Toyota Prius 2nd Gen. - converted to LPG hybrid

I read somewhere that a roof solar panel will get you for 3500 $ a couple free miles on a good day, and you dont need hho for that, wires right into the hv batery, there's better upgrades you cando for the money, a liitle more air in the tires will get you that.
if anything most energy waisted is out the tailpipe, and rad(not so much on the prius), if you can scavange some of that you're on to something, and there are some options that have been arround forever.
there were also some not so well known watter misters that showed results by leaning the mixture and using the water to reduce temps and use the steam for extra power, much simpler cheaper and it may work but I don't know about a prius.

 

oh no, no way $3,500 for the solar... If I find manufacturer of photovoltaic material elsewhere I may try to buy it and do a homemade diy conversion, but nothing close to that figure. If I can make in in $100 bracket then I will do it, if not then simply not.



I will use this app to monitor LPG and Petrol consumption from tomorrow on:

Spritverbrauch berechnen und Autokosten verwalten - Spritmonitor.de (it requires to register an account from the web) then the app (iOS or Android will sync the details via 3g/4g/5g or wi-fi)

my profile will be visible here: Details: Toyota - Prius - T4 - Spritmonitor.de

 

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As of this evening my Prius has been equipped with an alternative fuel supply system of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG).

- installation took full two days (with some overtime as I have collected car at 8pm today)
- vehicle converted at 186,869km

-Controller: STAG 300 Premium
-Tank: Toroidal tank 600mm x 200mm 42l (thus 32liters of the real life capacity), due to law requirements
-Multivalve: Tomasetto
-Reducer: AC R01 by AutoCentrum (STAG Distributor)
-Pressure Sensor: AC by AutoCentrum
-Injector rails: HANA 2000 black
-pipework: SEMPERIT

the length of the pipes between injectors and manifold intake: about 10cm's

1st service (computer adjustments to map) in 1,000km

1st service (installation service) in 10,000km

2 years unlimited mileage warranty & 1st service's free of charge
1 full tank of LPG free
1 spare wheel cover
1 adapter to re-fill LPG (as the filling cap is hidden inside the fuel cap)

You cannot notice the difference in performance of the Prius.

The only issue is the clicking sound of the multivalves, I can live with it.

Let's wait for the results in fuel economy etc.

 

.

 

looks good, glad to hear a 600 mm tank fits, the propane tanks are built to only be filled to 80 % not so much for regulations but safety, it needs to have some room for expansion in case of high temperatures so it does not blow up, the multivalve has a overfill valve built in, very clean instalation, can't even see where the reducer went nor the controller, one thing I can honestly tell you I don't like at all is the way the injectors were installed, rather ingenious I'll give the installer that, however they are upside down, absolute no no I'm told, lpg has some waxes/lube added to it in order to lubricate the fill pumps, the injectors are supposed to flow downward, and be located above the manifold nozles so that the waxes can flow downward into the intake and burn away, not sure how long it will take for them to get pluged up but they will be sooner than normal, they should have been at least at a slight angle downward, this is the absolute worst way to do it. keep in mind I don't have experience with it but thats what I read on several sources. also not sure how well would they do sandwiched between intake and motor, the prius does not get too hot but that is one of the hottest spots in the engine bay.
what happened with the valve lube kit? did you still get it.
if it's not too much trouble I'm curious to see where they put it as well as the controller, or what size nozle they used, I'm told this last one is very important but I have not yet found any sources regarding selecting the proper size, it's supposed to differ based on the injector selected as well as the engine size/hp mostly.

 

The time in which gas travel from injectors to intake matters to me, some people said: the closer the injector rail to intake the better, hanas are Korean injectors which apparently are one of the best.
and shouldn't be a problem to inject upwards with the lowest possible travel times as each pipe has only 10cm between the injector and the intake.
There is no noticeable decrease in torque moment, so the switch between fuels (petrol and lpg) is seamlessly perhaps that's due to the length of the pipes. The injector rail likes warm temperatures, hopefully there will be a nice spot, installer wrapped each pipe in the metal spring to avoid twisting of the pipes. The valve lube has been installed inside of the front bumper and they have cut (with my permission) the access to top-up the reservoir (which has been wired with led to the interior of the car, picture showing bottom of my dash. This is to inform me when I need to top up valve lube). You can see the hole in the front bumper and yellow cap. This is where valve lube has been installed. Apart from this there isn't much to notice.
Everything got rally hidden so I couldn't see where each element has been placed.
I will try to look again soon.

 

What you need to do is to SIGNIFICANTLY reduce the valve clearance check and adjustment intervals. Running on LPG is much more demanding for the valves and valve sockets (much higher burning temperature) and any minor problem with them will very fast become an expensive exercise.

The above applies to any engine that does not use the hydraulic valves drivers (however they are called in English). IMVHO Flashlube is just expensive piece of HW that was used to convience people that LPG is safe for their cars.

