You will have to burn more of it to match the energy of gas.

 

I paid $4.40 per gallon today.

suck it up.

 

well with our company and many others in my area you can do a thing called pre pay. what ever price you pre pay at and however many gallons you buy, no matter how high the price gets in the winter your price will be the price whenever you pre paid.

mostly just commercial places have 1000 gallon tanks but you can get them for personal use. the make fittings on the tanks that have a section of hose coming off of it so that you can fill smaller tanks. people use them to fill fork lifts and other equipment but it could be used for the trucks tank as well.

 

We have a bunch of '00-'04 (Heritage) F-150 7700 factory bifuel (gas /propane) trucks at work. The bifuel system has been very troublesome on these trucks, most likely because the propane system is not often used. The propane system is tied into the computer, so when it malfunctions it throws a check engine light.

In California, cars must be smogged every 2 yrs (even cars owned by California government, which these are), and they can't be smogged w/ a check engine light. To make the light go out, some fancy valve must be replaced under the hood (approx $2500, and hard to get), so our mechanics are spending $2500 every two years to get these trucks smogged

A few pics of the propane system ...

A plastic cover goes over the tanks ...



You can "self serve" propane at various gas stations ...



Switch in the cab ... you turn the key on, flip the switch, and when the green light comes on, you start the truck ...



Under hood ... that box w/ the white sticker on it is the valve that fails ...

 

Propane is used a lot in here, i'm considering it myself, cause gas here is more than $5.00, the major brands that are installed here are tartarini and lovato i think both are italian.

But here it cost just $2000, for the system, they even install propane injectors next to the gas ones, that;s the best system you safe about 40% and in my case i'll get my investment in about 8 month, under normal use, if i get some project outside the city i'll get a lot faster.

I had a project 2 years ago that i spend almost $7,000 in gas in just 4 months, and that was on my explorer.

 

There was wn episode on trucks on spike where they converted a f150 over to propane. I cant remember the engine size but i know the truck was in the 04-08 range.

 

I saw that episode. I'm fairly certain they used the roush kit. I remember them putting on Roush badges like the stage 1 & 2, but they had propane or something instead.

 

I have Amerigas and they pretty much suck. Will be going more local, they do plans like that where they come and top it off every etc etc..

Anywho, A lot of times they don't want to give that 1000 gallon tank away unless they know you are going to get it filled often and your not a terrorist.

 

I might be converting my truck to propane this week or next, i'll take pics of the process.

 

I will be tuned in.

 

I find it funny that GotPropane.com (an expert in propane systems) has no idea of who sells propane injection systems that have on the market for easily a decade now.

Going back to the OP, generally any MPEFI engine can be converted to propane very easily with an injection conversion. Rather than adding a mixer to fumigate propane into the intake manifold, an injection conversion adds a parallel injection system to the engine, which is controlled by the vehicle's PCM. The propane system's controller just intercepts the gasoline injector signals and reroutes them to the propane injectors with appropriate signal modification. When the propane system's controller is properly calibrated, there are no CELs because the fuel trims on propane are exactly the same as they would be on gasoline and the operation of vehicle on propane is virtually identical to its operation on gasoline. All emission controls remain in place and fully functional. Newer vehicles require a few more components to deal with returnless gasoline injection systems and E85-capable PCMs.

As for EPA regulations, you would have to check with your local emission test shop. The EPA tends to frown upon the commercial installation of non-certified alternative fuel systems but they may be loosening up their requirements. However, there is no restriction on the repair of a system installed by the vehicle owner. CNG Chat has a discussion on EPA Conversions. There's less of an issue with aftermarket conversions if there's no visual inspection and the emission test consists of a tailpipe test and/or OBD check for CELs.

Technocarb's ESIP parts package is the most economical way of converting a vehicle to run on propane (or CNG). The current price of the 6 cylinder LPG underhood injection parts package is $1246.41, which is comparable in price to a feedback fumigation system but works much better. There are other injection conversions on the market and the Prins VSI and the Impco aftermarket systems also work well. Depending upon the size of tank involved, the work involved with splicing the propane injection system into the wiring harness, building brackets, and adding injector nozzles to the intake manifold, a universal (non-certified) propane injection conversion will typically cost about $4000-$5000 commercially installed.

A propane conversion only makes sense if you can get propane for less than the cost of gasoline. On an energy basis, propane has about 74% of gasoline so you have to multiply the price of propane by 1.35 to get its GGE price. That is, if gasoline is selling for $3.40, propane would have to sell for $2.52/gallon to be cheaper. CNG is already advertised in terms to GGE so it's generally a lot cheaper, especially in states like OK ($0.75/GGE) and UT ($1.05/GGE) or if a gas utility is running the CNG station. You can check the prices of LPG and CNG with AltFuelPrices. You might be able to negotiate a lower LPG price based on bulk purchases (with a propane supplier), especially if you buy enough to get into their minimum quantity break (like 1000-5000 gallons/year). Dilloncawthon had a great suggestion about prepaying for your fuel during the summer.

Filling up from your home propane tank isn't a good idea. You would need a pump to transfer liquid propane to your motorfuel tank and your propane supplier probably won't install one for you for liability reasons. Heating propane is often commercial LPG with no specification for content so you could end up with a lot more than propane in your tank. The propane motorfuel specification is HD-5, which limits propylene to a maximum of 5% and limits butanes and heavier hydrocarbons to a maximum of 2.5%.

As for the Roush LPI system, it's not clear from the FAQ if the $8095 includes the estimated 10 hours of installation labor. Roush does claim only about a 10% loss in fuel economy but they no longer offer the system on F-150s (could it be to avoid EPA fuel economy testing?). Propane conversions typically get better fuel economy than what would be expected from the fuel's lower BTU content per gallon. There's no way to know the actual loss unless you bought identical propane and gasoline vehicles and did a side-by-side comparison yourself.

As for the OEM Ford propane trucks, it would be a lot cheaper to repair the TeleflexGFI propane system with an aftermarket propane injection system than to keep replacing the problematic Compuvalve. The ESIP 8 cylinder underhood parts package costs $1,348.41 but requires the PCM to reflashed to gasoline-only operation.

 

I had a buddywho used to take his trucks to mexico and get them swapped over to propane injection for $500 it was pretty cool until he had a back fire that blew the truck up and killed him and his family.

 

For $500, how much effort do you think the Mexican conversion shop put into complying with NFPA 58? Good Injection conversions do not have intake manifold backfires so my guess is that the reason the Mexicans did it so cheap because they couldn't do it any cheaper. Sometimes you get what you pay for.

 

Yea thats mexico for ya.

 

Most of State owned and operated vehicles in Texas have the porpane fuel systems. I have the unfortinate please of driving them. The 10% fuel economy loss is WAAAAAY OFF!! Not only do you lose MPG's but you also lose power and reliability. I have had several back fire and the most it ever did was blow the air box to shreds. Needless to say I will never put a propane system on my truck!!