As Gilbert says.

Also, there are various kinds of emulators with the two most common types being petrol injector emulators (dummy electrical load to simulate petrol injector electrical load) and lambda signal emulators. You don't usually need a discrete pinj emulator with a sequential LPG system because one is usually built into the sequential LPG ECU (except on a minority of systems such as Prins / AG as Gilbert says), and in fact you don't really need a pinj emulator at all on a Rover V8, but it is best to fit one. Sequential systems don't need to emulate lambda because they work as a slave to the petrol system so the petrol system's closed loop operation continues to work as normal (if LPG system is in good working order and calibrated properly). If you have a single point LPG system (or any LPG system that doesn't work as a slave to the petrol system) then petrol fuel trims will drift when running on LPG unless a special type of lambda emulator is fitted, this special type connects to the vehicle OBD to monitor fuel trims and connects to the petrol ECU's lambda input so they can adjust the lambda signal that the petrol ECU reads, they then steer fuel trims to zero, thus preventing the type of fuel trim drift problems your post might describe. But since P38 OBD is none standard it can be difficult to find an intelligent fuel trim steering type of emulator to work on a P38, and since P38s don't kick up much of a fuss (no MIL light to show fuel trim errors etc), intelligent fuel trim steering lambda emulators are seldom fitted on P38s that could benefit from them. Single point LPG systems usually have facility for some basic lambda emulation but this isn't usually capable of reading OBD fuel trims, so it can't steer fuel trims to zero, in effect they just send an oscillating voltage to the petrol ECU (which can help on vehicles which come up with a lambda error if the petrol ECU doesn't see lambda voltage flick). This also isn't much use on a P38,so where P38s are converted with single point technology the LPG system often taps into lambda voltage so it can correct mixture while running on LPG, but the lambda signal that the petrol ECU sees is just actual lambda voltage, not emulated at all.

Simon

Reading another thread prompted me to write this...

Years ago as a kid in the 70s I used to visit scrap yards with my dad when he was looking for bits for his cars, Landrovers, boats, or just bits to make other stuff out of. I remember on a few occasions we visited a surreal site, massive, indoor and outdoor sections, and one of the indoor sections was a huge warehouse with old complete Landrovers the length of the entire warehouse stacked 3 or 4 high on racking! Outside there were bombs, old artillery pieces, all sorts of eye opening stuff to a kid. It must have been some sort of ex forces storage depot but I can't remember where it was... I can't see the place still being around today, or even if it is there's no way they would allow the general public to go in and look around these days. I believe it was around the Doncaster area, can anyone fill in the blanks in my memory with any info about it?

Simon

BrianH wrote:

Is it on a straight bit of pipe that its broken? Theres a product called splice lok available which allows you to cut a section out and replace with the splice lok if its a simple break.

Having read about Splice lok type products years ago in a mechanics mag they came to mind when I discovered where the front to rear brake pipe was leaking on the ML (a common area of the pipe to fail where it's more open to road splash just forward of rear ns wheel), rest of the pipe not in bad condition. Haven't used Splice lok yet though.

How about trying this firm (http://www.bee-cool-aircon.co.uk/services/ac-pipe-repairs/)

I don't think I'd be much concerned about using copper pipe either, though would probably at least look into potential pag oil compatibility issues again before going that route... and, never know, the firm above might not be much dearer than the copper pipe.

When I fixed the Peugeot with rubber pipe it was a case of either just bodging the pipe break under the bonnet or replacing the full pipe which ran through the bulkhead (and I seem to remember also under engine mounts etc), so the alternative would have been a much bigger job, dash out etc.

Haven't been visiting this thread, title gave impression it was about the nuts and bolts of engine rebuild..

Think I mentioned the pros and cons of fitting injectors under bananas, including tightness of space for most types of injectors... Wouldn't have attempted to fit Hana injectors under the manifold, they're not very small in any dimension and Hana's on rails are a big block. Single Hana's have gas outlet at bottom and inlet at top, not great if you're limited to space above the injectors such as if there's an upper section of banana manifold to go over them!

