natural gas conversion

Hi , i am a new member and am looking for info on anyone that has converted there explorer to natural gas , is there a conversion kit out there , thanks phil

Wouldn't it be LPG instead of natural gas?
You can look online for a kit, the best ones I've seen come from Australia, there are also some nice ones in Philippines...

Welcome to this forum! Check the UK section, and the hybrid section for some ideas.

welcome aboard

It would be CNG no LPG.

Never seen it :S Mexico, Philippines and Australia use LPG for cars, what would be the difference?

T Boone Pickens uses natular gas and Honda has a NG hybrid and the one line website mentions a home refuelling device that refills the tank overnight. Because the NG residential pressure is only about 2 lbs psi so it has to be pumped in to fill the tank

in the US, a lot of the busses are CNG. I worked with them for many years. I've never looked into a kit for cars, but I'm sure it must be out there. You would have to check with your local NG provider to see how you can obtain COMPRESSED NG.

I haven't seen that in a while! It became a big deal on the first oil crunch. You could get a CNG vehicle straight from the factory...I wonder if you could go that route? Find a vehicle in a salvage yard?

Propane isn't a bad idea either. But you really need to build a new motor for the best benefit. Build something around 12:1 compression. Propane has a very good octane rating!

jad2411 said:

Never seen it :S Mexico, Philippines and Australia use LPG for cars, what would be the difference?

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Mate,

I asked here in Australia, whether my '97 Explorer could be converted and the mechanic said, quite bluntly, that the Explorers have a plastic intake manifold which prevents the LPG conversion.

The way I see it, if you could maybe replace the manifold with a molded alloy one then it could go ahead...?

To be honest, I really have no idea how the gas conversion is fitted or works - I am just relaying what the mechanic told me.

Good luck.

Chris Saunders said:

Mate,

I asked here in Australia, whether my '97 Explorer could be converted and the mechanic said, quite bluntly, that the Explorers have a plastic intake manifold which prevents the LPG conversion.

The way I see it, if you could maybe replace the manifold with a molded alloy one then it could go ahead...?

To be honest, I really have no idea how the gas conversion is fitted or works - I am just relaying what the mechanic told me.

Good luck.

Click to expand...

That's only applicable to mixer ring style conversion. The newer technology is SVI/VSI which is effectively injected gaseous LPG, and the very newest is injected Liquid LPG - both bypass the exploding manifold issue (no backfires, unlike the older mixer ring systems).

Now, the issue I have is that when on gas, my engine codes on P0191 (Fuel pressure regulator check circuit) - so you can do the conversion to LPG (and CNG is not that different), but it may produce different errors with the car. Because of the engine code we have, I get around 8 to 9 mpg on LPG.

The only difference between NG and LPG is the cylinder they use diffent one, cause NG can be compress as much as LPG, NG cylinders are bigger and can go outside of the vehicle, you can put much of it in, so you have to re-fill your tank lots of time in the week, but th NG is cheaper than LPG.

In my county LPG is the most common of both, but NG is starting to grow especially of urban buses and stuff like that.