LPG the 3 letter word you can't search for.

[Markiii]

One thing I hate about all forums is searching for 3 letter acronyms.

My previous Subaru had an LPG conversion and i was rather impressed. Such that I'm idly contemplating if its worth doing on the S8.

However sods law searching for LPG yields nada.

anyone offer any advice? point me in the direction of any useful discussion on converting the S8?

thanks in advance

[Conan_the_Librarian]

If I did the miles I would do this at the drop of a hat. Heres a link to my old S8.

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/showthread.php?t=55

I was running back and to from Edinburgh and Glasgo to Plymouth and saved the cost of installation in 10 months.

HtH

CtL

[Markiii]

Thanks Mike. Can you tell me more about your conversion?

[steamship]

I don't have a D2 S8 but do have a '01 3.7 which I got a LPG conversion done on it. It's laid out pretty much the same way as Mike's photos, including the big tank in the boot.

Cost me £1,500 and paid for itself in 11 months and around 10,000 miles. Running costs are roughly around 50%, but depends on the cost of LPG in your area. The government even manage to give you £10 off your road tax.

Performance wise, I've never noticed mine being down on power... maybe I'm not driving fast enough. Side story... in 2016 when a group of us were doing the Wild Atlantic Way, I was leading a group of three of us (there were two more cars and an unfortunate event with a mobile phone, but that's another story) when we had the opportunity to 'open the taps' on a stretch of road. The other two cars were a D2 S8 and a D3 S8, and the driver of the D2 admitted to having difficulty keeping up.

I'm currently running a 4.2 D3 and contemplating getting a conversion done on that as well.

[Conan_the_Librarian]

Mine was a Prinz system and would start from cold on petrol but within a couple of minutes would switch to LPG. If the LPG ran out it switched seamlessly back to petrol. It was very slightly down on power but then if needed, press the button and you back on petrol.
On one of my trips to Germany it automatically switched to petrol at 150MPH!
I had a 200 ltd tank in the boot which would fill to about 180ltrs. If I needed I could do Edinburgh to Plymouth without stopping. ��
As they were business miles I ran a spreadsheet for fuel and it worked out my enthusiastically driven S8 was getting the financial equivalent of 37MPG. Bargain!

[steamship]

Originally Posted by Conan_the_Librarian

Mine was a Prinz system and would start from cold on petrol but within a couple of minutes would switch to LPG. If the LPG ran out it switched seamlessly back to petrol. It was very slightly down on power but then if needed, press the button and you back on petrol.
On one of my trips to Germany it automatically switched to petrol at 150MPH!
I had a 200 ltd tank in the boot which would fill to about 180ltrs. If I needed I could do Edinburgh to Plymouth without stopping. ��
As they were business miles I ran a spreadsheet for fuel and it worked out my enthusiastically driven S8 was getting the financial equivalent of 37MPG. Bargain!

Yeah, mine operated the same way, though never got to a speed that it had to switch back to petrol

The tank I have is only 125 litres, and was under the impression at the time that it was the biggest they could fit in the space.

I like to use the 'financial equivalent' calculation, as you can shove it in the face of those that tell you that you're driving a gas guzzler... although strictly speaking, I suppose they are correct.

[Markiii]

thanks guys who did your conversions?

[Conan_the_Librarian]

Mine was a chap in Fareham, Hampshire. Cost nearly 3k at the time.

[steamship]

Mine was done by AGS in Craigavon, Northern Ireland, at a cost of £1,500. That was in 2013.

[Architex_mA8tey]

My D3 4.2 A8L was converted about 3 years ago at a cost of approx £850 at a company in the suburbs of Birmingham - its a hugely cheap area for buying LPG (averages about 50p /litre versus 68-70p / litre in the south and I think that the conversions are similarly cheap in that area! my tank is only something like 80 litres in the spare wheel well and i get about 260-280 miles from a fill, but still have petrol to fall back on too.

I've done something like 65,000 miles in 3 years an apart from renewing the odd lpg supply pipe or clip under the bonnet havent really had any issues with the system. the car starts mostly on petrol but always switches to LPG at about 70-75 degrees water temp upwards or if youve recently used the car then it starts fine on lpg.