If I were to fit injectors under bananas I'd go for MJ single injectors, which have gas inlet at the side and remote wiring connector at the end of a couple of inches of wire, they would have fitted no problem and have 3 ohm coils. Currently fitting some single MJ injectors on the Maserati I'm converting but that's because they're some of the most responsive injectors available and this thing has a high red line, plus the single MJs mean pipe lengths are all less than an inch. But I wouldn't go the under manifold route on a P38, I came up with the cutting webbing out between bananas to fit OMVL injectors in the correct orientation (side outlet injectors so injectors stand up vertically as they should) idea, which delivers the results on a P38.

There can be no direct comparison between maps on AEB systems if different spec injectors are set in the configuration, because injector config effects whether e.g. a map value of 130 gives a multiplier of 1 (say OMVL injectors) or multiplier of 1.3 (say Matrix injectors). Another thing to watch out for with AEB systems is that certain injector configs impose a minimum gas injector pulse duration, not good if you're running really linear injectors that work properly well below that minimum duration and you're fitting on a powerful engine that demands high pressure and big nozzle size, because this can mean the engine always idles rich with ginj bottoming out at say 3.5ms (OMVL example setting example).

Most AEB ECU's don't really like driving low resistance injectors, such as Hana (1.3 / 1.9ohm), anyway. Worst outcome could be premature ECU failure, but there can be issues with fuelling below 3ms ginj. Conveniently if you fitted Hanas, you shouldn't see less than 3ms pinj on a P38, pinj is probably close to 4ms at idle with warmed engine and you want ginj to be higher than pinj.

If you autocal an AEB system with system reference at 1.1 bar and actual pressure of 1.4 bar, AEB should do a decent job of accounting for the pressure difference, it shouldn't be of much consequence, so if it's too rich after running autocal I would expect to either need to manually adjust calibration, or the too rich condition might be due to the ECU imposing that minimum pulse duration. If at this point you changed reference to 1.4 bar without running autocal again it would be even richer, because numbers in map would be the same except the ECU wouldn't be subtracting any ginj to compensate for actual pressure being above reference pressure. Since would expect autocal to work OK with pressure being 0.3 bar out, it could be that fuelling seemed OK after adjusting pressure and re-running autocal because the gas temp had risen in the meentime - due to temp compensation ginj might then be above the imposed minimum of ginj. How does ginj compare to pinj at various loads including idle?

What size nozzles are in the Hana's (if Gold variety) or what spec are the Hana's? Those cylinder KW versus nozzle size charts are a very rough estimate, they presume too much and are something I never take notice of.

Simon

We've been through this before on LPGforum Gilbert, I think the findings were the gas is OK with copper but some pag oil isn't?

Mentioned how I'd replaced an electrolysis corroded aluminium section of pipe (where it meets steel car) with rubber pipe and fittings sourced from a hydraulic firm. That pipe was thick though, probably not an option for behind the dash.

Orangebean wrote:

Bill him for storage :)

That may be an option, but, I don't really want to go that route. May need the 63 back for half a day to complete the filler etc so it's got to be at a time to suit us both (not that there haven't been plenty times that would have suited me, it's been all down to him for it not being done) and when he brought the 63 in for conversion it was apparent that it had some dodgy petrol injectors.. so he asked me to change them (all 8!), which I did free of labour charges, I even passed on the receipts from Mercedes so he'd know I wasn't making anything out of injectors, but he spend the best part of £1000 on injectors which neither of us were anticipating, best part of a grand which maybe from his point of view he puts down to extra cost of LPG conversion... Kind of think he's had it tough already, but then again I suppose we both have.Just seems it would be a kick in the teeth to charge storage, I prefer to keep customers happy, and he's a decent bloke.

I reckon P38s are better than Discos in just about every way, especially comfort. When someone asks about converting a Disco to LPG I know I'm in for a long chat going through all the possible tank setups, especially if they've been quoted a single price elsewhere (for cylinder in the boot) and it's a 7 seater. What can people possibly prefer about Discos over P38s besides the 7 seat option?

