from not performing the engine modifications which would increase the engine’s efficiency while running on propane – such as increase the compression ratio and install a propane specific cam.
I chose to go dual fuel. With such a long commute, I didn’t want to risk running out of propane where I don’t know the availability of fuel.
Propane systems have 4 main parts: the tank, the filter/lockoffs, the converter/regulator and the mixer. While you can run a propane fuel system with just these main parts plus some hoses and switches, in my opinion there is a 5th essential item, a DualCurve integrated processor. This processor will interpret the O2 sensor readings while running on propane for your car’s computer, prevent it from unlearning the fuel curves, turn on and off the fuel injector(s) and gasoline fuel pump, turn on and off the propane and properly advance the timing for propane.
The first thing I had to do was construct a mount for the tank. I won’t bore you with the details, but I’ll mention a few of the more important points. Obviously, the tank needs to be mounted to a strong portion of the vehicle and preferably centered side to side. This is especially important in smaller, lighter vehicles where the off-set weight would make more difference in the handling of the vehicle. The tank should also never be mounted low enough to be scraped or bashed on anything like a curb or parking block. The tank should never, ever be mounted within a passenger compartment, not even the trunk. The exception to this is if you thoroughly seal the trunk from the rest of the passenger compartment and vent the trunk to the outside at the bottom most point. Never route lpg hoses through the passenger compartment. The tank must be mounted in it’s prescribed orientation so that the gauge or sender reads correctly, the 80% valve works properly and the tank can’t be over filled.
I have built my mount and installed my tank. I also ordered and received my dual fuel mixer, an Impco FB300a-50-2. I’ve ordered my Century 2384 12volt filter/lockoff, Impco Model J regulator/converter, hoses and fittings, and Dualcurve 5920 integrated processor, but I have yet to receive those items. They should be coming this next week.