Prins conversion on a 2015 6.0 liter silverado

Propane, Butane, LPG, GPL, C3H8, C4H10
Dan350
Posts: 50
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2014 8:26 pm

Prins conversion on a 2015 6.0 liter silverado

Post by Dan350 »

Friends, i finally bit the proverbial bullet and got my truck converted today. As some of you may know, i have a 2500hd gasoline powered work truck that i use to haul in the Montreal area. I have racked up 42k KMs since i bought the truck new back in september. I pull a 5000lb 26 foot gooseneck trailer with loads weighing on average 5-6000lb and a maximum of 10000 lbs. So far, on gasoline I averaged 25.1 liters/100km since new. I pull that trailer every day and i use the truck for work only. My initial assessment of the system is quite good. If anyone is interested, i can share my thoughts on the system as the KMs roll by and post fuel mileage results and costs. I can answer any questions anyone might have about the operation of the system ect. although I am not as knowledgeable as most of the members of this forum, i'll answer the best I can.

fpvmustang
Posts: 33
Joined: Thu May 05, 2016 3:28 pm
Location: Quincy Ca. USA

Re: Prins conversion on a 2015 6.0 liter silverado

Post by fpvmustang »

I would like to see your fuel mileage.

Dan350
Posts: 50
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2014 8:26 pm

Re: Prins conversion on a 2015 6.0 liter silverado

Post by Dan350 »

Sure, i will post the km/100 l as soon as i fill up a second time. My tank has a capacity (at 80% watet capacity) of about 215 litres. I should fill up by friday night so i'll be able to let you know then.

storm
Posts: 796
Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 10:10 pm
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Prins conversion on a 2015 6.0 liter silverado

Post by storm »

Dan please do share. I'd love to fit this to my 350 Holden engine instead of using the GRA mixer.
Fuel flow requirements calculations
Engine air flow requirement calculation: CFM = Cubic Inches x RPM x Volumetric Efficiency (VE) ÷ 3456

Dan350
Posts: 50
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2014 8:26 pm

Re: Prins conversion on a 2015 6.0 liter silverado

Post by Dan350 »

So I topped up my propane tank today and here are the results. I drove a total of 487 KMs and consumed 149 liters of propane. That means the consumption is about 30.5 Liters / 100km. I was secretly hoping for 27-28 / 100. Still, I am paying 49 cents / liter so that means i'm paying 15$ for every 100 km instead of about 28$ with gasoline. I calculated that i saved about 62$ compared to gasoline for 487 KMs. I drive about 1000KMs a week so that means savings of about 125$ / week. Power difference is barely noticeable and the transition from gasoline to propane when warming up is seemless. One thing I like is that when i use full throttle the propane doesn't shut off if the mixture is too lean and switch to gasoline. Gasoline supplements the propane (in my case 2% blend) and keeps the RPMs climbing to 6000 (my engine is rated at 360hp) with no difference compared to gasoline only.
I had two different 10000lbs loads today (15k with trailer) and loads of 6000 yesterday and 2-3000 Wednesday
Questions? Comments? Fire away.

storm
Posts: 796
Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 10:10 pm
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Prins conversion on a 2015 6.0 liter silverado

Post by storm »

Does your system have the extra ECU fitted to control the LPG injectors?
Fuel flow requirements calculations
Engine air flow requirement calculation: CFM = Cubic Inches x RPM x Volumetric Efficiency (VE) ÷ 3456

Dan350
Posts: 50
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2014 8:26 pm

Re: Prins conversion on a 2015 6.0 liter silverado

Post by Dan350 »

One thing I just thought of is that the 49 cents I pay for a liter of propane does not include sales tax while the gasoline price of 1.13 does. That was not considered in the above calculations. Sales tax is refunded of course when it is a business expense. To be more clear i will take off 15% on the gasoline price for future comparisons. Yes, our provincial and federal sales tax amounts to 15% incredible as it may seem.