 

I see the valve lube refill bottle, pretty ingenious, and as for the hoses you are right the shorter the better, like I said pretty ingenious how they did it and I realy like the way they placed the nozzles, just the upsidedown injectors I'm not cool with but hey its not my car, either way you allready got 200k on the car, thay may do well enough to where thay may outlast the car, but if it starts acting up at some point in time I would suspect them first, it also depends on the quality of lpg and the filters weather they installed a liquid filter as well as a gas stage filter and if changed often may be ok. I'm curious as to how the valve lube makes it to the intake, I watched some presentations on flashlube site and it showed nozles just like the lpg ones, I did not see that on your pictures.

 

not sure if the prius has hydraulic valve lifters or not, I assume not, nor do I know if there is a valve clearence interval recomended for maintenance nor what the clearence should be thou my inderstanding is that the seats wear prematurely, adjusting it reduces the gap but it will keep wearing down, I run toyota forklifts for work they run only on lpg thou I'm sure they have different geometry/compression ratio and valveseats made of harder metal, I once rebuilt a mazda engine and the machine shop said the valves tested good after 200k miles, that was on petrol.
so I dont know guess it wouldnt hurt, I'm thinking the akinson is a better engine for lpg conversion beeing the lpg has a longer burn time, I did not get a chance to get valve lube yet, I have a lot of other things to figure out before I get to that, this is one reason why I like the lpi ideea, I would asume it keeps the intake cooler and also the charge air is denser but it's still iffy and not available to me so vapour it is

 

I strongly suggest to buy sound proof material (sticky one like for the engine bonnets) the multivalve and electro-valve (at the tank and at the engine bay) together In conjuction sounds like a broken piano with metal parts, this is like a resonance box. The only downfall of this install, however this isn't noticable at highway or country roads, it is only annoying at traffic with start / stop function.
I still don't know where is the controller the installer hide it from me.

please mention to your guy that you will also require mounting plates for each components and ask to supply these or otherwise you will need to have visit to hardware shop to get these. I may ask installer whether these comes in the box with other parts or if sold separately. Let me know if u want me to ask this question.

 

I ment to tell you about the anoing clicking, again ming you I'm no expert, but I did mention a few threads back that it is very important the choice of controller as well as how it is wired due to the nature of the start stop hybrid, the power supply for the controller wires a bit diferently in the prius, on most cars I think they wire it to the ignition supply, clicks on once when the engine starts, off when it stops, that's why you notice it most in traffic, on a prius needs to be wired to the ready relay or something like that so it does not click all the time the engine stops or starts, that is not right there, I don't think, also the system I got, reading to the manual it has a start stop function for hybrids, as well as bmw valvetronic and multiair for manifold with dedicated idle air path, I want to say stag should have such functions, quote from manual

"VALVETRONIK/START & STOP

These vehicles cut-off also on ignition."

those solenoids will burn up prematurely. I don't mean to make you feel bad about it, you are that much further than I, just saying I don't think it's right and there is should be a better way to go about it, just like the injectors. ask your installer about this, maybe he is not familiar with a hybrid, I don't think it would be too much trouble for him to move the power wire to a different source.

[SIZE=1][FONT=Verdana][SIZE=1][FONT=Verdana]I'm not too woried about mounting plates, and I am getting a totaly different system/ kit, so asking your installer about them would be worthless, one thing I am curious of is the size nozles he used, I believe stag has a nozle calculator in the software, I know it differs based on horsepower an injector type and mine are different, but it will give me a ballpark figure, my software does not have such, it mentiones everywhere that it is crucial to have properly calibrated nozles, but no istructions as to how to calculate proper size. my injectors should be RAIL IG1[/FONT][/SIZE][/FONT][/SIZE]

 

No, Prius doesn't have hydraulic lifters.

Around 100k miles/150kkm when running on petrol, usually done if the valvetrain cover is open for other work.
You'll find the correct clearance values if you google for it.

 

I will ask them when I will bring it of first service at 1,000km soon (as I have driven 300km so far).

I will also try to post the picture of the valve clearance from the sticker I have on my inner part of the bonnet.

Regarding the clicking, I don't know if this is anything to do with the choice of the controller, it is valve that makes the clicking. Would you have any idea how to soundproof the area in question?

 

in my setup once the engine reaches 30 degree Celsius then the system switches automatically to LPG, on a bad traffic situation is that once I press the accelerator I can nearly immediately hear the ''click'' coming from the valve and the car runs on LPG immediately, I question whether or not any petrol is burned.

I will ask about it.

Bear in mind to get the LPG tank as high as you can get, 600mm will fit (all you need to do is to slightly bend (or remove one bolt) from the outer casing of the HV battery cover (that is it really).

The more LPG you can get into the tank the better for your range 600mm by 270mm I think would be the biggest but try to find bigger if you can.

