LPG New Conversion in Bradford

[Japanesebob14]

In case anyone is considering having their rx350 converted, I had mine done back end of last year by a chap in Bradford  - Agis Autogas. His was the best price and thus far it has worked excellently, and he didn't make a mess of my engine bay, either. Very tidy job, glad I did it before the petrol price lunacy.

[Herbie]

1 hour ago, Japanesebob14 said:

In case anyone is considering having their rx350 converted, I had mine done back end of last year by a chap in Bradford  - Agis Autogas. His was the best price and thus far it has worked excellently, and he didn't make a mess of my engine bay, either. Very tidy job, glad I did it before the petrol price lunacy.

Post up a picture or two of the installation Matthew. It's always good to hear of a good installer and see their work. Glad it went all alright for you.

[b4u2]

The compromise of a LPG installation is part of your boot or car is taken up by the tank but the gain is obviously bigger than the loss and that is why people must be doing it.

[Barry14UK]

You could always add a roof box if lost space is a problem occasionally but better fuel return always there.  Having said that, one wonders how LPG is going to be impacted with World energy shortage. Demand could be stimulated by people converting and increased use domestically, particularly in 3rd World countries.

[Herbie]

Usually a toroidal tank is usually fitted in the spare wheel well.

It means you lose your spare but it's no great loss given that a lot of cars don't even have a spare these days. We had about 17 years of driving on LPG and always carried a can of Holts Tyreweld in case of small punctures and call out the breakdown service for bigger ones.

[m4rkw]

Isn't VSR a concern on these engines? Or is that just my 4-cylinder and not the V6s?

[m4rkw]

1MZ is on the list: http://amrautos.co.uk/database_problem_cars.pdf not sure which year range that is though it just says 2001+

[Herbie]

7 minutes ago, m4rkw said:

1MZ is on the list: http://amrautos.co.uk/database_problem_cars.pdf not sure which year range that is though it just says 2001+

Certainly never had any problems with mine.

Even though the rationale behind that list is a good one, it doesn't really mean much because it doesn't say how many cars have been affected. It could be 5,000 in which case it's a real problem or it could be 2, in which case it isn't.

[m4rkw]

It's also Prins and the way those kits are installed isn't great (calibration all done remotely etc) so really could be down to botched installations. This article is what put me off when I was researching this a couple of years ago: http://www.amrautos.co.uk/index.php/lpg-systems/26-valve-seat-recession-explained

but yeah as you say without knowing the incidence rate it's impossible to quantify.

[Russell Wheeler]

What was the cost of the conversion ? - I think autogas is 82p a litre round here

 

[Japanesebob14]

If memory serves it was £1300 give or take the price of a cup of tea and a loaf of bread. The tank is 70 litres underslung, and for the last few months Embassy Gas in Manchester was at 70p a litre - now 78p - but they provide 1950's style service where a chap comes out to fill it up for you. I think Morrisons is 72p at the moment.

[Japanesebob14]

And it is a Polish system  - LPG Tech

 

[Herbie]

19 hours ago, Japanesebob14 said:

And it is a Polish system  - LPG Tech

 

We'd still love to see some photos Matthew, both of the car in general and also the engine bay to see the LPG installation. It's always nice to see a good installer's work and then we can recommend them in the future 

[Goodplan53]

I converted my Gen2 to LPG and ran it for many years without problems.  It had a toroidal tank underneath so I had no spare.  Wasn’t permitted to take it through the Channel Tunnel for some perverse fire safety reason. 

It is worth remembering that you still use petrol to start and it switches over to LPG automatically when the engine warms up. Also don’t forget to top up the lubricant additive. 
 

[Japanesebob14]

The engine bay, with and without beauty covers, as Scotty Kilner calls them:

[Japanesebob14]

And the underslung tank...

[Herbie]

Very nice Matthew.

I never thought to take my rocker box cover off for the photos and the car has long since gone, but here's a couple of mine. This is an RX300 with 85-litre underslung tank with central fill point so that I could fill up from either side. 
1. FlashLube
2. Gas ECU
3. Reducer

 

[Haylands]

My new to me RX300 has been LPG's with a BRC kit, it has a valve lube bottle fitted, the previous owner, who had it converted, admitted that he only used one bottle of oil in it as it made it smoke a bit so he stopped using it... obviously not dialled in correctly when fitted, it is advised at 6-8 drops a minute for the vacuum type system.

So mine has run for nearly 70,000 miles with no lube and it has no evidence of VSR...

When I was fitting and servicing  systems some years ago we found a lot of units fitted by others were not set up correctly, it is easy to get an LPG system to run nice, just set it up to run lean...!!! The car feels fine and does good MPG but the downside is it runs hot and lots of things start to suffer, including the valve seats...

I think this is why there are a lot of engines on the "hit list" that shouldn't really be there, I can't see any reason why the 300 should be, as has been said earlier if 1 out of 1000 installs showed VSR for ANY reason then the engine gets put on the list...

So what you need is a well set up system with the correct size injectors (we saw lots of cars with the wrong size and even some with different sizes across the cylinders..!!!) that does not run lean.

I hooked up mine to diagnostics the other day, which was last serviced 10 years ago, and it is running  just about spot on.

On the issue of servicing, we did loads, mostly when they were not running well and it was almost always  a setup issue rather than failing parts or blocked filters.

If your system is running well, and not lean, then IMHO there is no need to service an LPG system, there are a few filters in the system but these last for donkeys years... And as for valve lube... the answer must be do whatever YOU are happy with, if you do use it then makes sure it is dialled in correctly and try to get 5-6 drops a minute which should not make it smoke...

[Japanesebob14]

That's a good bit of info - I have ordered some valve lube stuff, I'm in two minds about it but I appreciate the info about the rate of drops per minute - I had a sort of wheel of fortune type approach to it before.