Hello people,
I own a Panda Multijet 1.3 2006 model bought brand new. I now have 220000kms. The car runs fine in general with small issues concerning the EGR from time to time. I generally use it on weekends and out of the city at low speeds keeping the consumption low, averaging in the last couple of years just 3.6lt/100kms.
I would like to upgrade it a bit in environmental terms. Since I am an auto mechanic and I also install various LPG systems on petrol vehicles I found out that there are also LPG and CNG systems for diesel vehicles as well. I am not considering CNG because of the size of its tank but LPG can be done relatively easier and at a lower cost. Furthermore there are only 2 stations offering CNG in my city and plenty offering LPG.
Because my country (which should not be in the EU but rather more in the African union) doesn't allow lpg and Diesel blend yet so I will have to take the LPG tank out when the time for Inspection will come. No surprise as they didn't allow lpg on petrol cars before 2009 either....
We had bought a STAG Diesel system which among other things has a knock sensor and a Pyrometer along with the rest of the parts in the set. A lot of things to connect but it can be done. Unfortunately due to the legislation we weren't able to install it.
Anyway, enough with comments. I would like to know if anyone else here has done any conversion like this and what were the actual results. The most that I am afraid of, would be the life span of the clutch as it is very weak on the 2004+ Panda.

From what I remember on reading about Diesels running on LPG some time ago, the engine doesn't only run on LPG as some Diesel is required to be squirted in as well to aid the process of combustion for some reason that I can't remember. After this was announced the idea was shelved.

Hello again,
It has been a week since I took the car in the workshop but I had too much work from other cars that my time was very limited to work on it.
Still I did some things.
I changed the clutch since there was some slipping when the turbo was kicking in at 2500rpm. When I took the old one out it appeared that there was no wear on the disc but the surface was made "slippery" for a reason and due to the fact that the LPG will give it a little more power I changed it. I bought a LUK disc set.
I also replaced the thermostat as it remained a little bit open and the temperature was falling. It had never been changed since I bought the car 11years ago. I am glad I did because the plastic tubes broke at first touch.There was also a minor coolant leak because of that.

The difficult part is to mount the oxygen sensor and the Pyrometer. I will take the turbocharger-catalytic converter to a machinery workshop to get that done. I have marked the spots for the holes.

So far I have mounted the reducer, redirected 2 coolant hoses so that it can be heated and connected gas input and output. Also managed to find a spot for the knock sensor.
If all goes well I should have the car ready before the end of the week.
As the program claims, its aim is to get a 60-40 diesel LPG ratio by getting signals from its sensors. It can adjusted to go even lower but I am not sure about durability of the engine. In economic terms that blend would mean that at the very best it should use as low as 2.2l/100kms for diesel. So range would go up to 1500kms on one tank of diesel ,35lt.

goggs said:

From what I remember on reading about Diesels running on LPG some time ago, the engine doesn't only run on LPG as some Diesel is required to be squirted in as well to aid the process of combustion for some reason that I can't remember. After this was announced the idea was shelved.

Click to expand...

Diesels have no spark so cannot run on LPG only.

Enough diesel fuel is needed to fire charge but too much LPG will cause preignition due to the high compression ratio. Large %age of LPG even with knock sensor is not possible.

This suggests LPG is not worth the bother on diesels

http://www.go-lpg.co.uk/diesel.html

Have you considered biodiesel or a 20% vegetable oil mix?

I checked the link provided and is outdated, summer 2008?
Things have moved way longer than that. By the way, check out this guy and see for yourself.

Diesel AlfaRomeo 156 works on Diesel or 100% CNG or 100% LPG without reducing the compression ratio. Amazing Guy.

Biodiesel is not an option here and I don't know how safe it is for the HP pump and the injectors. Furthermore there is no way that the smoke will be gone or the response will be any better with biodiesel.

This system is LPG blend, not plain LPG. I plan for 60diesel and 40LPG. The ecu(STAG DIESEL MY 2016) will decide what to do and how, in order to achieve that. As I wrote earlier, there is a knock sensor, an oxygen sensor and an exhaust gas temperature sensor so that the engine remains safe from harm. The system also emulates the signal for the diesel pressure sensor so that less diesel is used.

If you own a van or a truck and do a lot of kms it is a choice. 25% less money for fuel. The Polish have done a lot of things towards that direction. There are a lot of videos from polish manufacturers on YOUTUBE about trucks, tractors, vans and some cars, including a FIAT 500 multijet 95hp.

STAG is a major LPG-CNG manufacturer.
Anyway. I spent half the day today to install the injectors, the ECU and the tank at the back. It is a difficult car because there is no space.
All that remains now is to connect everything and place the button on the dashboard.

My aim is to test it and enjoy the benefits. It will have better response, lower smoke levels, cleaner engine and EGR valve, range of 1500kms on one tank of diesel (35lt) and it will be slightly less expensive to run (0.60 to 0.70 euro less for 100kms) .

