LPG Discussion Forum

Hello,


Thought I'd start a thread for converting an X308 with the AJ27S 4.0 supercharged engine.


Initial enquiries are all here:

http://www.lpgforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=11131

With a question on the filler location here:

http://www.lpgforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=11170


I'll keep all future details in this thread.

Q1:

Where can I buy a tank valve with an outlet for 8 mm diameter pipe?


I'm using a Stako multi-hole tank. Type: F72009514L

http://www.stako.pl/index.php?id=produc ... 4L&lang=en

It's a 2007 model (ex RPi P38 Range Rover conversion) that I've picked up used. The solenoid valve says "Class E3" and "071307 06/02" on it, and takes a 6 mm OD pipe with a female nut and a female flare on it. The bore of the solenoid valve outlet is 4 mm. The threads are 7/16" UNF and the nut is 14 mm across flats. Like these:

http://translate.google.com/translate?c ... pair=pl|en


The two vapourisers/reducers take 8 mm pipe, and I was planning on plumbing the system with 8 mm pipe throughout.

It looks like I need a larger solenoid valve to use 8 mm pipe directly. (one with 1/2" UNF threads and 17 mm across flats nuts)

Assuming that this is the case, are these solenoid valves "standard" across tanks? Where can I source one designed to take 8 mm diameter pipe for this tank please?


Failing this, does anybody successfully run one of these vehicles (or similar 4.2 supercharged/5.0 supercharged Jaguar/Range Rover) off a 6 mm pipe? I could fit a short length of 6 mm followed by an adapter to connect to the 8 mm main feed.


Thanks

You can get an adaptor at the mulivalve to step out to 8mm. Its what most of us use with the bigger engines anyway. The bigger valtek filter solenoids come in at 8mm. Obviosly you want to keep the obstruction as close to the valve outlet as possible for flow rate. Going out a foot at 6mm and then stepping up to 8mm will cause you hassle with flow rates i would say.
I ran a bentley turbo r on 6mm once. This was way back when i didnt know any better. But it did seem to work ok. I only had 1 bar reducers to play with at the time. I ended up using 4 with two ecu's and 16 injectors. But it ran well and delivered the gas albeit with at least half a bar of pressure drop on boost, the reducers had no adjustment unless you dropped a washer in the body ! However this was way back. First generation injection stuff. Maybe 13 or so years ago.
Praise be, the reducers are stable, the ecu's are far easier to use. They where more like a standalone, tune it on the lambdas with emulators to turn off the petrol kind of scetch.

Thanks Tubbs.


It's not a multivalve - it's a multi hole tank. Here's the offending solenoid valve:
http://gallery.cosic.org.uk/upload/2012 ... db00a3.jpg

It has a valve by these guys:
http://www.medautomotive.it/fr/alt_fuel_comp/index.php

You reckon a converter straight off the end of that is the way to do it? Who sells them? I'd need to go from that male fitting to something that'll take an 8 mm pipe.


Something like this would also solve the problem:
http://www.valtek.it/Prodotti/Elettrova ... 4-Gpl.aspx

Give tinley tech a ring. They stock all kinds of weird and wonderful fittings. But just a straight 6-8mm faro fitting to poly pipe will suffice im sure. But if you are getting into flared end biznizz im not entirely sure if its possible to flare the end. Ive never tried !

Q2:

What do you do with the Jaguar X308 cooling circuit?


The X308 has a 4-port water valve for the heater matrix AND an auxiliary electric water pump. The pump is there because at low engine speeds there's not enough circulation from the water pump to drive the heater. (low engine speeds is most of the time on public roads) The pump is on the heater side of the water valve and runs unless the coolant temperature is low or the climate control panel is off.

The vapouriser/reducer wants hot water all the time. The only way I can see to do this is to plumb it on the engine side of the water valve, move the water pump to the engine side of the water valve, and wire the water pump to an on-with-engine-running feed. Is this what the pros do with the X308s?

