My car was fitted with a top of the range Prins system soon after buying it in 2010. It was also fitted with a Valvecare lubricating system. I rang the same installer recently to order 2 bottles of Valvecare fluid. He told me he was out of stock and also informed me that he now fitted JLM lubrication systems with his Prins installations - "cheaper and just as effective". He suggested I buy a substitute bottle of JLM or Flashlube , punch a hole in the top of the existing fitted bottle of Valvecare , refill and tape the punched hole . The named substitute lubricating fluids are certainly much cheaper - but are they as good and as effective? Is his suggestion practical or would I be better served sticking with the Valvecare fluid?

Prins make different kinds of valvelube system, one type involves lube entering the engine via LPG injectors, if you have this sort of system the best advice would be to remove the Prins lube system before lube going through injectors ruins your very expensive Keihin injectors (which Prins don't make). Or you could follow the advice already received.. none of us really know for sure which lube fluid is the best because none of us will have run two identically set up vehicles over identical mileages and then removed the cylinder heads to compare valve wear. Tip, though... all lube fluid seems to be based on parafin!

Who says Prins is top of the range? I'll be the judge of that!
Arguably (not so very arguably these days), Prins made it's good reputation on the back of those Keihin injectors when, back in the day, they were undeniably the best injectors available. But again, Prins don't make those injectors. Prins reducers are not bad but the Prins VSI1 ECU is one of the lowest spec LPG ECUs ever designed, Lima is a system which uses the Prins ECU and Prins reducer, everything Prins except for the injectors (which are not Keihin). You probably haven't heard of Lima, because it was never seen as a good system.. It used quite decent injectors but these injectors were still not good enough to make up for the severe shortfalls of the Prins ECUs. Any system that came with Keihin injectors back in the day when most LPG injectors were quite poor in terms of performance and spec, would most likely today enjoy the reputation that Prins still enjoys (among those that dream of the past rather than this decade). But these days, injectors have come on a long way and now there is a wide range of extremely good injectors available.. which are usually fitted with ECUs that make Prins ECUs look dinosaur and reducers that are equally as good as or better than Prins reducers. In 2010 loads of good quality LPG kit was available - you will have paid over the odds for Prins when a different system could have been equally as good but a lot cheaper.

Some of the Prins dealers / importer even, make me laugh. VSI2 is a relatively new system. To hear some of the dealers/importer talk VSI2 has some outstanding new features such as ability to switch individual engine cylinders back to petrol while the rest of the engine runs on LPG... The same type of basic functionality that almost every other LPG ECU has featured for the best part of a decade.

The problem with Keihin injectors in application on many modern day vehicles is that they are so darned big. Some people may equate physical size to mechanical abilities but this wouldn't address the crux of the issues in terms of LPG conversion. A good LPG conversion, in part, depends on lengths of pipe between injectors and manifold being short but when you have big LPG injectors you cannot usually mount them in a position where this length of pipe can be as short as it would be if physically smaller injectors were fitted. Big injectors were fine back in the day, when simple designs of engine inlet manifold were the norm, but on today's engines manifold designs they can be a severe handicap. Now, suppose you could have an injector that performed just as well as Keihin but were a lot smaller. And suppose you fitted those smaller injectors with a much more advanced and capable ECU, and a reducer at least equally as good as a Prins reducer... Now you would have a system that was always more capable than Prins, much more capable on some engines, and it would cost less than Prins, and it would most likely be fitted by an installer who is a proper installer rather than a guy who works at a long established garage that is more adapt to fitting clutches than converting vehicles to LPG.

Dunno what the same guy would tell you soon, which is when stocks of JLM lube systems and fluid will apparently dry up... I like the JLM systems but recently had to buy a different brand and 'dry up' was the word from the supplier.

Now the bad news, despite claims of 'top of the range', vehicles that are at all at risk of VSR tend to be even more at risk of actually suffering VSR when they are converted using Prins equipment.

Simon

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Servicing / Diagnostics / Repairs to all systems / DIY conversion kits supplied with thorough tech support
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Hi Simon. I certainly wouldn't say Prins are the best - it has caused me no end of problems mostly to do with ECU shut off - always on the continent funnily enough. And what makes it intolerable is that the back up abroad is appalling .And yes I did pay over the odds. My first LPG conversion was a basic Landi Renzo on a Corsa . It has been great- still going strong 80k miles later. I certainly would avoid Prins next time around.

Re my valvecare system I haven't a clue as to what I have - all I know is that I get a 500 ml bottle of fluid and plunge it upside down onto a sharp pointed rod in the engine bay lol.

Heh, sorry mate my interpretation was that you reckoned it was a top of the range system... I now realise that what you meant was that an (maybe some) installer(s) advised you that it was the top of the range system. There are still a lot of numpty installers around that cling to the same viewpoint, don't have a clue how to rate any aspect of any LPG system but (in many ways) still blindly advise people such systems are 'top of the range', because that's what they were considered 14 years ago. Such installers should go back to fitting clutches, because they generally started out doing just that, haven't learned much since, are generally about as knowledgeable and skilled as my posterior when it comes to any aspect of fuel injection, especially LPG but to much lesser an extent even petrol, they charge too much and don't deliver. This situation is inadvertently endorsed by Prins' policy of only allowing 'established' garages to become their dealers - 'Established' garages are more likely to be general mechanics who fit clutches than tech wizard fuel injection specialists that are used to thinking outside the box. The better LPG installers will all fall into the latter category. I tire of installers of certain systems such as the Prins system telling customers they fit the best and are the best installers, when really I know they don't know what they are talking about and couldn't hold a candle. They are a one or two horse race, are completely oblivious to the capabilities of all the other horses and are many years out of date in their thinking and attitudes. But they are a dying breed.

