North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

This is an impressive mod to any diesel engine, my father is doing a lot of prime movers in Adelaide and Melbourne with substantial power increases and fuel saving and apparent no adverse affects.
He has also converted quite a few generators (diesel) in Port Lincoln tuna plants and has had only good reports... cheaper running costs, zero black smoke from chimneys, no greanys etc.
Turbo diesels go like a ROCKET after the conversion i can only recommend the conversion but shop around... darwin converters charge like a wounded bull.. i did mine for $3500 complete. If there were enough people that wanted it done we could get him up here for a few weeks to convert a few rigs at the right price.

Anyone else out there done a diesel gas convert?
I have a 98 Hilux with the 5L engine (3 litre diesel non-turbo). It is struggling to tow (4.8m GS) and I am wondering if going gas diesel will give me the power I need.
Has anyone got a Dieselgas Injection System by Gas Tek? They claim to be superior to the venturi fed systems.

Cheers

Just a bit of an update on my diesel gas mod - I was very happy with the power increase but as LPG prices slipped up closer to fuel prices the savings became less and less so the cost benefits now are not as significant as when LPG was considerably cheaper than fuel.

Also in case you are unaware my 2006 SR5 Hilux has dropped its big end bearings at 130 000 km. The mechanics have been unable to determine a cause which is a concern but if anyone i interested register and log onto newhilux.net and the 3 litre diesel engines are failing between 100 000 and 150 000 km at a high rate. Toyopta would not touch my motor as it had the gas enhancement on it so that is something else to consider!!

I am dissappointed but dont believe that the gas enhancement had anything to do with the failure - think it is just poorly designed and that those 3 litre engines are right on the dge of enginerring specs - wont bother me cos once this one goes i will never buy another TOYOTA again!!

Shane

well said shane Toyota over rated over priced built very poorly have worked on a lot of toyota 4wds very cheaply built and dont last
a friend of mine has a turbo 4.2L nissan patrol on gas he had the conversion done at 180,000k and now has done well over 400,000k , this thing goes hard its like driving a V8 huge differance compaired to standard 4.2
well worth the money if your going to tow

Shane Doevy wrote:Just a bit of an update on my diesel gas mod - I was very happy with the power increase but as LPG prices slipped up closer to fuel prices the savings became less and less so the cost benefits now are not as significant as when LPG was considerably cheaper than fuel.

Also in case you are unaware my 2006 SR5 Hilux has dropped its big end bearings at 130 000 km. The mechanics have been unable to determine a cause which is a concern but if anyone i interested register and log onto newhilux.net and the 3 litre diesel engines are failing between 100 000 and 150 000 km at a high rate. Toyopta would not touch my motor as it had the gas enhancement on it so that is something else to consider!!

I am dissappointed but dont believe that the gas enhancement had anything to do with the failure - think it is just poorly designed and that those 3 litre engines are right on the dge of enginerring specs - wont bother me cos once this one goes i will never buy another TOYOTA again!!

Shane

thats why i high compression motor shouldnt have had gas put on it they are built to perfom at there maximun
and increasing the power and compression of the motor of course things are going to fail
why did you go for the gas in the first place??? i have a 08 hilux and it seems to have plenty of power for towing a 7.0m boat and has reasonable fuel economy was alot better before i lifted it and fitted biger tyres
did you do it for better fuel or more power if better fuel how much better was it ???

Doug I dont know about not putting gas on a high comp motor, LPG or CNG is often used in High compression engines due to its higher octane rating. Secondly I could be wrong with reference to the D-4D but all diesels are 'high compression', thats what makes the fuel/air go bang. Though I do agree with not pushing an already finely tuned engine. Diesel engines are like gas turbines, the more fuel you pour in, the more power they make, the higher the EGT, and the closer they are to going bang!

From what I have read the biggest advantage of gas injection in a turbocharged engine is reducing inlet air temperatures and therefore making more power. I would question if its a good idea messing with the tuning of an engine that already has 50,000 PSI of fuel pressure at the injectors.

I would also be worried about how well a Darwin company would tune a gas injected diesel engine?? If it is a older, non-common rail engine I would go ahead and get it done as long as your happy with the tuners experience.

Cheers

Jason

jasonmcc wrote:Doug I dont know about not putting gas on a high comp motor, LPG or CNG is often used in High compression engines due to its higher octane rating. Secondly I could be wrong with reference to the D-4D but all diesels are 'high compression', thats what makes the fuel/air go bang. Though I do agree with not pushing an already finely tuned engine. Diesel engines are like gas turbines, the more fuel you pour in, the more power they make, the higher the EGT, and the closer they are to going bang!

From what I have read the biggest advantage of gas injection in a turbocharged engine is reducing inlet air temperatures and therefore making more power. I would question if its a good idea messing with the tuning of an engine that already has 50,000 PSI of fuel pressure at the injectors.

I would also be worried about how well a Darwin company would tune a gas injected diesel engine?? If it is a older, non-common rail engine I would go ahead and get it done as long as your happy with the tuners experience.

Cheers

Jason

thats my point exactly isnt it ???
doesnt the gas conversion make the dieslel leaner making it more octane and the new hiluxs are running on the fine side of lean thats why they get the good km??
the old diesel yeah no worries they arent running boosted turbos and nowhere near the power of the newer models

Doug
my intent - be it ill founded was to geta bit more power and to save some fuel money.

