gas conversions?

[fiftypounder]

Hi ther all<br />I have been wondering about the possibility of running my honda 4 stroke 15 hp outboard on propane gas.Can anyone out there point me in the right direction?<br />If you think about it gas fuel is much more safer than petrol or diesel on the water.On the river i navigate(Great Ouse,England),there are locks.There have been numerous accidents over the years not only on my river,where fuel has leaked onto the water in these locks and been ignited!! The resulting accidents have been horrendous and in some cases fatal.<br />Just one instance where gas wins over liquid fuels.Also the advantages of lower engine maintainence and wear.As a mechanic i can bear witness to the apparant cleanliness of the engine oil out of cars that run lpg when it comes to service.<br />Anyway i'm not a salesman Just looking into the possibility and cost of a conversion....

 

[WillyBWright]

Re: gas conversions?

Welcome to iboats.<br /><br />I can't imagine our USCG favoring having compressed gas in a boat. Not sure how things are accross the pond. That and I doubt any hardware is available to accomplish this.

 

[JB]

Re: gas conversions?

Howdy, Fifty.<br /><br />Welcome to iboats. <br /><br />Propane has one characteristic that I think would disqualify it as a small boat fuel: It is heavier than air.<br /><br />Any leak or "spill" would gather in your bilge in a mixture even more explosive than petrol fumes. That is why propane is banned as a galley fuel by many authorities.<br /><br />True, propane is a much cleaner burning fuel than petrol, but safer? Not.<br /><br />If you want a safer, cleaner burning fuel than petrol I nominate methanol. Because it is miscible with water any spill could be instantly neutralized with water or in water. Ethanol would do just as well, but the taxes would be a killer.<br /><br />Your only problem with either alcohol would be to replace materials in your fuel system that are not alcohol friendly. <br /><br />Then you would need to richen the mixture by enlarging jets, and install some sort of starting aid, like an ether injector.<br /><br />I ran my racing karts and my 55cc Honda street bike on methanol and meth/ether or meth/nitro. Mileage was terrible, but they burned clean and made more power than petrol.<br /><br />Good luck.

 

[kiwiguy]

Re: gas conversions?

New Zealand has been providing CNG (compressed natural gas) for cars for many years. Very clean burning, tanks mounted underneath or in the boot. The conversion kits are around $1200. I'm sure it would be a very useful ad-on to the boating industry. The only drawback was the engines required an upper cylinder lubricant because of the dry nature of gas. Just about doubled the milage of all vehichles that run on it.

 

[Qld_Kev]

Re: gas conversions?

In Australia we run LPG for our car conversions. Runs great. Maybe you could think about the same. You can even run more iniital ignition advance with the higher octane, giving more powwer off the line. As with the oil being cleaner; yes there is no carbon build up so it looks clean, but your oil does turn acid hence needing changing still. I wouln't still have our old Fairmont if it didn't have the LPG conversion, saves a lot of $$$ filling it up.