Dare I say it here, I'd rather have the ML than a Disco. I've still got the ML, it's repairs (PAS leak, brake pipe leak and handbrake) will have to wait until I get time. Bought as an emergency holiday car to pull the caravan while carrying 7 people on the day before setting off on holiday, a gamble that paid off. Even the AC worked on it after a trip to Halfords for an AC gas canister, but on return from holiday, just backing the caravan back onto the drive the fanbelt tensioner let go, fixed already,.glad it let go when it did. 7 Seat arrangement on ML has all seats facing forwards, rear row is stow n go which I reckon is preferable to side facing.

I've had a customer ML in the yard since July! I converted this customer's new AMG63 ML around that time, he was supposed to be having a towbar fitted before the LPG conversion but the towbar firm had to cancel, so we arranged that I'd fit the LPG system but fit a temporary filler then I'd complete the install fitting the filler properly on his return after the towbar was fitted. The car I've had since June is his old AMG55 ML, plan was he'd come in the AMG55 to pick up the AMG63 and leave the AMG55 with me to sort out some problems with running on LPG. I sorted the AMG55 within a couple of days but since then I've heard from this customer only a couple of times, he hardly ever replies to emails, txt messages, calls etc. He still needs the filler on the AMG63 fitting properly and to collect his AMG55. Last time he answered was in November, telling me he'd been working outside the country. The 55 is in the way a bit, it's a pita keeping it's tyres inflated, battery charged and shifting it occasionally to keep it in working order.. What do I do? BTW, my ML is a lowly V6 version, I didn't 'claim' the 55 or even borrow it for the holiday lol.

Simon

On a thread like this I might not usually join in, except... I've just converted an old 3 series to LPG. could do a great job of converting the Bentley, have red hair, and ...can't see any reason why Disco owners would look down on P38s. I know which I'd rather have any day, and I've driven hundreds of both. Lol.

Simon

I don't own a P38 but I've had hundreds in my charge.. I know for sure some have had problems with the matrix / O rings (told by owners), a very tiny minority have had the problem while in my charge. Hope not to be talking out of place, but given how long the original setup seems to last I'd go Gilbert's route as long as the seating areas for O rings seemed OK and I could be confident the problem wouldn't still exist or quickly return after going to the trouble of taking the dash out. If I wasn't confident with O ring seats I might go the Audi route. I wouldn't feel the need to redesign an aspect of a vehicle that generally lasts upwards of 10 years if it were any more work than just fitting standard parts lol.

Ferryman wrote:

To keep the cooler radiator in one piece you could try to heat the nuts for a short while, aluminium expands very quickly when heated with a torch (kitchen chef's torch).
If no avail your plan can always be plan B.

Given the OP's previous two fires, not sure I'd advise heating bits of car up with a chef's torch lol.

I read OP's problem about maybe not being able to complete drive cycles, didn't know if he had a way of resetting adaptive values, thought the above would be of interest anyway, hence the post..

I suppose from LR's point of view it's in their interests to identify every problem etc during one visit from a customer... and performing the drive cycles would help with that (as well as being a chargeable procedure in it's own right...). But for a fairly clued up DIYer or generic garage, it might be apparent that just one component is at fault, in which case my method of preventing further codes.... that would otherwise prevent drive cycle completion being possible... is a good way to go.

It doesn't matter to an owner if drive cycles are completed, it's of no consequence, no need to rush and perform special procedures just to get a thumbs up from an engine ECU, especially not if you're reasonably confident you've just fixed the one component you know was the underlying reason for poor performance / error codes, if you have a basic scan tool that can show you all is well as you drive even before drive cycles are completed (or don't mind looking into any further error codes that might become apparent at some later time)... my method works without Nano type equipment and without wasting any fuel, time or effort.

I believe the most fussy ECUs fitted on Landrover models with the the Rover V8 are in really late model Rover V8 Disco's, the one with EGR, which do turn on Mil lamps if there is a problem... still relatively unfussy though.

How low does the tank need to be before trims are locked OB? Quite a few LPG users run with very little petrol in the tank lol!

