There’s a big difference between running propane on gas and diesel-a gas engine must rely on propane to fuel the entire burn so they are putting 5 times as much propane in. I agree I would not put that much in a diesel, but when you limit the amount low enough detonation of the propane would not even happen until at least 20 degrees BTDC when the diesel is being injected anyways.
Im not sure how you blew your powerstroke up at those power levels. Were you always running in an advanced timing setup? I know I personally logged 15,000 miles on a 7.3 with propane and ts chip. This kit has been on some over the road trucks for five years-why have they not blown yet? Could it be possible the kit you are using was not adjusted properly or malfunctioned? I really would like to know what the propane did to your egts-if they were raising then you were injecting too much. I am saying just inject enough to gain mileage not power…my powerstroke had maybe a 30-40 increase in power, not 80-100.
Did you ever keep track of propane usage compared to diesel? I just would like to know the reason your truck blew, so that nobody else has to make the same mistake.
You keep the "dosage" (lets be honest.... it's a DRUG) low not so that it won't pre-ignite, but so that when it does, the effect, and subsequent engine stress increase won't exceed the mechanical limitations of the bottom end.
What does propane quantity have to do with the autoignition point? Are you going to argue that 100lbs of propane will autoignite at ___ degrees, but that 10lbs will not autoignite until ___ higher temperature???
Obviously the propane will either pop, or it won't as the piston is approaching TDC. The amount only effects the subsequent degree to which the cylinder pressure is affected, not whether or not it's being affected.
It's like hitting your fingers with a hammer...
You're arguing that as long as you don't swing the hammer very hard, you aren't going to break your fingers because the hammer isn't harming them, and that at some arbitrary point harm just miraculously starts coming to your fingers as you swing harder and harder and at this same point blood and broken bones just spring up seemingly from out of nowhere.
My argument is that you're adding stress the whole time. It hurts your fingers the entire time, even though they might not be pouring blood (blowing coolant) or have bones breaking and shooting through the skin (rodding the block). The lesser of the evil doesn't remove the harm, it just LESSENS it to a degree where symptoms aren't going to show. The added stress is STILL there, you're still slamming your fingers with a freakin hammer.
I'm trying to tell you that it makes a hell of a lot more sense to put the G'damn hammer down, and stop slamming it into your own fingers than to just make sure you keep the swings down to a level where there's no blood or broken bones...
As to my truck, I popped the hell out of a head gasket after almost exactly a year of driving with the exact same setup that produced 268hp on fuel and 340ish on propane that I then backed down a bit even from there. It blew because the cylinder pressure amount, and onset was OBVIOUSLY too much for the engine to withstand.
Are you completely unaware of engines bending connecting rods, breaking main registers out of the block, blowing headgaskets so on and so forth while making pathetic power outputs through the use of propane?
An engine making an additional 100hp with propane is enduring similar, if not worse stress than one enduring an additional 400+hp on fuel.
Why beat the piss out of an engine for piss-poor gains when fuel only could have produced over twice the results without the stress?
You asked why does propane make an engine go boom..... and you apparently don't like the answer.
Why don't the OTR tractors pop??? Are you kidding? Ever seen the connecting rods and general size of
anything on an OTR engine??? Yet they are usually being run at what? 350... 450....550 ish hp? These same engines will do 1000+ easy without failures, and you can't figure out why they don't let go from an 80 shot of propane....
Must be because the propane isn't adding much stress. Well, either that, or the fact that the engine is built like a brick sh*t house....
