Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 23:14:05 -0800
Reply-To: David Marshall <vanagon@VOLKSWAGEN.ORG>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <Vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: David Marshall <vanagon@VOLKSWAGEN.ORG>
Subject: Re: Natural Gas Conversion Kit
In-Reply-To: <199804010331.WAA29337@microwave.ai.cs.yale.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At 22:31 3/31/98 -0500, you wrote:
>I would appreciate if you would do a little writeup on the natural gas
>system before you sell it. I think it would be a valuable part of our
>vanagon archives or on a WWW page.
The way the kit operates is very simple... too simple. When switched over
to NG the gasoline fuel pump is shut off and the NG regulator introduces NG
just before the air meter. The mixture of air and NG is then sucked into
the cylinders and voila!
>Since you have a doka I assume you're in Canada. Here in the US various
>government agencies talk a lot about natural gas and lpg as alternatives
>to gas/diesel, but do little in practice. I'd be interested in a
>natural gas conversion, except that the closest filling station would be
>7-8h away (in Wash DC). I understand you can get some kind of home
>filling kit, but that it is both expensive and very slow.
I live in Quesnel British Columbia (Canada). There is one filling station
in my town of 25,000. The next is 125km to the North and South. See
http://www.bcgas.com for the locations in BC. There is a home kit that
cost about $1000 and it takes about 8 hours to fill up the tanks. At a NG
filling station it takes about 4 to 5 minutes with a final PSI of about 3800.
>I'd be curious to know:
>
>Where were the tanks? (In the under bed storage lockers on the doka?)
>Would they fit in any natural location on a "transporter" vanagon?
The tanks take up the whole storage locker beneath the bed. I think they
would be a little too fat to fit under a Vanagon but slimmer tanks can be
found.
>What are the tank dimemsions and weight?
Each tank is 50L and I have no idea how much they weigh as they are still
in my tank. I would estimate they are about 40 cm in diameter and 1.5m long.
>How does the fuel system work? Is the nat-gas and petrol systems
>separate, or does the nat-gas stuff use the same ECU or tie in to the
>other components?
The NG is controlled by the Digifant system. As far as the Digifant system
is concerned it thinks it is burning a lower octane gasoline.
>If you have any pic's of the setup I'd love to see them on a WWW
>page. If you need space I'd be happy to host them.
I own my own web server http://www.volkswagen.org I will post what pics I
can at a later date!
>FYI: For diesel nuts like me there is a technology called "fumigation",
>in which a CI diesel engine is run partially on a gasenous fuel and
>partially on diesel. This can be done to a standard diesel engine with
>minimal modifications if fumigation rates are below 10-15 percent on an
>energy equivalency basis. The purpose is to make the combustion process
>more complete and clean up the exhaust. Power also increases somewhat.
>The power increase is mostly from the added extra fuel, but also
>from higher efficiency.
>
>At higher rates 70-95% the diesel injection is basically only used to
>start combustion. These rates require heavily modified engines.
>
>Happy VW-ing,
>martin
>--
>Martin Jagersand email: jag@cs.yale.edu
>Computer Science Department jag@cs.rochester.edu
>Yale University
>
> Slow down and visit the VW diesel Westy page:
> WWW: http://www.cs.rochester.edu/u/jag/vw
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
-- David Marshall Email: david@volkswagen.org --
-- 78 1.8L VW Rabbit, 80 2.0L VW Caddy, 87 Audi 5KQ --
-- 85 VW Cabrio, 88 VW Syncro Double Cab Transporter --
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