car on mains gas - Ford Forums - Mustang Forum, Ford Trucks, Ford Focus and Ford Cars

DANGERXY · 09-22-2005, 19:48

howdy everyone.
read the other day about someone making a joke about running their car on mains gas, just backing up to the shed and filling her up.
now realyy, how hard would this be to acheive.
can you do it to a car that is already on gas. what is the difference between the two.
do you think that by filling up the tank with the mains gas something will go wrong. what does everyone think, hey if it could work how cheap would it be.

silicon · 09-22-2005, 20:05

Ford in Geelong (stamping and engine plants) run on natural gas. They have there own natural gascompressor and bascially everything fills up and runs on it. All of the Benders buslines have been converted years ago and I believe there is another company that has converted its fleet.
The main difference with the hardware is a different tank is required to suit Natural gas.

DANGERXY · 09-22-2005, 20:19

What About Engine Components Though.
Do These Wear Out Or Not Run On Natural Gas.
Will It Stuff The Engine If You Just Plug In A Natural Gas Tank

grey_esp · 09-22-2005, 20:44

I know that when you have a heater or Hot water system converted from LPG to Natural gas they have to change the jet size. Now not knowing alot about gas, I can assume that this would be becuase of the difference in pressure between the 2, perhaps this would also result in them burning at a different temperature.

Is natural gas a liquid as well?

TTNOS8 · 09-22-2005, 21:26

Natural gas is more mainly suited to diesels.

We have done many conversions, mainly to bus fleets, over the years.

There are very few refilling stations around melbourne for natural gas, but they are around.

It is a big job converting a diesel over, I'd imagine it would be more mucking around with a petrol.

But most are a percentage running gas, like 95%-5% diesel.

Comp ratio and cylinder temps I'd imagine are to different for a petrol engine.

DANGERXY · 09-22-2005, 21:40

Yes A Liquid If Under Pressure

DANGERXY · 09-22-2005, 21:41

Yeah Ok There Are No Refueling Stations Around But Whats To Stop You Fitting A Connection To You House Mains On The Dodge

madmelon · 09-22-2005, 21:49

Difference between natural Gas and LPG- Natural gas is methane (CH4), LPG is propane and/or butane (C3H8, C4H10).
MUCH less power with natural gas (less energy per mole of molecules) and ALOT more required per kilometre. (more than three times the amount).

You could convert to Natural Gas, but the car would be gutless as, even when set up properly- think as bad as the 15% power loss between petrol to LPG, maybe even worse.

DANGERXY · 09-22-2005, 21:57

NATURAL GAS consist primarily of methane Other compounds of natural gas include ethane, propane, and butane
LPG is made of propane or butane or a mixture of these gases

DANGERXY · 09-22-2005, 22:07

ok you post wasnt there when i wrote mine.
Natural gas is comprised of methane (approx. 85%-90%) and lesser amounts of ethane (5%-15%), carbon dioxide (2%), nitrogen (1%-2%) and propane (0.2%).
natural gas flammability range - air/gas volume ratio - varies between 5:1 and 15:1. For stoichiometric combustion the air to gas volume is 9.91:1.
not sure if this information will help but if anyone else interperetthese and compare these values to that of lpg and also what sort of combustion rate a LPG motor can operate on