Hi guys.....just an update and another issue that may be of interest.....onvestigate together!!!
Since I had her started (see post BCEM Again !) She has been in regular use on petrol still a rich miss on gas and only 1 flat battery due to the 5 year old leaving the reading lights on and car sat for 3 days ! However asked for keycode and it took it first time !!!! Amazing!!!
Anyway I still have the issue of rich on 1 bank and a miss due to this (stag 300-8) and ecu wont read on the 4.6 thor so will have to sort her however being a bit of a defector here.... I have a BMW X5 E53 4.4 ....let me off please as range rover used it and its a V8 ! Now the thing here is it may help us all ( I hope) she is on gas, all codes read amd is fine fsh runs superb no knocks ( right oil) 167k smooth and quick and on gas....makes the 4.6 look ecconomical (12. 7 round town on a good day and yes I have tried different MAF's)
Now I have had her since May this year, she has a sysrem called Elpigaz fitted, filsa ? System ? Anyone heard of this ? I plan on having them both sorted together and have a couple of issues with the BMW.
Checked for leaks and sorted them all however on cold (10 minuite) she will not have any of it smells of gas and lumps, when warm runs perfect 85% of the time rest of time she comes down to 500 then gos to stall them revs 800 rpm ( when slowing at junctions)
Any ideas ?
Sounds to me like the vapouriser isn't getting hot enough quickly enough - If its too cold then you will get the liquid gas coming though and it won't vapourise where it should do and instead ends up injecting far too much gas as it begins to expand in the pipework/injectors etc.
It might be worth checking you have a decent flow of coolant through the vapouriser - Easiest thing to check firstly is how warm to the touch it is when its left on idle, if the heater is warm it should be at least fairly warm to the touch, Ideally you want it hot enough that you don't want to touch it once the engine is warmed up. The temperature itself isn't as important as keeping it warm enough to prevent it freezing up.
That thought did cross my mind its down lower than the air box is ! Nice to be neat and hide things a !
I could understand it being that, silly thing is I rang a guy down in Farham yesterday morning an LPG installer and mentioned the 2 cars to him and he said he would ring his suppliers and call me back, that was 8.50 am yesterday still waiting lol he said he had not heard of Elpigaz before.
Engine is so sweet and it does run well on gas just these couple of issues.
Looks like im gonna have to get another ecu for the old p38 as the stag one will not read at all and is running so rich on 1 bank its -250 and misses but only on gas so suspect an injector on it, it just seems so hard to get an LPG service engineer to look at a LPG car they all seem busy !
I'm slightly confused as to which car has which problem as you're talking about an X5 and a Thor in the same thread.
I take it you've checked out the Elpigas site for tech documentation/ software downloads etc?
http://www.elpigaz.com/en/index/
Stag downloads for latest software etc is here:
http://www.autogas-lpg.co.uk/content/11-Download-STAG
If he hasn't heard of Elpigaz, find another LPG engineer. They are one of the oldest established Polish manufacturers, not as well known as the Italian makes, but still pretty well known. Having the reducers mounted low down is a good idea as it reduces the chances of air locks but the X5 have a pretty complicated coolant pipe layout so it might be plumbed in at the wrong place.
What injectors are fitted to the P38? If you suspect one is leaking, it might be simpler to just replace them. You can check for a leaking injector by pulling a hose after the engine has been switched off. There should be pressure stored between the reducer and the injectors so you'll hear the pressure escape. If there's no pressure, then there's a leak.
To be honest I have not looked I am away until monday I will look and post monday morning on here, as regards the BMW yes complication is in the build the layout is just crazy and it seems to be on the left hand side where the air box is where as the aux heater bypass valve sits up on the right which supplys the heater matrix so would have thpught that would have been a good place to feed the vape from being a direct hot feed from the head, she has always had issues when cold just now when she is warm she seems to try and stall and gas stalled 3 times in the last 2 weeks which is a pain auto power steering and at low speeds or a bend with traffic begind you ! It also throws a code up now and then on multiple fuel trims which only happens on gas so I would suspect that this is due to an irrrgular gas feed ?
Just love to sort both out as they are both smooth engines and run sweet all electric components tip top condition and new and bugs me when it seems something so simple !!!
X5 never missed a beat on the run with loads of power and cost £20 to get from Coventry back to Portsmouth so on gas when running does seem to be about right.
I must say that both myself and the missus agree on this, BMW quick handles to well for a 4x4 however tje best driving car here is the P38 without doubt, sloother ride and loads more vision and the main thing being the steering which is so much better on the P38.
