I'll start a new thread so I don't keep polluting the turbo thread.
My original post:
"I did some testing with adding propane to my intake manifold and got a modest power increase with adding propane fuel to my 6/1. I also got a cleaner burn (heavy load with black smoke in the exhaust became a no smoke load with propane added to air intake). I like the convenience of propane (delivered), and I like the cleaner exhaust and engine. So I may fiddle with some home-brew propane throttle/metering one of these days. By crude fuel rack position measurement it appeared that up to 80% propane ran reasonably well with no timing/compression change (at my 5600 feet elevation). The hard part is metering the propane at a variety of loads/rack positions. On the gas conversion kits it's done with intake manifold pressure, but I have doubts about that working with our little intake pipe."
Response from CarlB:
"Bruce,
I run my listeroid on diesel and natural gas. As it is only used for backup purposes i don't have a lot of hours on it, maybe 50 hours or so.
What I did was use a small adjustable needle valve and set it to add enough natural gas to handle 1500 to 1700 watts or so which is about the normal draw during backup usage. With the needle valve adjusted in this manor the rack is almost completely closed, using just enough fuel to keep the engine running. When the load increases the rack opens adding more diesel as needed. I have pulled 3500 watts for short periods of time with my 6/1 with very little black smoke. When running at lower loads the exhaust is very clean and not smoke can be detected. Also when running natural gas the exhaust does not have a strong diesel odor. I figure the ratio is about 80/20 natural gas to diesel maybe 85/15.
If you wanted to really have it handle varying loads you could disconnect the governor from the ip and set the fuel rack to just barely keep the engine running at say 300rpm then have the governor open and close the natural gas valve as needed."
Response from BruceM:
"Hi Carlb, thanks for the info on your natural gas setup. It sure is a nice, simple solution for your setup with a relatively fixed load. The problem with a fixed gas injection rate is that when your load is cyclical (like a washing machine), you must settle for a much lower (LP or Natural) gas proportion in order to avoid knocking at the load "lulls". I typically have the well pump and washer on at the same time, but the pump will kick off once the tank is full, and the washer draws nada during fill times or between cycles. "
Response from dieselgman:
"The natural gas Listers do have a gas carburetors and throttle connections to the governor, that kind of setup could allow for varying loads and automatic operation."
Response from BruceM:
"Thanks Dieselgman. I just went to your website- wow! I'm thrilled to see a US supplier of parts and engines/rebuild kits. What a great service! I'll be ordering some spares soon.
Do you have a mechanical linkage gas carb that would be appropriate size for a CS 6/1?"
Response from dieselgman:
"Bruce, the Impco gas carbs we have are jetted/sized for both twin and triple HRs. Higher displacements than your CS. I would expect that they could be modified to suit a smaller demand engine though. The throttle body is of a size that could be easily made to fit. Governor linkages would be custom for sure, but maybe could be adapted from the existing 6/1 setup. An interesting thing to consider. I will take a good look at our parts here and see what can be done.
I have done some conversions on V-8 gasoline engines but possibly quite a different beast than a diesel Listeroid being fueled in this way. The Lister HRGs are low-compression spark-ignition variants of the diesel HR."