You could probably skip the re-wiring, as the chances of the climate control panel being off off are pretty low and the pump isn't much use if it is only circulating cold coolant.

Is there adequate flow at low engine speeds for the vapourisers/reducers without the pump relocation?

Suggested (or "don't do it this way...") hose routes?


Thanks!

Cheers Tubbs, will try them in the morning. Have just discovered their "other" section and it looks like something there will work:

http://www.tinleytech.co.uk/acatalog/Pipes_and.html

(perhaps just a new flare nut, flare the 8mm copper pipe, and away!)

I'm plumbing in copper rather than plastic. Harder to form, but stays formed once it is done. Clearances on this car are tight and even as standard everything rubs on everything...



Q3: Where have people successfully fitted the injection nozzles? Did you use straight or directional nozzles?


Here's an X308 intake, courtesy of adam699 over at jaguarforums.com

Lower manifold. Small short stubby part that houses OE injectors and bolts up to the head:


Upper manifold. Contains the air-water chargecoolers:


The supercharger fills the valley between the two, though there is space underneath it:


There's a small gap between the chargecoolers and the cam covers:





The OE fuel injectors/rail pretty much bock access to the "outboard" side of the lower manifold.

You can get to the inboard side ok (after removing all the supercharger gubbins) but I'm not sure how much room there is for LPG bits in that "valley" or how advisable from a heat/servicing standpoint it'd be to mount injectors there.

You could drill the inboard side of the lower manifold, then loop the injection hoses through the "legs" of the upper manifold, out between the chargecooler box/camcover (just) then to some injectors mounted to the sides of the charge coolers.

You could also just drill the nozzles into the outboard side of the runners on the upper manifold. This is a shorter pipe run (no 180) but upstream of the OE injectors.

Where have folks drilled these? Did you aim for one valve only, or the centre of the port? Did you use directional nozzles?

Examples and counter-examples welcome.

Q4:

How do you mount/restrain vapour filters in the engine bay? They're 45 mm in diameter and I don't want them flapping about in the breeze.


Q5:

Venting of the LPG tank. The tank is a donut type and going into the boot. The spare wheel well, as standard, has half a dozen large vent holes at the "bottom" of it.



The filler is going to be "bulkhead mounted" to the spare wheel well. Imagine it sticking backwards horizontally where the towbar's swan-neck would be fitted in this image:



(protected by bumper and by the boot structure above it from rear impacts)

The outlet pipe is going to go through the front of the spare wheel well then along the chassis rail/under the car paralleling the OEM fuel lines.

Would it be legitimate to make the spare wheel well a "vented compartment" - seal it off from the rest of the boot - and not bother with any of the vapour hoses/snakes?

If not, any idea who sells 50/52 mm or 2 inch vent hose? Or reducers/bellows from that size down to the more usual 30 mm?



Q6:

What is this filler thread/connection please?



Better to use a JIC hose or just use 8 mm copper pipe?


Thanks!

God, so many questions.
Water i may be able to help with. If you really want some answers about lpg and your jag give niel mugglestone. N.mugglestone, antons gowt, boston, lincs. he is a real helpful bloke and knows his jags backwards.
Water, from engine pre heater block returned into the header tank via the radiator return pipe ?
The filler fitting is a JIC type. And you can get hoses in various lengths.
You could use straws, but if you just pass the pipes up from the manifold and mount the injectors up top. Dont stuff them down in the valley. You may want to get to them at some point for diagnosis etc.
Its best to keep all the gas stuff as accesabile as possible.
The vapour filters i generally use the black valtek canister type and make a bracket. They look similar to a mini diesel filter housing. But they are tapped at the top. Best of all, the heavy ends sit in the bottom.
http://www.tinleytech.co.uk/acatalog/Fi ... s.html#a63

markocosic wrote:How do you mount/restrain vapour filters in the engine bay?

