Are CNG Conversion Kits Available for Most Cars

[Bob Cantrell]

It seems like if their were conversion kits for most cars one could go in the business of converting them and selling them along with home fill up units. Although one might be able to drive only say 40 miles and then switch badk to gasoline most people don't drive more than that most days.

Can anyone tell me more about this.

Bob Cantrell

[Jack Sparrow]

Re: Are CNG Conversion Kits Available for Most Cars

CNG Kits are available for most cars! A true statement. What kind of kit is the real point. EPA Cert kits are the only kit you want on your car! cheep JUNK kits are for sale and are put on cars by some shops and used car dealers trying to make a buck. Do not buy any car or kit that is not Factory install or a EPA approved you can hold in your hand. EPA kits must be better than OEM. Tested to last 250,000 to 300,000 miles. EPA Certification can run well over $100,000.00 this is for one type of car or truck. Say you have a 2008 Ford F250 with a 5.4 L V8 if you want a EPA Certification you will pay around $100,000.00 just for the certification the amount varies depending on the total number you will convert. Then you can put kits on a set number of that truck. Only that Year Make Model and Emissions Control Number (found under your hood) The EPA cert expires in 12 months so update or re-certification is needed. So why do you need to know this process? The installing of non EPA certified kits as tampering with a Federal Emissions Control system. Fines are $10,000.00 per day! NICE, REAL NICE, NOT!! So are there any EPA kits available? Yes! Some! all are for 2007 or 2008 Ford or Chevy that I know of. A dealership here in Pleasant Grove UT has been helpful. Hope this helps!

[cowboy]

Re: Are CNG Conversion Kits Available for Most Cars

the real deal is big oil big goverment dont want change so here comes epa and carb to stop the little guy we all know the dirtyest cng car is still cleaner than a gas car put a impco mixer up stream of throtle plate turn off gas it will run I just run old cars and trucks so I am pre smog I have worn out 3 cars with 1 mixer we have put mixers on brand a new car just to test if it would work it did but we took it back off so we didnt go to jail it is all a scam they just let us play and hope we go away I have been running cng and propane for 25 years we took the new car to marylnd smog insp and they were looking for a broking ex pipe as all most nothing was comming out and all we did was put a mixer on and unpluged the fuel pump relay so who is scamming who just my thought cowboy

[CraziFuzzy]

Re: Are CNG Conversion Kits Available for Most Cars

long list of conspiritory nonsense, sans punctuation

I'd like to see ANY even slight hint that 'BIG OIL' has done ANYTHING to inhibit CNG growth, I simply don't see it. It has simply not made financial sense for the majority until now. the EPA/CARB crush the business because that is what buerecratic regulatory bodies DO in the US, NOT because some man in dark glasses smelling like crude told them to, from dark corners. Fight the real culprits here, not the blind blame on 'BIG OIL'.

[cowboy]

Re: Are CNG Conversion Kits Available for Most Cars

than why bother regulating it at all as cng is cleaner than gas or diesel I still thimk dark glasses or not it is a scam

[John Mitton]

CNG can be much dirtier than gasoline

It is a myth that when you change the fuel to natural gas your emissions will always be cleaner. We found when prototyping our CNG Impala that a quick-n-dirty calibration really was dirty, especially CO emissions, and especially on a dynamomoter under load / simulated drive conditions.

EPA simply wants to see data showing that when you are done with your conversion:
1. What emissions level you are at (you can even be dirtier, they just need to assign the Bin and Tier number).
2. That the onboard diagnostics (OBDII) still work. The sensors must perform as the OEM intended them to perform; the MIL must illuminate when emissions reach 1.5 times baseline; and the OBD codes read correctly when the tech plugs in his scan tool to diagnose problems.

This has nothing to do with Big Oil and everything to do with making sure the consumer gets a vehicle that works well on the new fuel.

Oh, and the $100,000 is a myth too. Lab fees are around $40,000 (on top of acquiring a prototype vehicle, your work in calibrating, etc.).

[Yroc]

Re: CNG can be much dirtier than gasoline

"EPA simply wants to see data showing..."

I wish that were true!!. We are doing conversions that do not have epa certifications, but they are FULLY EPA COMPLIANT. We perform before and after baseline dyno tests that we easily meet the above requirements. Why should the EPA want more money from us? We can provide the data they want and we are producing clean burning vehicles that people can afford (not that they are cheap!).

[jblue]

Re: CNG can be much dirtier than gasoline

We found when prototyping our CNG Impala that a quick-n-dirty calibration really was dirty, especially CO emissions, and especially on a dynamomoter under load / simulated drive conditions.

Not to challenge your statement, but why did CO emissions go up when running on CNG and were you able to bring them down and how did you do it?

[TomofOhio]

Re: Are CNG Conversion Kits Available for Most Cars

Has anyone heard of someone actually being fined for tampering with an emissions system by installing a non-EPA certified CNG conversion system?

[John Mitton]

Re: CNG can be much dirtier than gasoline

Not to challenge your statement, but why did CO emissions go up when running on CNG and were you able to bring them down and how did you do it?

It is always a trade-off between CO and NOx (on-the-fly fuel trimming with rich burn vs. lean burn under various loads). Our first calibration had great NOx numbers but CO was off the charts. Eventually we got them both down to acceptable levels thru calibrating, testing, recalibrating...

[younkin]

Re: Are CNG Conversion Kits Available for Most Cars

I asked the same question about who has been fined and I got the same response.....(crickets chirping).....LOL Jim

[rtry9a]

Re: Are CNG Conversion Kits Available for Most Cars

Are CNG Conversion Kits Available for Most Cars- Yes, if EPA would get on board or get out of the way!!!

