A wild thought regarding "cheaper" fuel.

[thewelsho]

Here is a thought. The theory only just came to me, so I thought I'd throw it out there to see it its possible and practical.

Have an LPG conversion done to your Scoob, and then have the car mapped in the way that St3ph3n (and others for sure) has: one map for regular use which would use the LPG; one map for performance use which would use petrol. So then, under normal conditions the converted car can save a fortune in fuel, and, should power be required for track or fast road use, its there at the "flick of a swtich".

Is this possible, or should I just wait on the people with white coats?

[st3ph3n]

You could possibly do a map for regular petrol and a map for V-Power, but LPG is a different kettle of fossillised fish altogether John.

BUT! You can convert the car to run on LPG - I'm sure someone had done it before, but it's not just a mapping thing as it requires seperate tanks etc. etc.

[gus the bus]

Yellow van with square wheels for you me thinks john[]

However, I do believe it is possible[]

 but.............. better on normally aspirated fuel injection vehicles rather than turbo's from what i've heard/ read.

As Stephen says its not a mapping issue but a whole new set up with tank in the spare wheel well, additional "ugly" filler cap and feeder pipes etc.etc.. youd be looking @ £2k+ for the setup which would take a while to recoup unless your planning on keeping your car for a good 2 years+. 

Looked into it before when I had the Forester Turbo and decided it was a HUGE expense (outlay) for a long wait for your candy back. 

Gus

[chris_c201]

Certainly possible... not highly recommended on Turbo'd vehicles but still possible..

Only thing is around the mapping, my bro has it done on his BMW 320... it has a seperate ECU now and a switch on the dash to go between fuel / LPG...... not sure how this would work alongside the ECUTEK....

[iainc]

I have lpg on an old V8 Disco and it's the switchable type. From what I've heard there are people with scoob turbo's who've had it done (never seen/heard from any of them though). AFAIK lpg has a higher RON rating than petrol so in theory there shouldn't be a problem running the turbo on it.

Generally with lpg though you pick a map that's halfway between the optimal for either fuel type as they need different settings.

Another point is that (certainly with the older system on mine) you need to start on petrol when it's cold until the vaporiser is warm enough to atomise the fuel otherwise all that happens is that the car stalls.

This would be harder to do on a twin ECU car as you would need to either have some fancy swap over system or manually drive on one ECU until it was warm/hot and then swap over by switching off and starting up with the other ECU.

There would then be the extra weight in the additional fuel system (inc tanks) to consider, would be like driving about with a bootful of cr*p the whole time.

Also the mpg on lpg is less than it is on petrol, so if you get 22mpg on petrol you are likely to only get 18-20mpg on lpg and whatever size tank you have you will only ever get about 3/4 of a tankfull at any time (it doesn't fill to the top like the petrol tank), so if you have a 50l lpg tank you will get about 40l or so in it meaning about 180 miles out of your tankfull (assuming 20mpg).

On the disco it's worth it as it came fitted with it when I bought it and being the V8i it makes the scoob look like a TDi The biggest problem is finding lpg garages to fill it up in, although at half the price (or greater) of petrol if you can find plenty of local garages that sell it it might be worth it.

[thewelsho]

So it is possible. I knew of all the extra tanks, ECUs and piping, and also the running off of petrol from start until the LPG "thawed". I can't see how this wouldn't work by running the petrol side of things on a remap and using the LPG for regular driving. I suppose as Gus stated though, it would take two years to recoup the outlay for the conversion. I guess its possible but not practical.