LPG + results for info

[Xenopus]

Finally got to do a proper fuel consumption test on our LPG -converted boat yesterday. 36 foot Hunton with twin Mercruiser 454 Magnums (7.4L each). Went out from fuel berth at Warsash all tanks full, three big blokes, full cruising gear and v. dirty bottom (must book the divers!), motored at 30-32kts in usual Solent chop for 30 mins, returned and topped up. Total use 71.2L - allow a little for getting into and out of Hamble and put 65L down to cruise - v. happy with that, gives decent range on gas (467 usable litres; about 108 miles at 30 kts then go onto petrol) despite need for a clean. Clearly dropping back a few knots will increase that too. how does this fit with others' experiences - it seems that this performance is v. close to petrol for us.

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[andrewa]

What mixers are you using? Are fuel injected or carb? Did Richard do the conversion?

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[Robin]

Bad news then last night on telly, our Tone has a think tank reccomendation to raise taxes on LPG to same as petrol. Apparently now the tax break can only be on 'diesel made from rape seed'.

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[Xenopus]

IWEMA tornado mixers, carb, Richard did do it.

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[Deleted User YDKXO]

How incredibly dishonest. The tax break was supposed to reflect the fact that LPG is a cleaner fuel than petrol and a whole industry of LPG conversion specialists and LPG suppliers has grown up as a result. It just goes to show that the environment is just a convenient peg to hang a whole load of stealth taxes on (company cars, landfill etc) and to demonstrate that how cynical Gordon and his cronies really are. At least with the old Labour tax and spend lot, they were upfront about screwing you. Oh, where is the new Maggie?
Rant over

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[Xenopus]

Just spoken to Calor, the review of taxing LPG is nowhere near finished and there are as many reccommendations to fix price for at least another 4 years as there are to increase it.

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[Robin]

They said it is no cleaner than modern day petrol in modern cars, so no justification for lower tax.

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[Russell]

Better than 1 mpg, sounds good. Do you know how the Magnums differ from 1991 7.4 Bravos ?

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[Xenopus]

I'm afraid I don't know the details - the output is increased to 365hp, precisely how hopefully a better informed forumite can tell us!

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[Russell]

OK cheers, I'll have a look in the manual 2nite. At least the tornado mixers will be up to my (claimed!) 330hp.

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[Solitaire]

Well done Matt. I averaged 1.5nm (based on average consumption on 1,151gallons of LPG over the past three years) per gallon on my Volvo AQ225 V8. On petrol this would go up to just over 2nm. Don't forget that LPG at Yarmouth and Lymington is still only 32p a litre compared with Warsash @ 39p. Makes a big difference when you fill up with your literage. Mind you, you've got to get there/forums/images/icons/wink.gif Did you have Brian onboard?

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[Xenopus]

Hi David,

Brian was on board and I'll be filling up at Yarmouth sometime soon - good for trips down the coast and to CI. Sorry to hear about the death of your engine - I see you're going for the diesel option, should overcome the range problem comfortably. Please let me know how the re-engining goes and see you soon!

cheers,

Matt

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[Solitaire]

Cheers Matt - Solitaire comes out of the water today. The transom has to be addapted to take the Yamaha leg. I hope that all will be well to be back on the water by end July - lets hope we have an Indian Summer!. She'll be in the yard so you can check progress when you come down. I've been checking out with a Sprint which converted to a Kad 32(similar to to the Yamaha) last year and he says a return trip to the Needles now costs about £12, on petrol he said it used to cost around £70!. He has also changed the fuel guage twice becuse he thought they were wrong in that he could not beleiev he was using so little fuel. I'll see you soon, oppo on the pontoon has his new boat delivered today so at least I'll be able to go out with him. He wants me to give him a few lessons. The new boat is a Wellcraft 26 with Yanmar 240 HP on Bravo 3 leg.

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[pistonbroke]

Re: LPG results for info

7.4L is the girls motor, cast crank, small ports in head, crap valves and inlet manifold, cast pistons, normally a 2 bolt main, doesn't take to tuning or sustained high revs.

454 Mag is boys motor, forged crank, large ports in head, good valves, high rise manifold, forged pistons etc, basis for huge amounts of gee gee's, happy to rev, etc etc.

Oh, one other thing, the claimed 330 & 365 hp is crap. It seems that they lie by around 10 percent, due to a strange way of testing.

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[tcm]

Re: Brave New Britain

One answer to the country's ills is to order the armed forces to launch full scale bombing raids on all the hospitals, and follow up with ground forces and a shoot-to-kill policy.

This would simultaneoulsy solve the public sector pensions crisis, increase demand in the flagging engineering sector with the need for replacement weapons, reduce the average age by as much as 10 years, deter any bogus asylum seekers or health tourists, cut hospital waiting list to zero overnight, allow taxes to be dramatically reduced because nobody would want to go near an NHS hospital ever again, and clear a lot of valuable inner-city building land for much-needed housing projects. We wouldn't be hanging around waiting for "delivery" for 6 years. I would say it would take about 48 hours, tops.

I admit that it might be unpopular, at least initially, but there is no doubt that we have already created a large number of heavily-armed nurses and doctors, who, unlike Saddam's bogus WMD's, demonstrably DO have lots of drugs and chemicals which most definitely could be used against the Uk - and they would be ready to use them in more like 5 minutes than 45.

Now that I have written all about it, I confidently expect an abridged version of this post to appear in a government report very shortly and the shooting to start in the autumn.



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