With regards to poer it does increase the power of the engine - not oo mays about it - I had to tow a bigger boat up from down south and wanted to get a bit more power so I thought i would give it a go. It helped with that runt hats for sure.

Re fuel economy I can only compare it to my old man patrol- we did a run together a couple of xmas's ago - he used heaps more fuel than me and we had similar loads on - that was before the price of LPG wnet right up and now it is border line and recovery time for catch up of installation costs is long. I would ocnsider it for an older diesel but its unlikely i woudl do it agian.

Live and learn i guess.
Shane

Poor old Toyos coping a bashing. Even Top Gear couldn't kill the Hilux. They made a boat out of one and drove another to the North Pole.
I'm looking for added power. Being an older car without the EFI and Turbo it should be able to handle a bit more compression.

Shane the bearing going is a downer. Toyota is lame not honouring the warranty. Voiding warranty is not an issue with my car.
At the moment I am foot to the floor at 80 km an hour even up a slight hill ie driving up the hill from Noonamah toward Humpty Doo. Fuel consumption is shocking.

Do you think gas will give me enough power to say sit on a whopping 100 km/h down the highway and give me back some economy?

Shane don't know how true this is but it is on the Gastech website.

"Will installing Dieselgas void my warranty?

It is not legal for any dealer to void a vehicle warranty because an aftermarket product has been installed. The only exception to this is if the dealer can prove that the aftermarket product was a cause of a warranty failure."

Moz,
mate my warranty wasnt voided - sorry - my vehicle had done 130 000 km and was more than 3 years old - so any work or anything they had offered me would have been out of the goodness of their hearts. I discussed options with my local dealer and they came back to me and said that Toyota would not look at for two resaons;
1 - the gas enhancement had been fitted; and
2 - I am using non-genuine filters.
Both bullshit reasons as far as i am concerned.
I spoke to the man in town who gave me the low down on what Toyota would look at - there were 3 criteria;
1 - within km
2 - within years; and
3 - service history.
My car was over the kms (no extended warranty),over the years and had had all of its service to 100 000 done at the dealer and the other 3 at another provider (which is the real reason why they got the S$%^ts I suspect). My research on newhiux.net also suggest that a considerable number of the 3 litre diesel engines are going int he same manner. When they tried to find a replacement short engine all three dealers had three on order and none in stock - ?????
Its pretty poor as I have siad before - if they had come at a 50/50 deal I would have been happy - $5000 ish - and they would have kept me as a customer - but not now!!

As to your question re increase in power i reckon it will improve your power but have a good look around - i was told that you could put a chip in some vehicles and get an increase in power. As for Top Gear not being able to kill it - had it done 100 000 km plus - my research tells me that they are liable to failure between 100 and 150 000 kms. I did nothing wrong, followed the service schedule etc and this is what i get.

As to why i went away fromt he dealer after 100 000 km - they quoted me $52 labour to fit my elctric mirrors when they were ripped off out at the Adelaide river - now this is a highly labour intensive process which requires the fitting of 6 x M8 nuts - that convinced me that they are ripping people off!!

My conversion was done by Carmech in town - if your keen on it have a chat with them - i know the technology has come a long way - I just cant rule out that it may have contributed to the engine failure - I just dont know.

Shane

Lean and Rich are not terms used when talking about Diesel engines, its way more complicated than that. As generally diesel engines do not have a butterfly they run super lean depending on pedal position. There is heaps to read on the net if your interested.

The most important thing you should do is change your oil every 5000km, doesnt matter what car you own if your planning on keeping it.

DOUG wrote:

jasonmcc wrote:Doug I dont know about not putting gas on a high comp motor, LPG or CNG is often used in High compression engines due to its higher octane rating. Secondly I could be wrong with reference to the D-4D but all diesels are 'high compression', thats what makes the fuel/air go bang. Though I do agree with not pushing an already finely tuned engine. Diesel engines are like gas turbines, the more fuel you pour in, the more power they make, the higher the EGT, and the closer they are to going bang!

From what I have read the biggest advantage of gas injection in a turbocharged engine is reducing inlet air temperatures and therefore making more power. I would question if its a good idea messing with the tuning of an engine that already has 50,000 PSI of fuel pressure at the injectors.

I would also be worried about how well a Darwin company would tune a gas injected diesel engine?? If it is a older, non-common rail engine I would go ahead and get it done as long as your happy with the tuners experience.

Cheers

Jason

thats my point exactly isnt it ???
doesnt the gas conversion make the dieslel leaner making it more octane and the new hiluxs are running on the fine side of lean thats why they get the good km??
the old diesel yeah no worries they arent running boosted turbos and nowhere near the power of the newer models

Jason,
gotta agree totally about the oil changes - thats what Ill be doing from this point onwards!!!

Sorry guys one thing I have learnt over the years you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear

I remember years ago a pro fishing mate stuck a turbo onto his 3ltr hi-lux and used to show off doing wheelies. 6 months later and 10,000 k's oil was leaking from every orifice of the engine. It was totally ted ROOOOTED!!!

Gas is made for blowing out your arse not for putting in a car

Toyota once tried to charge me $450 for the little weight that hangs off the bottom of the transfer case (some antivibration thing). I told them where they could shove that and paid about $20 for an aftermarket piece that did the job nicely. Still recon the profits are going to some Japanese Engineer's retirement fund.
Grumpy- don't want to make a silk purse- just go faster than 80k on a pretty flat road...