P-clip? It's not that challenging

markocosic wrote:perhaps just a new flare nut, flare the 8mm copper pipe, and away!

Yup, it's that simple

markocosic wrote:Is there adequate flow at low engine speeds for the vapourisers/reducers without the pump relocation?

Not had a problem like that on n/a engines. At low loads the vaps aren't chillin' much. But doesn't the supercharger have an alternative coolant circuit that you can exploit?

markocosic wrote:Would it be legitimate to make the spare wheel well a "vented compartment" - seal it off from the rest of the boot - and not bother with any of the vapour hoses/snakes?

That's an interesting approach for XJ, should be just fine.
If you are having the job inspected later, you'll need to think of the inspector who will need access to your tank and valves.

To be more radical, hack out the complete well, fit a substantial sealed flat plate as new boot floor, and hang the tank from it exposed like a regular external installation. Done that for car with plastic wheel well. Need to think about structural implications.
But in your case you've to contend with the battery as well though.

For injector ideas
http://www.gaspoweruk.co.uk/v3/lpgconve ... y_002.html
but I wouldn't recommend mounting the gas injectors upside down like that

Appropriate goodies all on order; thanks!


I've gone with exhaust clamps to hold the filters on recommendation elsewhere (round filters already on order) they're not going anywhere with a pair of M8 holding them down and the clamps cost pennies. It was a daft question with an utterly obvious answer if you've done them before, but none of the "kits" include any provision for attaching things to the car and most of the installs you see online rely on luck and cable ties to hold the world together.

I assume that I mount these horizontally so that heavy residues collect inside rather than in pipework?


That was basically my plan with the floor rossko, but without any hacking. Drop the tank into the existing well. Add a frame that straddles the OE chassis legs and secures the tank (designed for under-hanging) using it's top mounts. Flat plate over the lot for a flat boot floor at OE height. I've ordered the outlets/vapour snakes/bulkhead fittings anyway though (only £15 or thereabouts) and will do whichever works out easier/neater. It'll get the frame anyhow though. (plenty of M8 rivnuts in the structural provided by the factory)


90 degree UK bayonet filler, 50 cm JIC hose. Should fill nicely! Going with the screw-on brass cap on a chain as I don't trust the plastic jobs to last 5 minutes.


Injectors I've had a play with cardboard mockups and they're tricky to fit the way I'd like them. (vertical, with a constant fall down towards the injection point)

Is it better practice to mount them closer to horizontal, with a constant fall down towards the injection point/shorter hoses, or closer to vertical but with their outputs below the injection point/longer hoses? Is completely inverted but vertical a bad plan? The shafts wouldn't be as susceptible to wear and heavy ends would tend to accumulate in the distribution rail then, no? How relevant is this horizontal/vertical thing for wear/heavy ends in practice?

Is outlet hose length favoured over orientation? I'll avoid placing them in the valley anyhow.

5 mm ID, 150 mm long = 3 cc volume. (about the same volume as one injection at tickover)


On the water side. Supercharger is the same cooling system. Chargecoolers are effectively a separate system, with a balancer pipe between the cold side of the main engine coolign system and the supercharger system just for expansion/contraction and filling.

Just to confirm, you say you've never had low flow issues with the N/A engine. I'm assuming that this is when tapping into the heater feed before heater valve/low engine speed boost pump - is this correct?

markocosic wrote:I assume that I mount these horizontally so that heavy residues collect inside rather than in pipework?

Assuming "inline" style filters, horizontal would seem to allow the best chance of acting as a trap.

markocosic wrote:Flat plate over the lot for a flat boot floor at OE height.

Aren't the electrics going to rather get in the way of that? It needs to be convincingly gas tight if you want it treated as a seperate box. No openings into adjacent boxes, etc.

markocosic wrote:How relevant is this horizontal/vertical thing for wear/heavy ends in practice?

