Hey guys, I've been doing a bit of reading up on LPG conversions and know that a few on here have gone for it with their M20's, I just have a few questions. Is it feasible to carry this out DIY? I'm an engineer and handy enough around a car. What kit is best to buy? I know there are single and multi point and other variations out there. Is the M20 inlet suitable for drilling to fit the injectors? Also, is there alot of wiring involved, I know some cars require an emulator to switch the injectors off.
All comments appreciated!
LPG converting an M20
Moderator: martauto
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StuBeeDoo
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In a nutshell, go for it!!
DIY isn't a problem. I'm no mechanical expert and it wasn't a problem to me. IIRC, I did it over about a month of weekends, just an hour here and there. All I didn't do on mine was run the feed pipe from the tank into the engine bay. That was purely because I couldn't be arsed to lay on my back and do it. Oh! I had to get someone to weld the lambda boss into the exhaust as well.
Single-point is plenty good enough for the M20, but go for closed-loop electronic mixture control.
Emulators aren't needed as Motronic 1.3 is too stupid to realise that the injectors are disconnected.
There are bargains to be had second-hand, but I used all new OMVL gear. It cost a me total of £700, but that was 3 years ago now. At that time, it took me about 9 months to recover the outlay but I was doing over 14k miles a year.
There's quite a few of us here running LPG, so you shouldn't be short of advice if you need it.
Good luck with it.
Stuart.
DIY isn't a problem. I'm no mechanical expert and it wasn't a problem to me. IIRC, I did it over about a month of weekends, just an hour here and there. All I didn't do on mine was run the feed pipe from the tank into the engine bay. That was purely because I couldn't be arsed to lay on my back and do it. Oh! I had to get someone to weld the lambda boss into the exhaust as well.
Single-point is plenty good enough for the M20, but go for closed-loop electronic mixture control.
Emulators aren't needed as Motronic 1.3 is too stupid to realise that the injectors are disconnected.
There are bargains to be had second-hand, but I used all new OMVL gear. It cost a me total of £700, but that was 3 years ago now. At that time, it took me about 9 months to recover the outlay but I was doing over 14k miles a year.
There's quite a few of us here running LPG, so you shouldn't be short of advice if you need it.
Good luck with it.
Stuart.
This is why I no longer drive an E30......
Sounds promising, does the kit come with instructions? Is there alot of wiring involved in the conversion? Also, are the injectors disconnected completley, some of the info I was reading talked about having to start the car on petrol then change over to gas?
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e301988325i
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Do a search for my username cross referenced with lpg, also 'gareth', 'brianmoore', 'chris1990', 'stonesie'.
I had to buy a heatgun for shrink wrapping wiring, also a large 70mm hole saw and arbor for drilling a hole for the filler both from screwfix. A laptop for tuning the software, a USB to com port adaptor unless your laptop has one, a dongle cable for the lpg ECU to com port.
The downside is you will lose top end power with a single point kit.
'Ant' on here has just started doing a dual chip setup and LPG chips too which will be usefull.
You do normally start on petrol but there is a start on gas feature in the software, some people have had more success with this than others.
The best place to get LPG stuff is www.tinleytech.co.uk
I had to buy a heatgun for shrink wrapping wiring, also a large 70mm hole saw and arbor for drilling a hole for the filler both from screwfix. A laptop for tuning the software, a USB to com port adaptor unless your laptop has one, a dongle cable for the lpg ECU to com port.
The downside is you will lose top end power with a single point kit.
'Ant' on here has just started doing a dual chip setup and LPG chips too which will be usefull.
You do normally start on petrol but there is a start on gas feature in the software, some people have had more success with this than others.
The best place to get LPG stuff is www.tinleytech.co.uk
I said:
Can anyone suggest how to test if the boot lights are staying on with the boot shut?
e30topless said:
lock the wife in there
Can anyone suggest how to test if the boot lights are staying on with the boot shut?
e30topless said:
lock the wife in there
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StuBeeDoo
- Engaged to the E30 Zone
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I'm one of the successful ones. Unless the ambient temperature is lower than about 7deg C, mine starts on gas all the time.e301988325i wrote:You do normally start on petrol but there is a start on gas feature in the software, some people have had more success with this than others.
This is why I no longer drive an E30......
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Brianmoooore
- E30 Zone Team Member
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- Joined: Mon Jan 10, 2005 11:00 pm
The advantage of starting cars from cold with single point LPG systems on petrol is that they start instantly.
The petrol injectors fire fuel straight into the cylinders as soon as the crankshaft turns past TDC for cylinders 1 and 6 for the first time, and the engine starts. If you try to start on LPG, the engine has to suck the gas mixture through a metre of so of inlet manifold and plenum chamber before it can think of starting.
Except in very cold weather, the system can be switched to gas from petrol immediately.
The petrol injectors fire fuel straight into the cylinders as soon as the crankshaft turns past TDC for cylinders 1 and 6 for the first time, and the engine starts. If you try to start on LPG, the engine has to suck the gas mixture through a metre of so of inlet manifold and plenum chamber before it can think of starting.
Except in very cold weather, the system can be switched to gas from petrol immediately.