I am happy they are still around, in a way, because they make me look good and I would much rather sort their mistakes in fitting injection equipment than I would fit tanks onto vehicles etc as part of what I (we all) must do when converting a vehicle. So, thanks to the dodgy installers, I get to do easier work and am made to look better

I was surprised Prins VSI2 took so long to be introduced following VSI1, and I was surprised at it's already nearly a decade out of date capabilities when it was introduced. Even today, the Prins system still relies on Keihin injectors and would be a very poor system without them. We could all fit Keihin injectors on any LPG system, and most combinations of parts would make for a better system than the Prins system, but it would be silly to spend so much on Keihin injectors these days because many injectors are on par with Keihin but are a fraction of the cost.

Yes those Prins valvecare setups are an unusual design even in the best cases... Let's say we need a container in the engine bay to hold lube fluid with a pipe coming from that container and eventually feeding into the engine, at the point of the container no pressurisation is necessary... Do we, A, design a system with an upright bottle that we can simply top up as required and which does not need to address any type of sealing at the bottom because the bottom is just the bottom of a bottle. Or do we, B, design a system where there is no vehicle affixed container, we design a fitting which is a hollow tube with a spike in the middle, the spike pierces a specially designed disposable bottle which hopefully seals against our specially designed lube system bottle which sits upside down on top and hopefully the seal between the bottle and spiky bit seals or else the consumer ends up losing all the fluid... It might depend on whether common sense or the will to limit consumers to your own product wins out. Imagine a wine bottle with the top sealed and hole in the wide bit at the bottom, you mount the wine bottle upside down onto a special contraption in your fridge, once the wine bottle is open it cannot be sealed again, cannot be topped up, makes about as much sense as that. Desperados in attempt to sell lube fluid, which is in essence parafin, simple as.

If you post a pic or two of your install - showing where the pipe from the valvecare bottle joins onto something other than the valvecare bottle and valvecare pump, I'll be able to advise what type of valvecare system you have.

Simon

_________________
Full time LPG installer
Servicing / Diagnostics / Repairs to all systems / DIY conversion kits supplied with thorough tech support
Mid Yorkshire
2 miles A1, 8 miles M62,
http://www.Lpgc.co.uk
Twitter https://twitter.com/AutogasSimon
07816237240

thanks Simon. Will do this tomorrow. Spoke to 2 installers today ( both only do Prins systems). Neither fit Valvecare systems any more - 3 reasons being expensive + rip off price of top up bottles+common complaints from customers re pump leakage. One sang the praises of a replacement German system which he sourced from BRC (but not made by BRC) but he says he cannot get them anymore ( according to him BRC have gone bust very recently - is that true?)

Both installers were very coy re the idea of punching out a 10ml hole in the top of the existing fitted bottle and filling with a substitute.- understandably I suppose being dyed in the wool Prins installers .Neither spoke favourably about the actual Flashlube system but both agreed that it wouldn't make any difference re whether Flashlube, JLM or Valvecare fluid was in the existing fitted bottle. - they would all do the job required and the ECU wouldn't recognise the difference.

Just for info, not sure about the other fluids but I can categorically confirm that Flashlube is not parrafin based.
BRC GB (the uk importer) were recently liquidated but we are now taking care of BRC distribution in th UK.

if you can state flashlube is not paraffin base what is the main constituent (ie what is the base product) ?

I guessed Tinleytech would take over Brc distribution, that's good. Can you set me up with a license file for the new software please?

Simon

_________________
Full time LPG installer
Servicing / Diagnostics / Repairs to all systems / DIY conversion kits supplied with thorough tech support
Mid Yorkshire
2 miles A1, 8 miles M62,
http://www.Lpgc.co.uk
Twitter https://twitter.com/AutogasSimon
07816237240

Snake oil mate lol

_________________
Full time LPG installer
Servicing / Diagnostics / Repairs to all systems / DIY conversion kits supplied with thorough tech support
Mid Yorkshire
2 miles A1, 8 miles M62,
http://www.Lpgc.co.uk
Twitter https://twitter.com/AutogasSimon
07816237240

My point was tinley can definitely state flashlube is not paraffin base BUT cannot state what the base is
Ie could well be paraffin for all tinley knows

All marketing bollox

It is a synthetic oil with apropriate additives to prevent VSR.

from msds sheet

2-Ethylhexanol <10 %
Kerosene <10 %
Oxirane, 2-ethyl-, homopolymer, 3-aminopropyl C11-14-isoalkyl ethers,
C13-rich
<5 %
Potassium 1,2-bis(2-ethylhexyloxycarbonyl) ethanesulphonate <10 %
Ingredients determined to be non-hazardous Balance

just need to know what the non hazard balance is now that is about 65% of the make up