Very, for conventional gas injectors. With your proposed Hanas, rather less so perhaps - up to you to find out in the long term!

markocosic wrote:Just to confirm, you say you've never had low flow issues with the N/A engine. I'm assuming that this is when tapping into the heater feed before heater valve/low engine speed boost pump - is this correct?

Yep.
But then there is no supercharger plumbing (and no doubt other differences).

Cheers rossko.

I'll drop the filters in horizontally, and the injectors in accordance with the Prins instructions for their Keihins. (not pointing uphill, but anything from vertical down to nearly horizontal is fine) HANA actually say that vertical or horizontal are fine, but not inverted/pointing uphill either.

Supercharged and naturally aspirated water systems are identical except for the balance/fill pipe on the lower rad hose. I'll tee off the engine coolant output before the heater valve/boost pump as you've done and keep an eye on the vapouriser temperatures. If there's a problem I think I'll add a second electric boost pump (cheap enough from used XJs and rarely give trouble being magnetic drive) just for the vaporisers, rather than trying to move the existing one upstream - it's quite a convoluted pipe run already!

Christmas! Everything survived the journey except the aerosol of leak detector. Don't pack aerosols inside 30 kg boxes full of hard things kids! All present except the "nozzles" in the base kit. (they supplied 6, not Luckily I ordered 8 anyway, not knowing that they came with the base kit.



That'll be a complete front-end kit then. I'll kit up the leftovers/add to them and sell on as Jaguar-specific kits once I know that it works/how much of each piece is needed.


New questions:



Mounting the vapourisers/reducers. I can either remote mount the filters, or mount them directly to the vapouriser and use them as a tight 90 degree bend. This is where I propose mounting them:





I can move the two relays in the image below to drop the front one forward and down:


I'm mounting them with the diaphragm along the plane of the vehicle. Bumps/accel/decel shouldn't influence it, but lateral g force might upset regulation. Beyond this, are there any restrictions on positioning? I think I'd like to run them with either the hoses up top, or one vapour hose pointing down:




Injectors are a pain in the backside - just too big to drop where you want them. The side-exit OMVL superlights or magicjet jobbies have an advantage here. Air intake trunking on the RHS, and the oil filler cap on the LHS, cause added fun. About the best I can do is mount them like this //\\ against the side of the chargecoolers/plenum, with equal length hoses to the nozzles on the intake runners (thanks for the 5 mm hose tip Simon@LPGC - genius). There'd then be unequal length runners from the injector inputs to the distribution rails, which I'd pass over the top of the air intake trunking and mount to the false bulkhead. Sacrifice pretty for short/even outlet pipes. The setup would look a little like this:



Yellow - electronic gadgets/wires. The two boxes shown are the ECU/Emulators and the MAP sensor.
Red - vapour hoses (12 mm) and filters (2 off)
Light blue - distribution rail and 6 mm hoses to the injectors
Pink - injectors go here
Orange - capourisers
Darker blue - filters (if remote mounted) and copper piping


Question: Single hose diameters

Is this going to work with "only" a single 12 mm diameter feed to each injector rail and the vapourisers commoned between themselves?

12 mm hose is 113 mm^2 (or 78 mm^2 if you count 10 mm dia restrictions at barbs) and 6 mm hose is 28 mm^2 (or 12.5 mm^2 if you count 4 mm dia restrictions at the injector barbs) Hose in >4x hose out, so should be ok?

I've mounted the MAP downstream of the filters, and tried to arrange the supplies to be of similar length. I'd prefer the "pressure balance" pipe to be after the filters - I can do this and retain the same layout by adding a "tee" to each line and crossover pipe, but it would add yet another restriction as the tees are smaller diameter. What kind of pressure drop is there across filters?

I could fit the MAP and temperature sensor to the crossover pipe to avoid the restriction of the MAP in one pipe only, but I'd be concerned about a no-flow condition. I could also fit it to the end of one injector rail.

