Propane High HP Question

When I go to a wheeling even 9 out of 10 people have 350 plus HP small blocks if you ask them. If you put them on a dyno its a completely different story. Forget charts and graphs. I had a propane system. Had it on a dyno. Unless you go really high compression I see no point in propane. If you do go really high compression you can't go back to pump gas so make sure you do your homework before building a propane burner...

Chevy and ford? What about dodge...

A high horsepower or high rpm engine will not perform properly with a single mixer. The photo is of a 383 stroker with one of my fuel systems on it. It dynoed at 630 hp on gas and 565 on propane. It ran in one of the off road competition series and did well. It had a strong flat torque curve of over 500 lb.ft. starting at less than 2000 rpm and stayed there over 6500 rpm. This is using technology that is 50 years old.

A single mixer is equivalent to running a two barrel gasoline carburetor on a V8.

It all comes down to the engine being properly set up and all components working properly. We discovered an issue recently while converting some Ford V10's in F650s with the engine going lean in a hard pull. It turned out to be a fuel starvation issue caused be restrictions in the fuel line fittings. The 90 degree fittings on the fuel hose had smaller i.d. than the straight fittings and was slowing the fuel coming from the tank. We had to remove all the angled fittings from the fuel lines to correct the issue.

I ran dual 425s on mine and it did great till about 6500 then started lean popping, i have a stroked 454 with a big solid cam and 14.5:1 compression, I just don't think I'm getting everything out of my motor i can with 850cfm on a 500 inch motor so I'm switching to something a little different but i still like propane for the simplicity and easy tuning. Buddy knows what he is talking about on the propane man has been doing it since most of us were still shitting green.

tbacon38 said:

Buddy knows what he is talking about on the propane man has been doing it since most of us were still shitting green.

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TRUTH x1000

If you go back and read all of his previous posts it's like the Bible of all things propane :****: http://www.hardlinecrawlers.com/forums/index.php?action=profile;u=1211;sa=showPosts

I have seen propane work great. To get everything out of it you do need to build it for propane. By that I mean aggressive timing and high compression. Very high, like not gonna run on pump gas high. It just wasn't for me. All I wanted to do was make sure I shared my experience with it. Try finding a place to fill propane tanks in gilbert mn on a weekend.. 20 minute drive one way. Make your decision based on your motor, your budget, the facts, and what you want to do.

Anyone doubting Propane makes horse power pull up videos on any of the Bacon boys buggies, Ol'Pink single seat TC had, Jay Roberts ol'yellow single seat, Shelby Tanner ol' black, John 3:16 R Key had, the Blue single seat Smith Motorsports built, the burgundy rear engine big block smith motorsports built, Some of Wes Kean rigs, Ethan Tanner ol'orange single seat rig, smith motor sports first rear engine 383, shake in bake with the turbo motor all on you tube. Most have seen these rigs in person. Does propane have to be set right yes Will it run without a doubt and make horse power all day long. Draw back if air ever hits it in a leak it will freeze and you do have to drive to get the tanks filled. Upside no wiring harness, no ECM. If the above buggies aren't proof that propane builds horse power I don't know what to tell you. It all comes down to what you know how to set up and what you want to run. Hope anyones rig I shared above isn't offend if so I apologize.


God Bless

Revelation Fab

Hey Revelation, I'm not saying it CAN'T make horsepower. I am just saying to do so requires you to go down the propane road and not look back. When I was deciding between propane and efi I read about 100000 posts and even called the got propane guy... I kept reading how great it was and what sold me was you can just slap it on a gas motor and there you go... It's KINDA true.. you can just slap it on BUT doing so you lose power. To make power with propane you need to build the engine FOR propane. The true potential of propane is unlocked with compression. LOTS OF IT.. to get compression you need the right pistons, possibly shave deck, possibly shave heads etc.. When you start running 12:1 or even 14:1 compression the higher octane of propane slows down the detonation which is how you can run so much compression without pinging. You CAN go back to gas but you need VERY high octane racing fuel which is really really expensive compared to propane. Gas and propane are two very different forms of energy. To get the most out of them you need to build the engine accordingly.

so back to my first post... you can't take a 500 horse pump gas motor and just throw a single propane carb on it and expect to get anywhere near that HP... You also can't take a well built propane specific motor and put a carb on it running 91 octane and not expect it to ping itself until it explodes.

