Propane on a rotary?
 

Any one ever done this?

You all will hate me, but I don't care,

I have placed an 83 motor in a suzuki sj410, while it's a better motor, I would like the availability of near fuel injection for the ease of offroading. If anyone has done the propane thing and made it work near perfect, please let me know if there were any problems and if the parts were off the shelf, or if i have to create a mixer for the intake. or do I have to make a new intake? Thanks.

And if you don't have anything to comment on the thread, keep it to yourself, thanks again.

lol.

While I have not heard of anyone doing a Modification like this to these engines, I have heard that hydrogen on the other hand is actually not that complicated to get to work on rotary engines. Mazda actually has a few prototype RX-8's running on hydrogen already used for their company cars in Japan. So the research for that has already started and been done.

http://media.ford.com/mazda/article_...34&make_id=227

http://www.millville.org/Workshops_f.../hydrogen.html

http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgur...%3Den%26sa%3DN

Also this shows why a rotary engine is a very good platform for this type of fuel

yes the do it in Australia all the time... LPG powered vehicles.. there wasa 1st Gen over there that ran Natural Gas....

i fyou go to racing beat they have the Fast Fours videos... it is on one of them...

If you can find a junk fork lift with a Propane setup on it, you can look it over to see what you will need. We use inline six ford engines with Propane at work. Hardly no cold start up. One of my friends at work did a Propane kit on a late model Ford Ranger 4 cyl. He has his setup where he can switch back and forth between the two going down the road. He says there is a slight hesitation going from gasoline to LP. But no hesitation when he switches back. I really don't see why this couldn't be used on a Rotary engine, but I'm not a Mazda engineer:).

I have heard of propane powered rotaries, it has been a while though

FYI... when running on LP you have way less power. My old truck ran on gas and LP, when i was hauling stuff i hated the LP.

LP = low HP, lol

Wow, I thought there'd be at least one smart ass answer, but this is good. How about this, if you are an oxygen theif, please don't waste your time by telling me that 100-110 octane propane is less power, It's half the price, burns cleaner, reduces oil sludge, creates a cooler firing chamber and doesn't settle out like gas.

The measurements for the impco 450 mixer can be made to work with a 3/4" flange crossing over the bolt pattern, The mixer heating will be a bit of an issue, but I assume the oil cooler will put out enough heat to rectify and heat exchanger issues in the mixer.
What I am wondering is if the rotary housing could be damaged by the cooler firing temps, and the cooler plugs?
What is the internal compression on the gas jobby?
Do the apex seals hold much pressure back, or are they for the oil?

And if you think the propane is 20-30% less power, you're either dumb, or just wrong alot, how do you lose that much power when burning more suspended gas particles, at higher firing pressures, at lower temperatures? I am pretty sure if you have heard of low power propane jobs, then they were set up incorrectly.


Or you heard that from your cousin that married your sister, anyways, thanks for the "GOOD" replies. I will keep you updated as to the power gains or possible loss, and the issues associated with propane in a rotary.

I have a old 65 Chevy C-60 grain truck that's dual fuel. Has a single barrel carb carb sitting on what I think is a 327 cu. in. V8 The propane tank was empty when I bought the truck in 93, never have tried it out.

I see no reason why LPG/LNG wouldn't work on a rotary. I just have a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea of a single barrel carb on a small block V8, lol.

Hydrogen is the key. If they can blast a space shuttle into space with it...

None of this fuel cell electric car shit.

A Hydrogen combustion engine is the key, just so happens that engine is the rotary. Just needs more research and funding. Not only is it 100% clean, but it does not try to re-invent the wheel. With electric cars everybody would have to junk their old cars, or do a costly swap with an electric system. Why not use the cars we already have... change the fuel to burn clean, way less hassle, time and money saved.

I think this is a huge market for the rotary engine. Its a new chance to be finally accepted by the rest of the automotive world.

Now if Ferrari ever bought into the rotary engine, they would certainly focus on preformance. Think of where the rotary engine could end up with 1 billion dollars spent in research on it every year!!


-Ben

Electric cars are not junk, as you mentioned we have millions of cars that run on gasoline/diesel and that is the problem what to do with them all. And I have showed in the previous links of why hydrogen works so good with our engines. It was actually one of the first things that I looked up before buying this car too ... alternative fuels.

Also there is extra weight to be associated with the weight of the tanks mostly also as mentioned in one of the link its close to 300kg

The guy running it onteh 1st Gen in the vids from Australia didnt seem to have LOW power... he was running low 12's on a 13b turbo swap that was pretty much stock...

what I don't get is why they detuned their protypes so much - the Rx-8's were only pushing 100hp - there is no reason to bring the power down so much, its certianly not jsut because of the conversion.

There was a propane/LPG powered RX7 that rallied against me in Australia, there are many LPG powered rotaries on the roads, and LPG if uned for LPG alone will make much more power due to the 110 octane as stated, the reason many don"t is they are still able to run on gas, which is lower octane and the tune must be compromised to handle both fuels.

I had a 302 Ford Falcon XC GS ute in Australia that was LPG only via a carb built by a Dandenong, Victoria area specialist whose name escapes me right now, the truck had great power for a basically stock engine.

Mountains of info in this site

http://www.lpgaustralia.com.au/

People runs natural gas on rotaries here.

The downside is, if you run them lean, you wont notice, and the engine dies in a couple hundred miles

Apex seal groove expands, apex seals get eaten away and rotor housings get scraped like hell

Not a good deal

Okay.. so you come in here, ask a question with your first post, people actually try to contribute to your thread (and you were surprised) so you repay the kindness of this forum by hurling insults at one of our members. Good job Cpt. Dumbass.

It's one thing to disagree with someone or think that they're wrong, it's another to go off the handle and imply that he's an inbred.

If you do anything like that again, you're getting the banstick. Play nice.

Jon