I have been hoping off the shelf conversion systems would start turning up for this, especially as there were several trials done in the US over a decade ago. They used Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) in pallet-manifolded cylinders to add power to truck engines, which continued to run on diesel, using the existing injector to ignite the Gas/air mix. Fuel cost savings of 90% were achieved. LPG systems are around, but here in Australia, LPG is expensive, with its lower energy content per litre it is not much cheaper than petrol. Natural Gas is very cheap here, and we have plenty of it, and after waiting a long time, much of eastern Australia has pipelines criss-crossing the country, making possible the localised availabilty of at least CNG, and hopefully, Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) which has some associated difficulties (needing double-skinned stainless steel tanks for instance), but is much more practical to handle and store. To convert fully to natural gas would mean ripping out the injectors and fitting spark plugs and an ignition timing system. Has anyone been looking at this? Possible 90% fuel cost savings are attractive, but I am thinking more about when diesel hits $5.00 a litre, and my two twin 12V-71TT detroit-powered Wabco scrapers will have to be parked up! Especially I am wondering if 2 strokes could run on LNG, as all I have read only mentions 4 strokes. -Steve
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