Right, onto the next issue on the red VSE.

It has a Tartarini LPG kit fitted to it that was installed in 2005 when the car was 3 years old and had covered 37k miles at a cost of £2150 according to the invoice I have here. The owner, a local gentlemen, was a jammy bugger as there's also paperwork in the history file for an £800 rebate he got from the green energy trust for having the car converted!

Anyway, the system is 12 years old and had done almost 80k miles since installation. None of the service positions in the book have been stamped so I can only assume that it's never been touched since it went in.

The car will switch to LPG and it will idle OK but when sitting on the motorway at a steady speed the car develops a stutter the second you switch it over, as if it's being starved of gas. When trying to climb the hill on the single lane road to our house, on LPG there's no power there either, it slows down on the hills, and won't go.

First things first, I was going to order the filters for it and change them but on the several single point systems I've worked on I've never noticed the filters getting that filthy. I can't help but think that the vaporiser/reducer is probably going to be due for replacement. If so, do I need to replace it with a like for like one? If not, is there any particular one that people would recommend?

Any hints/tips/suggestions would be appreciated as I don't know very much about multipoint unfortunately.

David.

Don’t know about your reducer, but there seems to be rebuild kits readily available for quite a lot of the reducers on the market. I replaced all the diaphragms in mine when I bought it

Just had a look on ebay, plenty of refurb kits on there

Tinleys seem to hold everything you need:
liquid and vapour filters, rebuild kits
http://tinleytech.co.uk/?s=tartarini&submit=Search&post_type=product
Check for aged hoses while you're at it. They do eventually get crunchy.

Best to ask at this point if the Tartarini system is a basic mixer system, Tec97, Tec99, Etagas or a sequetial system?

I would hope, on a 2002 Thor, it would be sequential, anything earlier would be a nightmare on something that age.

David mentions "multipoint" in the original post

It is indeed Multi Point. I’ve only ever worked in Single Point before so it’s going to be a learning curve.

I’ve been doing some more research on it today, the car will drive on LPG, it doesn’t feel like it’s misfiring or anything like that but it does feel lethargic. If you keep your foot int he same position and then switch it back to Petrol you can instantly feel the car start to accelerate. There’s a big difference.

The reducer/vaporiser is a Tartarini one, the Type RP/G E-97 the Version is RP/G 05/S/. From looking online there’s plenty of parts readily available so I’m going to order a service kit for that and the filters for it and see where we go from there.

David

While you're ordering parts, it'll be worth getting the software and appropriate cable to connect to the LPG ECU.

I believe the cable is the same as the LPG one that I’ve already got which is handy. The software I’ve managed to find as a free download online :)

David.

Gilbertd wrote:

I would hope, on a 2002 Thor, it would be sequential, anything earlier would be a nightmare on something that age.

Yes there'd be more negative implications fitting less than sequential on a 2002 P38 than on older models. Because of that and also because the sequential system is likely to be easier to repair I'd hope it was sequential too.

I didn't realise it was a 2002 model, did have a look at his earlier posts (mostly to see if there was more info on type of system), now realise I could have just looked at his vehicle list and seen the VSE is 2002...

Gilbert knows this so this for others info - Etagas is multipoint but isn't sequential. Etagas would have most of the same drawbacks (related to not working as a slave to the petrol system) as any of the other none sequential systems. It is possible to get around the additional issues that arise from fitting any type of none sequential LPG system to a more recent model P38 by adding an AEB OBD Ufix but this still wouldn't make for an LPG system as appropriate as a sequential system. Ufix's read petrol fuel trims from the OBD port and feed an emulated lambda signal back to the petrol ECU to keep petrol fuel trims at zero when running on LPG. But it's unlikely a Ufix is fitted and, depending on year the VSE was converted, unlikely anything less than sequential was fitted. A Ufix isn't necessary at all if the LPG system is sequential, if a Ufix was fitted with a sequential system it would be a sever detriment rather than a benefit.

Well, I've done some digging today and found the following:

1. The LPG lead I have will connect to the Tartarini ECU :)
2. There is only one filter between the vaporiser and the injectors, none on the solenoids like our other cars.
3. It's a fully sequential system that's fitted.
4. It's a 95 litre tank that's sitting in the spare wheel well.

I've ordered a new filter and a vaporiser refurb kit which will hopefully turn up before the weekend. Once I've got both fitted I'll try and get it to do an auto calibration and hopefully it'll be ok afterwards.

David.

Make sure that your old maps are backed up and you can restore to them if needed.
It's not likely that the map requirements will have changed- assuming it was properly mapped in the first place, so after fitting the filters and vapouriser refurb, check that the petrol side is running spot-on first. Lambda's switching, MAF airflow numbers correct, trims in the right place, all that sort of stuff.
Before doing any mapping work you need to ensure the petrol side is as good as you can get. Then see how it performs on gas.

Thanks for the heads up.

I had Testbook out yesterday and gave the car a quick going over. There were a couple of faults stored on the engine ECU so I've cleared all of them and reset the fuel trims. It feels smoother then it did having done that. I've done about 65 miles since. I'll get a few more covered before the weekend and I'll run Testbook over it again and make sure that none of the faults have returned before commencing with any mapping or calibrating on the LPG :)

David.

As OB said the LPG map shouldn't have changed, if it has changed it'll probably be because there's a problem with the LPG ECU.. They can lose mapping info when the battery is disconnected when they're old, so if the problem's as simple as that a remap may be an almost total cure (save for the fact the map would be lost next time battery is disconnected). The ECU losing mapping info is unlikely though, far more likely there's an issue with the reducer, injectors, pressure sensors, temp sensors, in which case mapping won't fix it but the interface will allow you to see readings and (likely) allow you to switch individual cylinders back to petrol (to find problems with individual LPG injectors).

Well, I've just been and tried the Tartarini software that I managed to download from the net, I installed it, went to the car with me cable, opened the software and it said "Insert USB key. The software will be closed"

I'm using a USB > Serial adapter, then a Serial LPG lead that works perfectly with the Millennium and Leonardo ECU's I've used it on before. I wonder if for some reason it doesn't like this cable or if I need an unlocked version of the software.

I'll have a scour and see what I can find for now.

With a spot of luck, refurbishing the hardware might be enough to make it work if the map hasn't been lost from the ECU though.

David.

It sounds more like a licensing issue than a USB cable issue... :(

Morat will be right, it seems the software you're using expects to see a USB dongle plugged in to allow the software to work. USB dongle has nothing to do with your interface cable. Which begs the question - What Tartarini software are you using and on what version of Windows? The correct Tartarini software for your system shouldn't need a USB dongle to run (though a dongle could be plugged in to open up a few more options such as temperature correction) but even correct software can do funny things if running on the wrong version of Windows, sometimes if running on certain versions of 64bit Windows.

If nobody else beats me to it, later on this evening I'll post a Dropbox link to software that should work.

I've got a Tartarini system. I have working software if you want it. I've uploaded it here if it helps you.

Thanks for the download. I've installed that and it's working without any USB key that the other software I downloaded was asking for.

Unfortunately it refuses to see my ECU. It comes up with an error saying that it can't connect when I open it. Is there only one version of the Tartarini software? If so, I'm wondering if the cable I'm using isn't compatible with the later type of systems. I notice the Tartarini cables advertised have a fancy box of tricks in the middle of them with LED's on them.

I wonder if it's worth trying to order one to rule it out.

David.