I made the thread to ask if anyone has installed something similar on a car and what were the results.

The video is talking about 100% methane CNG (Compressed Natural Gas). In UK, that needs a CORGI (or whatever the acronym is) registered mechanic to fit the parts and service the engine. By the sounds of it, Italy is much the same. He has also fitted spark plugs and a throttle body exactly as discussed in post 4. CNG can work at high compression ratios so presumably he's not lowered the compression ratio.

At 60% diesel and 40% LPG you are saving money on less than 1/2 of your fuel. If the lPG is 50% the cost of diesel you are saving 20% on fuel costs. But LPG has a lot less energy per litre than diesel so it will be down on power. It's likely the engine will use more diesel (and less LPG) when accelerating and you'll struggle to average at 40% LPG.

LPG should make it run cleaner but sadly VOSA don't recognise LPG converted cars of any flavour for emissions charging areas.

You can now get liquid gas injection systems that do away with the evaporator and use the LPG heat of evaporation to help with intake charge cooling. But noting is said about diesels.
http://www.lpgshop.co.uk/4cyl-vialle-lsi-liquid-injection-kit/

The Vialle kit is from Holland but I can't find any user reviews. They do say on their own website that there are "repaired" pumps on the market. Does that mean their own pumps are very costly/unreliable. Who knows.

Obviously that's all academic for the diesel conversion.

Hello again,

The vialle systems were introduced to our shop as an lpg system for direct injection VW engines. Replacing petrol with LPG in the same injectors and HP pump. The cost of it was near 3000euros so a lot of people were discouraged to install it. I don't know about their doings in the diesel sector but their prices are away from the competition.

As far as the Italian guy, I think he is amazing. He is an inspiration. I will try to find a small diesel engine ie from a generator and try to install a coil and a spark plug to convert it to CNG. But all in their time.

Back to the subject.
Today the turbo-catalytic converter were put back on the car. It now has the sensors required by the system. If all goes well the car will be ready for the weekend. I should post photos of it to show what I did.

The Polish people have put their vehicles on the DYNO and proved that a significant increase in horsepower occurs when lpg is introduced in the diesel engine. Their Diesel Lpg systems are suitable for proffesional vehicles with a lot of kms every month. Otherwise the gain from the cost of fuel will not cover the cost installation in a reasonable time.

For me personally, I don't plan to sell my little Panda unless electric vehicles with 500+kms range are available. So, upgrading it to the best I can is an option. But it will be more like an experiment to unlock a business opportunity for the future. I cannot sell a product unless I have tried and prove its worthiness.

Hello people,
I have finally done it.
I am sure it is the only one in my country and it might be the only one in several other countries as well...
As for the results... well the range can go up to 1400kms from 900km in one diesel tank. I did the programming towards economy so I haven't put more power in it, as the clutch cannot handle it. I have cut the diesel portion up to 49% in low and middle loads and kept it up to 80% in higher to reduce the risk of knocking. The rpm range with dual fuel is up to 3200rpm.
It took me some time to get it done but, at least, there is no knocking even on intense loads and it sounds just like when it runs on diesel. The oxygen sensor reading is almost the same as when on plain diesel in most of the map and the pyrometer will not show more than 300degrees celcius. So far so good then.
Today was the last calibration. I have reduced the lpg portion in areas that was not needed and after my last fill up today I did almost 200kms with the fuel needle remaining still at full as well as the Lpg.
The results so far with not that good calibration were 2.4lt/100km diesel with 2.3lt/100km LPG and 2.5lt/100km diesel with 2.4lt/100km LPG.
Hope the last calibration will improve those results.

As I have mentioned before it is an experiment. In no way would an owner convert his small car to that to make a profit. The cost would be too high. I had the equipment sitting there and I decided to install it. I hope some day there will be kits to convert to CNG with spark plugs and throttle butterfly for DIESEL engines. They will be far more efficient taking advantage of the very high octane number of CNG. But until then...

Hello people,

It has been a lot of kms with my conversion and these are the final results as it took a lot of experimenting and fill ups to complete the maps for gas portion and for Diesel reduction percentage needed in the gas Blend controller. Of course there was no compromise in performance over fuel economy.

The final results are 2.4L/100kms for Diesel and 2.2L/100kms for LPG. In imperial MPG that would be 117MPG (imp) for Diesel and 128.4MPG for LPG. The car originally was at 3.8 to 4.0L/100kms or 70to 74MPG (imp) for the same season the tests were conducted.
The car runs fine with a little bit better response than in plain Diesel mode. Actual range tested went up to 1400kms or 870miles with one tank of diesel. But the most important improvement was that the smoke vanished. No smoke and no EGR problems.
I plan to keep the car till the engine blows up and then replace it with a decent range electric vehicle. So the cost for running it with Greek fuel prices is at 4.7euros for 100kms which so far is less than any other car for this class, year and technology.