propane for your truck

Originally Posted by taterjuice

Wondered if anyone is running propane on their pickups and how the mileAge is compared to gasoline

I've run several, millage and power slightly depreciated on bone stock engine.

If your building and engine, use heads from one that was designed to use unleaded gasoline the valve seats are induction hardened in addition to having stellite exhaust valves, spot weld the valve rotator otherwise he valves will bore into the seat.

Using older heads you should have stellite seats installed, the Ford 361 and 391 cid engines come out in three versions, light medium and heavy duty, get the HD version, this engine comes with stellite valve seats factory installed with sodium cooled valves. The latter engine makes a perfect candidate for propane fuel use right out of the box.

Replacing Valve Seats in Cylinder Heads

I built a custom 350 with 12.5-1 pistons, high performance cam which I had dialed in, older heads reworked with large valve heads with stellite inserts with bronze guides, to optimize propane advanced the timing. The engine was then coupled to a turbo 400 that I had custom built myself using premium frictions then doing a few tricks inside to make the shifts firm and lightning quick.

One servo gets machines then some clutch drums get a few holes drilled into the sides allowing the oil to be centrifugally flung from inside the clutch pack instead of having to find its way out from the front of the drum. A mild shift kit finishes up the build.



Then the package was installed into a 69 Chevy half, this truck could kick butt.

Ok why would I go to all this trouble of building a custom engine, by using propane as my exclusive fuel which is cheaper than premium fuel I got awesome performance on the cheap.

If you choose to have your engine use dual fuel, there are electronic modules you can purchase that will make automatic adjustments to the engines timing otherwise performance is going to suck. These conversion are lame because your engines compression remains factory stock.

To optimize on propane high compression with advanced timing is the key.

I've always did my own installs then had a licensed tech go over the system to certify. If you can talk him into putting the sticker on the tank you've paid your last tech fee should you ever swap the fuel system onto another truck.