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Has anyone converted a 6.5 to natural gas?

Sentinelist

Sentinelist

Active Member
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Location
North Texas
Disclaimer: I work for a natural gas company. Yes, things are really sucking right now but hopefully turning a corner in the next year (but cheers to cheap bills at home).

I love the idea of having a refueling station at my ranch someday. While that equipment in of itself is a whole other ballgame, there are natgas refilling stations in my area and I'm interested in a conversion kit for the 6.5. Does one exist and has anyone done this before? Duel-fuel even? I'm thinking surely, from a commercial or government standpoint by now...

Post at the bottom here is the closest I've found:
http://www.sixfiveturbodiesel.com/showthread.php?3350-Compressed-Natural-Gas
 
You could supplement the diesel with nat gas, but you need very expensive equipment to refuel at home and the infrastructure around here is non existent. How is Dallas?
LPG is everywhere but then it seems you have to educate every LPG seller the difference between "road fuel" and LPG for your BBQ tanks. LPG Road fuel is about $1.75/gal now with $.50/gal rebate off tax return. Nat gas may be the same?
I have done a few gassers but not a diesel yet. I plan to do my P400 someday.
 
I should have figured you'd done something similar at least! Yeah I'm reading it's more an additive than a pure conversion, interesting how that'd work. I think the guy in that link says 30mpg around town is doable. The nearest LNG station for me is 20 mi. away, but actually kinda on my commute so that'd work. I think $2/GGE (Gasoline Gallon Equivalent).

Just curious at the moment. Not that I don't have enough other upgrades going on... :)
 
Whats a crime is the oil companies flare/burn nat gas off because there is so much of it they don't know what to do with it! WTF?
Pump it back down into the void I say.
 
When you're adding it, you have to pull diesel, so generally you will need custom tunes for running it.
When calculating mpg, that's just diesel mpg, still need to take into account the alternative fuel.
There are some cummins (mainly stationary for gensets and such) that could actually run diesel or ng. They had sparkplugs for lighting the ng. But would also work as a normal diesel with no changes having to be done to the engine.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk
 
A few years back we had a KTA 1150 cummins on a genset we put a supplementary gas unit on it we had the engine connected to normal diesal plus we had a bulk propane ? Tank
When the engine got up to about 1200rpm a little solinoid opens and let the gas into the base of the air cleaner,the engine was fitted with a Woodward governor wham the gas came on the governor would pull back about 10/15%
Worked really well on stationery plant ,the guy that sold the unit said they were tryiling units for heavy transport
In my mind it would probably work integrated into common rail program but in a mechanical set up driver habits may negate any saving
 
Burning oil said:
Whats a crime is the oil companies flare/burn nat gas off because there is so much of it they don't know what to do with it! WTF?
Pump it back down into the void I say.
Click to expand...

I used to say the same thing!
Yeah not that easy. The gaseous fuels are created and separated during the distilling process. They cant just pump it back into the ground, imagine pushing your bbq hose into the dirt then open the bottle.

The flare tips are used for 2 main reasons.
The cost of compressing and separating the lighter fuels simply costs way more than they can make by selling it. Also some of the gases can't be separated cleanly enough to be ran, with out wasting more product do do it with than your yield.

Both cases have been overcome in the past but the level of gubmint regulation just kills it.

Heck I'm laid off AGAIN right now waiting for gubmint to do a permit for us to put in a 45' long 2' diameter filtering stack (kinda like a distillation column, but not quite) so that we can recover propane and sell it to the market instead of just pushing it to our burners. We want to do exactly what customers and companies want- get the product to the people instead of burning it on site.

But burro-kraps have to get their cut and push their papers. They told us directly "We don't even know what to check for and how much of which laws apply to you, let alone how to inspect it." So the closest thing they could relate us to - plastics to oil mind you- is a drink mfr company a few miles away that had to add a high heat 1350f+, very high pressure 1200 psi+, flammable acid more flammable than propane pressure vessel to their system. Ours is a mixture of mostly diesel kerosene and some gasoline at 600 f and no where near 10 psi. Yeah and ours is 1/10th the size.

Gotta love the system. Soap box down.
 
I use to see Marc on a few forums several years ago but he moved on to a Duramax and I don't ever see him. Google his name and CNG. I think he is still around selling kits.

CNG tanks look bigger than LP tanks so I have never been interested. LP for a little more power seems doable.

I had a coworker quit and go to work for a power company burning methane in a Genset at a landfill. It did not make money as they had to filter and compress the gas. The genset was expensive and labor intensive. The whole system just had way too long if any payback. Seems they had to tear it down and rebuild weekly due to contamination in oil from combustion blow by.

I have wondered about doing something with at least a little bit of those flare gasses. Maybe a steam engine or Sterling engine. Then again I can see them as being labor intensive to operate not worth the hassle. I can see burning it off as the cheapest and easiest thing to do to get to the money.

Another pondering is why they haven't made a turbine that could burn about any gas. I think some turbines can run on cheap perfume if set up for it. That seems like a possibility not knowing the difficulties.

If the government and liability environment of today was there a 150 years ago we would never have had the industrial revolution.
 
I was kidding about pumping it back in the ground. What would happen if it ignited? the world would crack in half! then where would we be with a cracked world? Aliens would look at us and laugh because we look like a big butt from outer space.

Does seem like since they are just flaring it they could put it to use somehow? What a waste.
 
Love it. Yeah, believe me, growing up in West Texas it infuriates everyone in the industry that there's no infrastructure to capture byproduct natgas and pipe it somewhere. There are just so many wells, imagine the impossibility of running dozens or hundreds of miles of pipe - per well - to a storage hub where it could be piped out on an artery pipeline, few of which exist anyway where they're needed.

The result? Not cost effective. Burn it. It's a sad reality that will hopefully one day have a solution once the government gets out of the way and the industry can find a cheap way to do it. Fortunately, we've got at least a lifetime's worth of gas still in the ground here with more being found often, at least when the prices justify exploration and production/"E&P" (they do not currently).
 
Burning oil said:
You could supplement the diesel with nat gas, but you need very expensive equipment to refuel at home and the infrastructure around here is non existent. How is Dallas?
LPG is everywhere but then it seems you have to educate every LPG seller the difference between "road fuel" and LPG for your BBQ tanks. LPG Road fuel is about $1.75/gal now with $.50/gal rebate off tax return. Nat gas may be the same?
I have done a few gassers but not a diesel yet. I plan to do my P400 someday.
Click to expand...

Leroy, how's that P400 working for you?
 
Its been great, just took it on a big trip out to N. Cali. Ran perfect just need to change gears in axle.
 
North CA? Large area, how far north did you get? You weren't very many hours away from my area! It's roughly 8 hours on I-5 from home to my wife's relatives in Sacramento.

Don
 
NVW said:
We would still be on the coastlines.:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

That would have been cool, except there's been no truth to the climate data that's been monkeyed with by NOAA and various other special interest groups and Departments of Making Me Sad.

Would have been a shame about all the Redwoods and Sequoias though if so... maybe they could be salvaged to make, I dunno, hockey sticks?
 
The sun itself gets hotter as time go's on (not unlike my wife :D ) The whole solar system is warming up. Its hotter on Mars now than when they first started taking measurements.
The "climate change" wacks won't tell you that, because it must be our fault right?. Some people have a deep desire to feel guilty about something and do their best to make sure you do to.
 
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