There'll definitely be biased flow here. One vap supplies each bank, and the balance pipe is just that. Temperatures could vary across the vapourisers, which wouldn't be picked up by the MAP and the OEM ECU's fuel trims would have no chance.


I could also do things this way:



Using two M12x1 mm threaded 12 mm pipe barbs screwed into the end of the injector rail. The pipe runs end up different lengths, but you've got lots of area and there's always at least one full-diameter pipe (without the MAP in it) feeding the injector rail.

I'm leaning towards this plumbing. Better? Necessary? Am I shooting myself in the foot with regards response time? (more pipe = more volume = harder for the vapouriser to respond to rapid changes in MAP)

http://autogas-lpg.co.uk/-reducer-parts ... 10-48.html

^That's where you buy the extra MagicJet outputs by the way. (to get from "250 bhp" to "350 bhp" of gas on one MagicJet reducer.


It is also (just) possible to do this if I fit an intake from a naturally aspirated car (same, except for a noise-cancelling resonator tube):



More symmetrical, but the volume is near identical, it'd be a tighter fit, there'd be even more water hose, and more of the LPG pipework would be on show.

Can't really help with most of the questions, but vaporisers for injection systems are not orientation critical. Maybe that will open up more options for you?

you seem to be running too much 12mm gas hose unnecessarily
I would run from the outlet of each vapouriser to each gas injector rail. then from the outlet of each rail run a smaller bore LPG pipe to link them. put a T piece in this and take that to the pressure sensor. That will be more than adequate to balance the vaps. Also you can clamp one side off on each one when setting the pressures up on the vaps.
If you did want to put a larger bore balance in then I would put a T piece in each outlet of the Vap's and link between the two

I think the pressure sensor in this kit has large pipe stubs, so you cant insert it into a smallbore balance pipe; but worse, includes integral gas temp sensing so that it must go in the main flow, not a side branch.
Just insert in one feed post-filter, it'll be fine.
At idle, you can still balance vaps by clamping outlets or pulling solenoid plugs (balance pipe will flow enough for idle).

markocosic wrote:That's where you buy the extra MagicJet outputs by the way. (to get from "250 bhp" to "350 bhp" of gas on one MagicJet reducer.

errm, you don't have Magic reducer
http://autogas-lpg.co.uk/reductor/124-r ... -0094.html
you have KME Gold
http://autogas-lpg.co.uk/reductor/144-r ... -0055.html

Do away with your second gas outlet on the vaps to simplify your plumbing, they are only doing 200bhp each.

Map is inline on 12 mm barbs. Inbuilt temp. Can use an external temp sensor though.

Feed with single 12s is ok (more like 225hp naturally aspirated, as blower use some and rich ad sin mix for cooling), balance with small, map can be anywhere but temp wants main flow.

Yep, mine are Kme but remember looking for extra magicjet nozzles and not finding thread size at the time, thought I'd post for others.

Temp in one leg ok, hope for no significant diffetence between the two?

Day 1 - could be better!

Leave for the workshop at 06:00
Arrive an bacon sarnies at 10:30
Properly hosed down by 12:30
Brother's GF locks the only set of keys locked inside the car inside the ignition by 13:00...

Bonnet open though, so I tore into it whilst the GF went on an 8 hour roundtrip...

LPG - General

I've stripped the supercharger and intakes off the engine. Good couple of hours that job. Wasted a bunch of time trying to get nozzles into the "lower" intake manifold. Not enough room to get past the injector rail even if you try to plumb it in 6 mm dia copper pipe past those. Best way to work out the route - reassemble the intake, less the supercharger, upside-down on the bench. The nozzles will have to fit in the runners on the "plenum" side rather than the "lower" intake manifold. There's really only one place that they can go, and they need to exit towards the front of the engine.