That is the only point I'm trying to make.. guess I didn't explain myself earlier.. sorry. Also another thing to consider is this. I had two 43 lb aluminum propane tanks. I could get a single trail ride out of each of them. I always had to refill at least one to get through the weekend. I realize it's no different than refilling your tank or fuel cell BUT if you have a big gas guzzling engine and you are running high RPM's you need to make sure you have another tank because you can't just borrow some fuel from your buddy to get you back to camp.

Hello Naughty_finger,
I completely understand what your talking about guess my reply came out wrong most of the buggies I named off those motors weren't build for propane in particular they were just built and most for dirt track racing to start with. The John 3:16 I had it built and it was only 9:1 compression with stock 883 heads. As for propane usage I can't help with that one I know the first motor I was around with propane was a 400 small block and you couldn't ride a whole day it would eat a tank up, then built the 406 that I have now and I can ride two days on the same tank your right though you run out of propane your out. I know some rigs run awesome on it others cant even get it to run at all. I hope you can get yours going. I did start using TSC to get my tanks filled as well cheapest place I can find but like you said better take extra just in case.


God Bless

Revelation Fab

I've got a pic somewhere but on my buddys turbo propane rig we built an adapter to run the small coleman latern tanks and we mounted 1 in his buggy just in case the main tank ever ran out.

SomewhiteGuy said:

I've got a pic somewhere but on my buddys turbo propane rig we built an adapter to run the small coleman latern tanks and we mounted 1 in his buggy just in case the main tank ever ran out.

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How far will that male it mine would eat through it backing off the trailer, I could ride about a half a day on a tank, if I was blasting hills or in the throttle alot that time went down, mine would eat the gas like crazy.

REVELATION said:

Hello Naughty_finger,
I completely understand what your talking about guess my reply came out wrong most of the buggies I named off those motors weren't build for propane in particular they were just built and most for dirt track racing to start with. The John 3:16 I had it built and it was only 9:1 compression with stock 883 heads. As for propane usage I can't help with that one I know the first motor I was around with propane was a 400 small block and you couldn't ride a whole day it would eat a tank up, then built the 406 that I have now and I can ride two days on the same tank your right though you run out of propane your out. I know some rigs run awesome on it others cant even get it to run at all. I hope you can get yours going. I did start using TSC to get my tanks filled as well cheapest place I can find but like you said better take extra just in case.


God Bless

Revelation Fab

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And your right I didnt build my motor to run on propane i just built it and the propane was laying there so i just stuck it on there to get going, wanted fuel inj. but ran out of money before i got that far but i have ditched the pane and going back to fuel.

Re: Re: Re: Propane High HP Question

tbacon38 said:

How far will that male it mine would eat through it backing off the trailer, I could ride about a half a day on a tank, if I was blasting hills or in the throttle alot that time went down, mine would eat the gas like crazy.

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His buddy's rig is a 22re w turbo... So like 1/3 the displacement of yours

I have also researched that you can also run liquid propane under high fuel pressure thru "propane" fuel injectors. Just like EFI for super/turbo charged systems and it works to cool combustion chamber like NO2 . also used in drag racing.

Re: Re: Re: Propane High HP Question

TBItoy said:

His buddy's rig is a 22re w turbo... So like 1/3 the displacement of yours

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Oh I see so that would prolly get you back to the trailer or close to it anyways. Pretty good idea.

tbacon38 said:

How far will that male it mine would eat through it backing off the trailer, I could ride about a half a day on a tank, if I was blasting hills or in the throttle alot that time went down, mine would eat the gas like crazy.