Hi orangebean.....sorry did not see your post im using my phone, X5 is the one that seems to over fuel at times mainly at idle and as it idles at 550rpm if you nudge the throtle it rises to 1000rpm and them let it off it stalls, the p38 is the one that runs rich on gas on one bank, sorry mate missed the post.
Gilbertd wrote:
If he hasn't heard of Elpigaz, find another LPG engineer. They are one of the oldest established Polish manufacturers, not as well known as the Italian makes, but still pretty well known. Having the reducers mounted low down is a good idea as it reduces the chances of air locks but the X5 have a pretty complicated coolant pipe layout so it might be plumbed in at the wrong place.
What injectors are fitted to the P38? If you suspect one is leaking, it might be simpler to just replace them. You can check for a leaking injector by pulling a hose after the engine has been switched off. There should be pressure stored between the reducer and the injectors so you'll hear the pressure escape. If there's no pressure, then there's a leak.
This makes 100% sence I will try this monday,
Hi everyone and sorry for my absence in late....apart from being busy I then forgot my password when I went to log in !
Anyway and update, found someone to look at the P38 gas in Southampton....Polish guy spent 4 hours on her and charged me £50 which I though fair, very helpfull and seemed what he explained to be sound advice.
Anyway, he listened to what I told him I had found and then went to work, at the end he had sqapped the rails round and still NO.1 cylinder was running rich with high trims like -250 maxed out, again back on petrol perfect, swapped again and again still the same so not an injector....shame, anyway because of this we came to the conclusion of a burnt valve, maybe on LPG its picking it up more what would you say ? what he has done is switch No.1 off of LPG so it runs on petrol and the others run on Gas, the trims on idle are perfect and she has bags of power and runs smooth now maybe a little bit less smooth on gas.
Would this be the right direction ? I guess if that is the case of a burnt valve then if it did not have LPG fitted then we would never have known as on petrol she is spot on.
Elpigaz on BME still no joy and he was honest enough to tell me that he could help with P38 stag but not Elpigaz.
I very much doubt a burnt valve but if swapping the rails didn't cause the problem to move, it sounds like an electrical problem. Two possibles spring to mind, the LPG injector circuit for the one injector has failed so instead of pulsing it just opens the injector and leaves it open, or you have a short on the injector cut (where the LPG system intercepts the pulse to the petrol injector) and it isn't shutting off the petrol injector so the one cylinder is dual fuelling. Do you have the software for the system so you can switch the offending cylinder back to LPG? If you do, set it so all cylinders are running on LPG and, while running, clamp the hose from the LPG injector to the manifold. If it carries on running normally, it is dual fuelling (so with the LPG feed clamped off it is still running on petrol), if that one cylinder stops firing then the injector is being told to bung much more gas in than it should by the controller.
If it's actually a burned valve, then wouldn't a wet compression test will show it up?
That makes very good sense....and helps me restore love and sanity !
Yes I do have a lead but could not get it to read last time I will have to have another go at it I think, he also confirmed that the system was old and he had to track down the software for the older version which I now have note of.
The dual fuel would make sense though.
I will have a look in the morning, on top of that the kids stood on my laptop and the new keyboard is here (as it stopped working after that) and I have to strip it completely to fit keyboard (dell vostro nightmare) and the other the battery is dead but I am sure that I will win, its nice that I am getting closer now though to finding the fault and your reply is reassuring thank you you have made me feel so much better.
There's a set of miniature relays, one per cylinder, in the older Stag ECU's. If you're getting petrol and LPG to a cylinder at the same time and injectors are OK it could mean a relay is failing to open (closed and off connects the petrol injector to petrol ECU).
To confirm this or other ECU problems you could just swap wiring (affected cylinder's petrol break wiring and another cylinder, also swapping the LPG injector plugs to match) to see if the fault moves with the ECU channel. Seen this happen on loads of Stag installs and years ago had this problem even with a few brand new Stag ECU's.
Even if the ECU cuts the petrol injector it might still have a failed gas injector output, effectively pulsing the affected cylinder's injector for a different duration to the other injectors (too long or open all the time, too short or closed all the time). You've ruled out LPG injectors, which leaves pipe runs (crimped?), wiring, ECU and mechanical (compression?) as potentials. Far more likely there's an LPG problem than compression/engine valve problem. Another thing we could add to the list of potential faults - If the reducer vacuum pipe was connected to the affected cylinder's intake runner and the reducer was leaking gas through it's vac pipe, unlikely it's been plumbed that way on a P38 though.