Over the next two weeks. I will be doing 3 or 4 articles on Propane and our car here in Russia. I will get pictures together and as much information as I can remember about the interesting issues that I ran into with propane and reinstalling the system on our car. If you remember we bought our Volga with a dual fuel system. It had both benzine (gasoline) and propane. But due to some technical issues at the motor vehicle place. I ended up having to temporarily remove the propane. The propane was legal after all, it all had to do with a combination of the VIN number on the car and the nice gentleman who was our inspector, who decided to make our life interesting and fun…
Here is a link to that article for those of you who are new to Windows to Russia… (Running Propane (LPG) in our Volga Wagon!)
What is propane? Propane is a product of the refining natural gas and crude oil. Around 3% to 4% of a barrel of oil is produced as propane as a by product. Propane vaporizes at around -44 degrees F. or around -42 C. (That is the temperature that Celsius and Fahrenheit meet in the cold range.) Because it vaporizes at such a temperature, that causes it to mixes with air at ease. Gasoline is liquid at room temperature where as propane is a gas. Other words propane is naturally a vapor as it enters the engine and gasoline has to be atomized by the carburetor or injectors as it enters the engine. It is easier to drive your car on propane and no carburetor or fuel injection needed…
Propane is also an extremely clean fuel. The motor oil virtually never gets fouled which increases engine life. Another plus is propane is very high octane of between 100 and 110. This allows some serious advancing of timing and in my case allows me to gain back any slight power loss by using propane…
Another big factor for Sveta and I as we travel is that propane is available throughout the world. Russia has propane stations everywhere…
Propane: Will not go bad like gasoline will, Burns very clean is not harmful to soil or water, Requires low maintenance, Easy to install (carburetor versions), Very safe, Cheaper than gasoline, Rates at 100-110 octane, Automatically compensates for altitude, and Prolongs engine life. These are just some of the reasons to burn propane…
Now in the next week I will take some pictures of the components of my propane system and try to give some more information on what does what, on our Volga…
A surprise will be the propane tank. It is very interesting…
Windows to Russia!
Part 2 (http://windowstorussia.com/driving-on-propane-lpg-in-russia%E2%80%A6-part-2.html)
Part 3 (http://windowstorussia.com/driving-on-propane-lpg-in-russia-part-3.html)