Simon

I've always considered P38 drive cycle tests to complete very quickly and trims to shift quickly. Also, they have a simple set of trims compared to many vehicles (which might have more sets of Ltfts and be quite fussy around idle).

I'm not familiar with the drive cycles you linked to but I am very familiar with the concept - Every vehicle ECU has a set of drive cycles that must be completed without any problems before the ECU will report 'IM readiness complete' (which is ECU's way of reporting all drive cycles/tests have been done and passed), each such drive cycle can be considered a test roughly aimed at checking a specific set of components under the driving conditions of that test, so for each component to be deemed as checked and found good it has to pass all tests aimed at it. But it isn't necessary to know the specifics of each test, because well before all tests are complete fuel trims (including Ltfts) will shift properly, the vehicle will drive properly, and as long as there are no other problems all the tests will eventually be successfully completed (and then IM readiness will show as completed) anyway. So, if you're starting from a point where you know only one component was at fault, and you know you've fixed it, then you know that pretty soon all tests will be passed. Tests can be guessed - they will include a warm up cycle, a cruise at low speed / higher speed, acceleration, an idle test, engine restart. Having cured the immediate problem and reset fault codes the vehicle should drive properly (may need to help steer the trims as in previous post) and no other faults should come up,. I've never needed to look up drive cycles etc either, just drive under various conditions, let the engine idle, turn it off, restart, etc. P38 tests complete relatively quickly just by normal driving but my scanner (which isn't a very expensive type at all) shows which engine components have passed IM readiness tests, so if for example scanner shows heater circuit on a particular lambda probe hasn't passed the test yet, I'll know that either the probe has an actual heater fault (but then it would usually come up with a code for open heater circuit anyway) or the ECU is waiting to see if it gets a viable lambda reading soon after engine startup (probe won't show correct reading when cold even if the sensor component in the probe is good). Of course, probe will only give a viable reading with cool engine running closed loop soon after start up if Stft isn't maxed out and if the probe heater is working properly... so it can be necessary to read between the lines (as is always the case with diagnostics) - IM readiness reporting probe heater circuit hasn't passed tests could be due to actual (maybe intermittent) lambda heater fault or could simply be due to Stfts being maxed out.

Work on a lot of different make/model cars and have never needed to look up vehicle specific drive cycles etc, not even on Valvetronic BMWs which have far more complicated ECUs, trims and drive cycles.. easier just to wing it / read between the lines. If you were to carry out all those drive cycles on a P38 it would take you over 30 mins, but I'd usually have IM readiness checks completed and passed in far less time. If you try to follow those drive cycle checks having replaced a component such as a lambda probe or MAF sensor you might be there a lot longer than half an hour, because you might never pass drive cycle A, which says start the engine up and let idle for 2 mins, because during that 2 mins of idle the ECU might come up with fuel trim error due to maxed Stfts as discussed above.

Simon

I've often read about marque specific tools being necessary to reset adaptive values etc but I've never needed to use any of them. After fitting new parts such as AFM's, lambdas, etc, for sure sometimes the mixture doesn't automatically correct if the vehicle is just left idling and that can lead to problems but there are ways of getting around the problems.

What can happen is that short term trims immediately reach an extreme (positive or negative) to compensate for improperly learned (when bad part was fitted) long term trims and when short term trims are at an extreme they no longer effect long term trims. So, e.g., if the vehicle is fitted with new probes and just left idling, a mixture error code can be generated. Imagine Ltfts have been incorrectly learned to -25% but the engine really needs Ltft's to be +10% for correct mixture. In this case Ltft's are 35% too lean, so if Stft's max out at +25% the engine will run always run lean because -25(long) +25(short) = 0, where we need 10, so the engine will run 10% lean and this won't auto correct because with Stft's at an extreme Ltft's won't adjust (we would need Stft's to max out at at least +35% for this problem to correct itself). If this situation continues we soon get an OBD error for mixture too lean, so then the ECU may go into limp mode and just ignore the probes anyway...I can see why resetting adaptive values is suggested here and on other forums/threads where this is discussed.