[Misterfixit]

Re: Are CNG Conversion Kits Available for Most Cars

Has anyone heard of someone actually being fined for tampering with an emissions system by installing a non-EPA certified CNG conversion system?

If you do enough poking around the edges of the Mechanical Hacker's Community you will find what I am talking about below:

Ethical Car Hackers, who are skilled mechanics and have the resources to obtain the necessary equipment for conversions, would never do this kind of defective and fraudulent work. Ethical Car Hackers for Clean Energy know how to convert correctly and properly (matter of fact some of them have day jobs in the industry) and the only thing lacking at the end of the day is "official certification by the EPA" -- an act which was written and promulgated from the start to limit and control conversion to pollution-free systems so that only the favored few vendors with fat-cat lobbies in DC benefit. All you have to do is look at the Phill Monopoly and the background of Phill's import licensing and "vendor network" to see just where the EPA and the Government is coming from. Honda and their "limited assembly line" isn't far behind, either. Gee, do you suppose that a $5,000+ premium over MSRP is any different from other auto manufacturer consumer screw-jobs in the past? Hummm?

Now, what can YOU do, besides write responses to this posting saying how much you either agree or disagree or think that I am a crazy --fill in the blanks for what ever suits your politics-- Folks, the only way we are going to achieve energy Independence is to have a swift and efficient conversion to systems such as CNG. It behooves every single one of you who read this to be pro-active and forcefully activist for CNG vehicles.

The only way the government and big industry is going to make CNG vehicles and fuel stations available is for the ordinary person to publicize the monopoly and feet-dragging by industry.

Write letters to the editor, get on talk shows (yes, both conservative AND liberal AM Radio shows); put a single and simple bumper sticker on your car... you know, just like you would paste on your Volvo for your favorite politico or Darwin versus Fish sticker, or "My Child is an Honor Student at Camarillo State Reformatory", "Save the Trees", "Save the 2d Amendment", Rush Limbaugh for President-for-Life", "My Gun and My Cold Dead Hands" or some other right or leftist twaddle, and so forth.

Most folks out there don't have a clue as to the advantages of CNG over gasoline. It is up to YOU (if you are sincere and are not already co-opted by the Monopolists) to make sure your fellow workers, your family members (yes, even your obnoxious brother-in-law who voted for --fill in the blank-- ).

Educate people and eventually someone will wake up from their dreamland state and ask you something like "Well, say, I'm thinking about getting a new car, what do you think about one of those cars that runs on natural gas"?

And look here, if you are an entrepreneur or a car dealer or a service station owner or in some way in a position to talk to your company Bean-Counters, make sure that the word "Profits, Low Overhead, Return on Investment, and Be the First One on Your Block" get transmitted to those company bean counters.

Remember that a company which spends around $4,000 per week on gasoline (such as the one for which I work) would sure be impressed when they discover that their fuel bills can be cut by some 75% just by converting the company fleet to CNG vehicles.

I recently made a presentation to our CEO and CFO with fancy Due Diligence Powerpoints, tax advantages, positive "Green" publicity and quick return on capital outlay, and both of them had blood shooting out of their eyes when I finished.

The CFO's first statement was "we replace our 26 courier cars with Honda's and we save HOW MUCH money per annum?" There was an exclamation point in there someplace too. The CEO, a very "inside the box thinker" said to the CFO "Charmaine, how soon can we do this?" They both looked at me standing at the head of the conference table.

I had to deliver the bad news to them at that point: "Sorry, but Honda and FuelMaker Corp has everything sewed up and for today and the near future, we and every other company is out of luck." Well, considering that they are both very well politically connected in the Statehouse, I expect "someone will do something" eventually.

I'll bet that identical situation has taken place thousands of times, and will continue until the monopoly is broken.

If you want to do something besides whine, get busy and be an Activist. It's ok, you can be an Under-Cover Activist if you want -- you know -- "Monkey War" instead of "Guerilla War" to you former Abby Hoffman students.

[josch]

Re: Are CNG Conversion Kits Available for Most Cars

Yeah, here in the USA (land of the free), the CNG industry does its BEST to keep the whole idea of DIY conversions a hush hush taboo thing. This only causes the DIY people to do it anyway using kits made outside the country that could be unsafe due to the fact that they may not have passed any US standards for DOT or NFPA 52 or anything like that because these people had to order these kits through the black market. This behavior by the EPA and the CNG industry in general, is corrupt, and only works to keep the avg 'free' American oppressed and bound to their commerce only. DIY'ers WANT to do safe and professional installs usually, but when 'safe installation' information is held back and safe kits are unattainable or difficult to get for the people by the people who think it is their duty to 'FEED' us this stuff (for a high cost of course), then of course these DIY'ers are going to try to do it ANYWAY and this my friend is the recipe for disaster, and those DIY'ers are going to be at higher risk for doing unsafe installs, using kits that don't meet any US safety standards, and installs that don't meet NFPA 52 standards. See what you FEEDERS have done? You have just bred a more dangerous world anyway by trying to make things extremely safe. Or perhaps they just do this because they just fear being sued in our sue-happy country.

By the way, I was just in Mexico for 3 weeks last month, and have noticed after coming back that America is NOT free at all. I think your average American citizen would fear TRUE freedom if they had it. Your average fearful American citizen wants to simply make a new law to prohibit behavior of others that they don't agree with. No respect for the fellow neighbor's wishes. Hey if you don't like all the racket next door, then why don't YOU move? Don't try to make a law telling me I can't make racket. If you don't like that I put my own CNG kit on my car then don't punish me unless it actually blew up. It's not a crime until it blows up. Things get safer by education, not by over regulation.

[John Mitton]

EPA just wants to make sure the OBD monitors still work and the right codes are set after you change the fuel. There is no conspiracy here.