techcote

For those that might be interested, I'm about two weekends away from finishing the conversion of my 1972 Cutlass to a dual fuel car. I've had a few CNG cars and really liked the experience and price. In some states, local stations are available but I actually have a home fueling station. (1 gallon an hour and the unit was 7k).

I bought the kit and the tank for about a total $2,200. Fuel costs me $1 a gallon including the electricity to pump it. It's a big CNG tank made of steel an is 220lbs. It takes up half the trunk but if I can enjoy the heck out of my 455 I don't care.
IF anyone is interested I can send some pictures this weekend. I've seen this done to and old GTO and thought it was cool The difference here is I can run on either fuel. You need to since the CNG tank is only 11 Gallons of gas equivalent. I'm also adding a gear vendors kit to get the RPM's down. IT the overdrive unit you add to the back of your tranny.
Chris

techcote

The car runs great and has plenty of horsepower. I'm very surprised at how good it runs. Its also very easy to switch back to gas.

Seff

Just curious, what exactly is CNG?

techcote

Sorry! I've been exposed to it for so long. I have a home fueling station (compressor) that uses the NG on my property to fill the car. They also have quite a few public filling stations here in San Diego.

Seff

...I assume we're talking Natural Gas and not Nitroglycerin.

I've been wondering about alternative fuels, but that wouldn't be feasible for me.

MDchanic

Yeah, Seff, it's Compressed Natural Gas - you should be familiar with it "over there," as so many cars and, especially, commercial vehicles use it. The only major drawback is the extra tank (well, that and no place to refuel here in the US).

Now, if we could get LNG tanks, THAT would be "da bomb" (quite literally, I suppose).

- Eric

Seff

Having driven for years and just recently acquired a truck driver's license (any vehicle over 3.5 tons), I've never encountered anything, directly or in teaching material, other than forklifts that runs on CNG. Diesel is the big thing over here.

MDchanic

Ahhh...

When I live in Italy in the '90s, it seemed like every small delivery truck ran on CNG - they had the tanks attached to their rooves, often with their companies' signs over them.

- Eric

Seff

For driving in cities and stuff like that, it makes a lot more sense than here, where vehicles are so prohibitively expensive that 'everyone' has one vehicle that does everything.

m371961

I know of a fellow out here that has his own gas well. Converted all his vehicles to cng, got a compressor and all his fuel is free.
In Cali. do you report mileage to pay road tax?

garys 68

Big question, do you get tnhe tax incentives if you do the conversion yourself?
Oh yeah, pics and more details are required.