But, what I find is that if new parts are fitted and then the vehicle is held at fast idle, this is usually enough for short term trims not to reach an extreme regardless of long term trim state, and with short term trims not at an extreme they do effect long term trims, so long term trims are soon steered to around correct values... and then the vehicle won't generate any error codes and will run properly in closed loop mode. I just monitor lambda voltage and short term trims after fitting new parts, and then nurse the fuel trims back to normal (usually fast idle works, or may need holding on the brakes in drive while a bit of throttle is applied, or less often a short road trip where you can place as much load on the engine as you like). In case you're monitoring lambda/trims and haven't seen lambda flick or Stft's shift from extreme for a while, pretty soon an OBD code may be logged, but a quick blip of the throttle will usually prevent that, because this gives a blip of rich mixture (due to acceleration enrichment, so lambda lean timeout is prevented) and time out on any particular set of fuel trims is prevented (because after the blip the engine will momentarily go open loop). Seems to work on just about anything, P38s and all the fussy stuff like BMWs, Jags, etc that we're supposed to need to reset adaptive values on.

Simon

Dunno if you refer to my last post on this thread Dave, but I was talking about a different forum,

Surely these mods on the other site are short sighted. If I were a mod I'd allow any relevant external link and argumentative comment, they serve to build reputation of a forum as an open, none censored, unbiased hub of discussion. Starting down the censorship and anti free speech road, people will surely come to realise the forum can no longer be considered a central hub of info and will wonder what content has been intentionally hidden from them. That would be enough to prompt me to check other forums for answers anyway, counter productive. Incorrect arguments can be talked through and shown to be incorrect, it can all add to forum interest, highlights lack of censorship and builds confidence in the forum among users.

I'm effectively barred from Lexus Owners Club forum for mentioning Lexus models converted to LPG should have a valve lube system fitted and posting a pic of a Lexus I converted. Another LPG installer advertises on the site and doesn't advise lubes are necessary on Lexus models, one of the moderators whom had his Lexus converted there censors anything that might be deemed negative against that firm as hostile content, even if content is correct and could help some of his members prevent burned engine valves.

Simon

I reckon 11mm ends on that Matrix filter, could be wrong...

Reckon whether 19mm pipe will fit over 22mm pipe will depend on brand of pipe. I have various types of coolant pipe and find the better branded / thicker walled stuff tends to be less flexible than cheaper stuff. Would think if you've got to force pipe so hard to stretch, that can't be great in terms of potential future failure point either.

A lot of vehicles that use 19mm heater hose have a small section that flares out to maybe 22mm where it connects to engine / firewall fittings, could simply go to a scrappies and cut some from a relatively new engine bay to save that £40 (for a metre of hose, really?), this would be a solution to 22mm to 19mm pipe in 4 inches if that's a problem, though I suppose you'd have to weigh up pros and cons / longevity with the stuff I refer to being only thin walled. Does the 22mm pipe need some adaptor to 19mm anyway?

Simon

Hehe holes in the manifold will definitely cause vac leaks...

Since you ran out of gas during autocal it is possible that actual pressure could be very different to the figure you entered before, because even well before it refused to run on gas it could have been just about running on vapour - again check actual pressure and adjust reference pressure to match.

Orangebean wrote:

Petrol Lambdas look pretty good to me

So, set working pressure to actual, do the -20% thing and run autocal again ;-)

What injector type did you set, what type are fitted, and what are the numbers in the map after autocal?

On the 'efficiency' and 'inconsistent per cylinder fuelling' points, a good way to tell is by checking manifold pressure or AFM reading. More efficient should see lower manifold pressure and airflow for same rpm with proviso both fuels have correct mixture. In fact, that's a little unfair to LPG because really map and airflow should increase slightly on LPG, if they decrease it points to an issue with petrol injectors. But bare in mind LPG system's reported map can read slightly differently when it's reference voltages are slightly offset, so a slight difference may be due to the LPG ECU driving LPG injectors.

SImon