Propane, anyone?

[Randy_the_Hack]

Has anyone installed one of the Deluca fuel extenders? This is supposed to perform propane injection with the emphasis on improved economy. Marc tells me that it can also be switched on the fly to boost performance, which is supposed to be good for up near 100 RWHP.

I've been toying with the idea of either water/meth injection or propane injection to boost my fuel economy. While I realize that propane injection is just switching one fuel for another... at these prices I could see a significant benefit. Rough numbers are in the "saving 3 to 10 cents per mile" range, which just ain't something to sneeze at.

According to Dan Labonte and a couple of others I've read, a good water/meth system ought to buy you 10%-13% economy improvement. I'm getting around 22 out on the highway empty today, so that should bring me up to somewhere between 24-25 mpg, which is nothing to sneeze at either. Labonte is just now releasing a new tow/economy focused water/meth system which is supposed to specifically target lower EGT's and improved economy. They may be able to improve the 10%-13% numbers - yet to be seen.

CNG isn't an option, IMHO, 'cause we don't heat with gas, and the nearest CNG station is about 160-175 miles away.

I'd like to make my truck more affordable to drive. I drive it every day anyway, but I'd sure like to drive my operational costs down more. Any thoughts?

 

[durallymax]

Id go the watr route. Its just safer.

Propane scares me. It burns hot, turbos and valve seats dont like hot.

 

[fasterdmax]

Randy_the_Hack..

did you ever try anything? How did it help your economy?

 

[Randy_the_Hack]

Never did. I looked at it about every way you can and I could not come up with any way for it to ever pay for itself. Even at 75k miles, I think it was only going to save something less than $200...

I'll tell you where I'm going to go - Dan Labonte has just finished a water/meth injection system that's specifically tuned for economy. It looks to improve mileage by 2-5 mpg or more. Last time I ran the numbers, I figured it would pay for itself around 6-7k miles.

 

[trashygasman]

Hopefully within the next year or so, we are going to try to start selling landfill gas as a fuel like CNG for vehicles. They are talking about running the trash trucks on it. If they do this, I plan on putting an injection system on my truck. I will probably try to talk to Marc Deluca and get one of his setups when I do this. I will keep everybody updated on how it is coming along.

 

[durallymax]

We toyed around with adding a mthane digester to our lagoon but it would never really pay for itself.

Give it time and the costs will come down.

 

[trashygasman]

Right now we are just selling the gas to an Interstate pipeline. We are talking about the idea of pumping some of it into a stoarage tank like propane.