Stag ECU mounts neatly behind the "false bulkhead" on the driver's side of the engine bay; convenient grommet for the ODB/USB/Switch feeds. Electronic flashlube bottle and ECU fit neatly in there too, just inboard of the bonnet catch. We'll cut a hole in that plastic panel and it'll fill like the brake reservoir.

"Valley" hoses on order pre-emptively. Not worth re-using given access time required. Heater hoses in the valley on these cars are 19 mm ID by the way, and have those bleedin' annoying quick-release clamps. (same as fuel hoses on fords, but huge size) Remove whilst you have the throttle body etc off...


LPG - Questions!

Nozzle stickout - the nozzles that you screw into the intake manifold runners. How far should they stick out into the flow? Some stickout = mixing of LPG with the intake air + a flow restriction. Less stickout = less mixing but less flow restriction? I've got a few different types of nozzle and can go from 2 mm to about 15 mm of stickout.

Cheers,

--
Marko

Day 2 - less major hangups

In the absence of knowing any better or finding anything written about it, I've gone with 5 mm stickout.

Vapourisers fanangled every which way, wouldn't run where I'd drawn them/tried them previously. Note to self: thinwall 8 mm copper LPG pipe is nothing like thickwall 3/16" kunifer brake line. Also note to self: LPG and coolant hoses are also stronger willed than you might imagine. 10x ID is a good minimum for bend radius on those.

Ended up moving the power steering reservoir forwards to the location where I had the second vapouriser drawn. Factory wouldn't do this as it would prevent you from dropping the brake pipes and ABS in all as one, but plenty of room for it. New low pressure PAS hose needed, as the heat for the exhaust manifold has turned the existing one into charcoal.

Both vapourisers now mounted in the shock tower area. Bolted to the shock tower with one OE bolt and two new ones on a bracket fabbed from some 40x40x2.5 mm box box and some 3 mm plate rather than the "hold it in place with the pipes and wires" approach. 165 mm apart works well with these; any closer and you can't tee the water pipes together readily. (I'm teeing both in parallel rather than running in series) Filters fit nicely above shock tower too, and the 2x 12 mm outlet pipes run forward along the wing towards the slam panel rather than over the engine or behind as I drew.

Injectors are going to be on the end of 280 or 300 mm (yet to decide) runs of 5 mm pipe, and mounted near the FRONT of the engine rather than on the sides of the chargecoolers. This works if you ditch the OE fuel rail wiring brackets, or at least the front end of them, and re-jig the harness onto your injector brackets. Both distribution rails bolt to the chassis legs below the injectors, so the "flexing" part of the setup is 8x 6 mm pipes, rather than 2x 12 mm pipes. 12 mm feed for the driver's side runs along slam panel.

Liquid feeds run backwards and across the bulkhead to the driver's side. Filters then on the shock tower. (I'm trying to keep all the high pressure stuff behind the crumple zone; don't much care about the low pressure side) These two tee into a single 8 mm line and that line will run down the driver's side, mimicking the fuel pipe run that's on the passenger side (the shell is symmetrical) that takes them near as dammit to the boot. No chance of doing this neatly on the passenger side, as you'd never feed that pipe due to all the OE pipes. Need to miss the steering column on the driver's side but that's about it.

Inside the boot, the "dint" has been made to allow the tank to fit width ways and it's awaiting strapping. I'm going to strap fore-aft to crossmembers, then against the passenger side chassis rail only laterally. (4 straps) Floor level with the 95 L tank is raised a little but not impossibly so. Slight issue with the Stako tank/tank box in that it is taller than the tank itself and the floor rests on this at the moment. A wooden batten across the tank mounts (it's got four mounts on the upper surface) will sort this.

Question - heat shielding

Some guidelines state >250 mm from exhaust, or heat shield. Fine in the engine bay (heat shield is use by the OEM) but at the boot end it passes closer than 250 mm to one of the tailpipes. over a 150 mm length, just before it enters the boot. What do you use/is considered acceptable as a heat shield? Is there a wrap-around solution?