The biggest tank I found:

600mm x 300mm - capacily 67,5liters (less 20%, so 54liters of actual capacity)

Specs:Elpigaz - Wewnętrzne (W) 30° Hit
Shop:
ZGH600300W068M, szukaj | Comarch iSklep24



(interesting option)

another more popular types:

600mm x 270mm:

Zbiorniki LPG - Zbiorniki LPG,
Abart Autogaz Zbiorniki, toroidalne-wewnetrzne
LPG tank,LPG tanks, zbiornik LPG, zbiornik na gas, zbiorniki na gas


Another way of install:
montaż LPG w Priusie, pytania itp. - AUTOGAZ, STAG 200 300 KME SILVER GOLD SEC VALTEK MAGIC JET LPGTECH PROBLEMY BLAD SILNIKA

 

looking at Andrei's pictures that 580mm tank is a snug fit allready, unfortunately for me such a tank was not a good option, in short it would cost me more to run on propane than gas, its a region thing, gasoline is $3.5/gal, fill stations for such a tank few and far in between and aprox $3.35/gal, sonsidering the more fuel burnt per mile I would actualy pay more to run on propane, I stock propane at work in standard 33lbs tanks and I get it for $2.5 per galon same place that refills my tanks would refill one of these tanks for $2.9/galon times that by 1.3 to match gasoline comes up to $3.77/petrolequivalent, that is the cheapest in my area and the only one that is reasonable yet still more expensive than running on petrol, I have other motivations obviously, as it is I would only be saving a couple bucks a week, one of those calculators said it should pay off in 44 months, that's just the kit cost, not counting labour.
to agape, those other pics you posted its a bit better install, idealy straight downflow is recomended, Andrei's is done the same way one thing I noticed yours was better, at least all hoses are equal, I read that is very important also and in those new pics there are no 2 hoses the same size, sure it runs like that but it does not make it right, I like the way your installere reversed the #2 and #3 injector to achieve short equal distance hoses, just the upside down mount I'm not confortable doing, I think I will try a hybrid reverse the injectors like yours yet mount it above the manifold.
As for the clicking I dont think it is set up properly, Andrei should be able to tell you more as he has a verry similar setup, I believe there is a way to wire it so that the valve open when the car is put in ready, and closes when it is turned off, not with every engine start and stop, there should be 3 valves the main cutoff, for the liquid stage I believe is what you hear, the regulator/vaporiser from that I read has a couple shut off too, one liquid stage one vapour, also the injectors are valves too, so there are plenty devices to cut the fuel while engine stops in casual traffic.
on a normal car that main valve is wired in paralel with the engine power feed, on a prius I believe it would be better if it were wired on the start vehicle feed and I read that is the best way to do it, the controller I am getting acctualy has a Start stop function especially programed for hybrids, aslo it it capable to start directly on gas with warm engine, I am not as familiar with stag but it's supposed to be very advanced, I would not be surprised if it has simmilar options, and I read this can be achieved more or less by wireing the power feeds different than normal cars, I wasn't aware of it at the time I chose it, just noticed it a few days ago when I got my manuals, the kit should be here tomorow and I feel like a little kid the day before Christlmas, we'll see how it goes.
looks like your installer did a decent job hiding everything it's a very tidy install, leads me to believe he knows a thing or two on the matter but maybe he is used to normal cars and wired it as such, and if you bring up these concerns he may be able to swich a few wires arround and set it up better, at the same time keep in ming I'm no expert there may be a reason for his choices, maybe it's not legal in your area to leave the system presurised with engine off, I dont see why that would be the petrol system does it, but what do I know, I feel you shold look into such options before you consider soundproofing it, those solenoids are rated for so many clicks, on a normal vehicle that may relate to a lifetime, on a city traffic prius, you may need a new one before the year end, just a thought.

 

thanks for the tip, and also thanks to agape for the sticker pic never noticed it I'm sure my car has it too, my car is pushing 50k so I should probably run a check as soon as I start running lpg, do you think that keeping tabs on valve clearance will prevent them from wearing as fast? I recon they would wear different on propane regardless, adjusting them often will keep them operating properly but they would still be wearing down, maybe once the clearence is so far off the wear progresses geometricaly so keeping them in check would buy some time, honestly I would not mind checking them every 25k if needed I'd rather do that than have to import flashlube from europe or australia all the time. Andrei mentioned his friend ran 150 on lpg and it does not sound like they are too concerned nor checked them often, honestly If I make it that far before they burn at that point I might just fork out some cash and have the machine shop rebuild the head with forklift grade valves and seats. I'm sure it can be done, toyota has the propane forklifts that are super reliable I have three one with over 20 000 hours still running,

 

one thing I am wraping my head arround at this time:
what size nozzle did you guys used?
and steeting it up would be tricky as you can't put the prius in ignition on nor iddle it like a normal car running the traction battery down buys a few minutes while it cahrges back up, I fear that initial powerup after all is installed on a normal car you can put the ignition on and run come checks before you start it, I have a ev button, that might do the trick.

 

I can't figure out where the vaporiser went I see the upclose pic looks like on the firewall somewhere but not on the big picture