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This gives me hope! I'll be running a slightly built small block and planned to burn two tanks per day.

Re: Re: Re: Propane High HP Question

tbacon38 said:

Oh I see so that would prolly get you back to the trailer or close to it anyways. Pretty good idea.

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Thats the idea and Nick is right the consumption rate is probably less than most of the v8 guys but it does burn a tank a day with hard riding.

As far as fuel economy.. propane burns MORE than gas.. not quite the gas mileage. Fleet vehicles convert over to propane because it's cheaper than gas. I was paying $2.20 a gallon through my local propane distributor. If I bought my propane through a gas station that had a propane tank fill up then it was actually MORE expensive than gas. It was like $4.00 a gallon. Those places are more expensive because they get the propane marked up because of the equipment rental and the delivery charge then they have to mark it up even more to make a profit. $26 to fill a grill tank. So yes propane CAN be cheaper but do you have a propane distributor near you? More importantly can you work out a deal with them? It took me a few fill ups before they gave me a good price.

As far as price goes. I noticed someone mentioned a turbo propane motor. You can run propane with turbos but don't the price of the turbo setup kinda contradict the whole keep it cheap thing. Turbos aint cheap.

Fuel injection with propane is 100% possible. I don't know if you need special injectors but I do know that carburation & turbos here in Minnesota specializes in converting fuel injected late model vehicles to run propane. They do a lot of fleet truck work. I watched them do an install once.. it was pretty cool.

Last but not least two years ago Memorial Weekend was rainy as hell. I had issues with my propane. I was working that weekend because the club I belong to puts on a big bash for people. I had to have a LOT of propane vehicles towed out because they were getting moisture in the form of condensation in their distributors and propane motors need a strong spark.

There are so many options on there on propane... I ran it, I know people that ran it..

Here is a picture of the big girl with her two 43 lb tanks on her back. She was one THIRSTY B*t^%

propane or alcohol injectors and needed because of the high alcohol content in some propane,
My neighbor is a propane guy, I got a 250 gal tank for the only purpose of filling my own tanks, I use about 165 gal a year .. my once a year fill price is 1.80 a gal.
My toyota buggy uses 1 gal per hour of average run time. I also did a coleman bottle set up. but I have never used it. It should be nearly a half gal. and I hope for a 1/2 hour of average run time.

Engine size and efficiency is the key factor in fuel consumption. Samurai rigs I have been around can run two to three weekends on a single 33lb bottle. A stock small block sometimes two days of riding and most of the big blocks I have seen or worked on would run about 4 hours depending on how high they wanted to fly or the amount of smoke desired coming off the tires. And nobody puts a "stock" big block in anything.

We install propane fuel injection on over the road vehicles. We use both vapor and liquid injection systems. The liquid systems are more complicated and would not easily be installed in an off road rig due to the tank having an electric fuel pump inside it like a gasoline system. You do need special injectors for propane no matter if vapor or liquid.

The weather related problem with ignitions being wet really can't be blamed on propane. It has more to do with lack of ventilation(or weather protection) for the distributor. I was at a 2 day XTERRA competition event a couple of years ago with the propane buggy that I show the photo of the 383 stroker. On Saturday the weather was warm and dry but on Sunday a cold front came in and the temperature dropped and the humidity in the air was about 90% that morning. Several of the fuel injected rigs had trouble loading up even after they warmed up. One crew member came running through the pit area asking if we had a scanner. We told him no, we didn't need one since we were running propane. Tim reached inside the cockpit and hit the switch and it fired off without incident.
The reason they had issues with fuel injection was because they did not use all the sensors needed for the pcm to recalculate for the weather change. With propane this 50 year old technology adjusts itself for the change in barometric pressure without wires or sensors.

So who's selling the 2 mixers adapter that's being shown and at what price? I deal with propane on a regular basis(forklift industry) and can deal with it's quirks. I just need to determine if it's cost effective between the 2 mixer adapter set-up or regular injection.