Dan350
Posts: 50
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2014 8:26 pm

Re: Prins conversion on a 2015 6.0 liter silverado

Post by Dan350 »

Yes storm, it does. It piggy backs off the stock GM ecu. As far as I know it tricks the stock ECU into thinking it controls the factory injectors while running the propane injectors. One neet feature that was programmed into the prins ecu by the installer is that it sends a signal to the fuel gage system to make it beleive that the gasoline level is changing in the tank. You can actually see the gage move slightly every few minutes. This is to avoid the check engine light from turning on when the stock ecu detects that the gasoline level in the tank is not going down when you run on propane.

Dan350
Posts: 50
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2014 8:26 pm

Re: Prins conversion on a 2015 6.0 liter silverado

Post by Dan350 »

One other thing. If you do the math, the 20x60 sleegers tank provides enough propane for about 700 KMs at 30L / 100km. Unloaded and without a trailer i'm sure i could do over 1000KMs. All for about 100$ of propane.

storm
Posts: 796
Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 10:10 pm
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Prins conversion on a 2015 6.0 liter silverado

Post by storm »

Thanks Dan that the system we have here in Australia. I'm wondering if optimising the petrol tune would help the LPG tune as well.
Fuel flow requirements calculations
Engine air flow requirement calculation: CFM = Cubic Inches x RPM x Volumetric Efficiency (VE) ÷ 3456

Dan350
Posts: 50
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2014 8:26 pm

Re: Prins conversion on a 2015 6.0 liter silverado

Post by Dan350 »

I'm not sure. On one hand the gas tune is based on the petrol tune, on the other hand, if the petrol tune was bad, the tuner could still program a good gas tune based on it, from what i can tell. When i picked up the truck last week the tuner plugged his lap top into a diagnostic port under the hood and was able to change the tune while i was driving. I'm not sure what the extent of the tuning was ( timing and fuel or just fuel ) but since he had done a number of these same trucks the initial tune he programmed into the prins ecu was pretty much spot on. He told me that they started to convert a few direct injection gm v8s and that the system worked well but there are problems with transitioning back and forth from petrol to gas because they use the oem petrol injectors for the gas as well and were trying to figure out how to purge or burn the risidual gas or petrol in the lines before switching over. He says that this was causing engine codes to pop up.
Tuesday, i will be hauling a 24 foot roof top condensor from montreal to Ottawa which will pretty much be all steady highway driving. I'll post the fuel mileage for that run which should be better that the stop and go city driving numbers i posted previously. It's about a 400km round trip.

storm
Posts: 796
Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 10:10 pm
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Prins conversion on a 2015 6.0 liter silverado

Post by storm »

Looking forward to the results.
Fuel flow requirements calculations
Engine air flow requirement calculation: CFM = Cubic Inches x RPM x Volumetric Efficiency (VE) ÷ 3456

Dan350
Posts: 50
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2014 8:26 pm

Re: Prins conversion on a 2015 6.0 liter silverado

Post by Dan350 »

Big load today. Not so heavy at 5000lbs (10000lbs with trailer) but big at 24 feet x 8 feet high 4 feet wide. A lot of wind resistance. 176.5 liters for 575 km. Comes out to 30.6 L/100 KMs. Still only 86$ for the trip. Estimated petrol costs at 25l/100km is 143$ at 1 dollar/Liter. Not bad.

storm
Posts: 796
Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 10:10 pm
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Prins conversion on a 2015 6.0 liter silverado

Post by storm »

Considering the loads you pull I think you've done well. I think with a bit of tune tweaking you could get better but the cost effectiveness may not be there.
What Prins injectors were fitted?
Fuel flow requirements calculations
Engine air flow requirement calculation: CFM = Cubic Inches x RPM x Volumetric Efficiency (VE) ÷ 3456

fpvmustang
Posts: 33
Joined: Thu May 05, 2016 3:28 pm
Location: Quincy Ca. USA

Re: Prins conversion on a 2015 6.0 liter silverado

Post by fpvmustang »

:D

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