LPG Vs MAF no winners... I Need Someone With Experience

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I agree with Marty. Look at the LPG wiring in the standard injector loom. Intermittent connection might only have effect at certain revs. If you don't want LPG then reinstate the original wiring. Also double check MAF wiring. It may be vibration prone as well.

Isn't there someone near you with nanocom? That should give live data.

Pete
 
Right. I can only tell you what I've got/had. OMVL gubbins on p38 Thor. If that's what you've got I can tell you how to take it out and put it back again. It's working so it'll have a value. There's a minefield of air/vacuum potential leaks. I came across perished pipes, split at connections and some even off. The flash lube bottle was empty and the hiss could be heard. Under the bananas is a peach for leaks. The gasket is a swine to keep located whilst wrestling with the re assembly. The last person to have ventured in used silicon. There's bound to be movement in the pipework from the nozzles to the injectors which gradually had unscrewed them. I was getting any message you like- bank lean, bank rich, loop opening and closing seemingly randomly. The maf reading wasn't great but was just about in spec. I could do 5mph or 50mph. Nothing in between. Mick at tinleytech nursed me through everything and then landyzone took over. I got through 4 lambdas and 3 maf sensors ending up with Bosch from island. As I said I'm no wizard on here but I've experienced your kind of dilemma. I can see why you suspect the LPG install. I hope you get it sorted. No doubt the cavalry will be here soon.
 
Right. I can only tell you what I've got/had. OMVL gubbins on p38 Thor. If that's what you've got I can tell you how to take it out and put it back again. It's working so it'll have a value. There's a minefield of air/vacuum potential leaks. I came across perished pipes, split at connections and some even off. The flash lube bottle was empty and the hiss could be heard. Under the bananas is a peach for leaks. The gasket is a swine to keep located whilst wrestling with the re assembly. The last person to have ventured in used silicon. There's bound to be movement in the pipework from the nozzles to the injectors which gradually had unscrewed them. I was getting any message you like- bank lean, bank rich, loop opening and closing seemingly randomly. The maf reading wasn't great but was just about in spec. I could do 5mph or 50mph. Nothing in between. Mick at tinleytech nursed me through everything and then landyzone took over. I got through 4 lambdas and 3 maf sensors ending up with Bosch from island. As I said I'm no wizard on here but I've experienced your kind of dilemma. I can see why you suspect the LPG install. I hope you get it sorted. No doubt the cavalry will be here soon.

Thank you for that Supapete. Mine is indeed the 4.0 THOR system and everything is Bosch (O2 sensors replaced last year 8k miles ago, as is MAF and plugs which were recommended for this engine, I replaced them again about 500 miles ago with "no" effect or change.

I did find one vacuum leak at the pipe the goes to the manifold (I forget where from right now, possibly gearbox) which was tee'd so a pipe could branch off to the LPG vapouriser. I fixed that & it made a slight difference.

You might be onto something with the manifold as I removed the octopus to change the leads, but I was ever so careful & checked it wasn't cracked or broken.... What the hell is a flash lube bottle when it's at home?? :eek: are you gonna tell me my high beams need oiled :p Seriously, since I have no knowledge of this, I can only imagine it is for the LPG to cool the charge or acts like lead in 4 star petrol, to cushion the valves??

The reason I am unhappy with LPG is that I am convinced it ruined the last engine (which is why, when I learned of the replacement in 2010 and checked the MoT's to find in 2009 the engine had 80k, in 2010 it had 84k and when I bought it, it had sat for 5 years on a farm and had 86k when I picked it up!!! I can only assume it had "in the region" of 5k miles on the new engine as although it was dusty, it was dry as a bone and started 1st kick off the jump leads). The man who replaced it is the local guru and I trust his word. He remembered my car as it's the "only" Icelandic Blue Mica coloured car in this whole region :eek::cool: I digress...

So, I "could" reinstall the LPG system if I replace the pipes and cooling pipework to the vapouriser & replug the vap, which is all I removed. The engine was missing long before I did any of the above. I didn't realise there was such a thing as a flash lube system and not sure what it looks like. I am happy to whip off the manifold and check everything. I have multi injectors for the LPG but also a "cat flap" on the air filter box at the top in case the system spits back, it goes out before it could go through the filter I guess.

So, how would I know if there "was" a flash lube bottle and how should it be connected to a multi injection LPG system? And where would be the likely spot on a 2000 THOR??

Thanks again....but it's still bothering me that the MAF flags up as dead and it acts as if she's running on a limp map, but seemingly only at around 1000/1200 rpm :confused:
 
LPG doesn't destroy these engines - lack of maintenance does. Yes, LPG runs a bit hotter, but with a well maintained cooling system it doesn't run any hotter than normal. Also if the LPG isn't set up properly, then it can cause bad running, throwing fuel trims out, and can lead to rich/lean running all the time. Lean running can cause the engine to run hotter - but again, if the LPG system has been calibrated properly, then it will run with no ill effects.

Mine has been on LPG since 2008 - which is 4 years before I bought it. I put a new water pump in as matter of course when I bought it (the leak that I saw was actually the gasket, not the pump as I had thought). I put a new engine in mine back in January, as I had a couple of core plugs that were starting to leak coolant, and rather than take mine off the road for however long it took me to strip the engine - and have the logistical issue of getting to/from my workshop, I decided to fit a new engine that I built up myself. I ran it on petrol for the first 1K, and then started getting the LPG side back in with new pipes, injectors, ECU (the old one was showing signs of heat on the board), vapouriser, filter etc. It's now been running on LPG for the past nearly 5K and is happy. Whilst the engine was out and as part of the rebuilt, it again had new water pump (Quinton Hazell), thermostat (genuine LR), radiator (Nissens) and a new set of hoses.

I also did a summer meet up of a few P38 owners from another forum I'm on. out of the 6 that arrived... 5 of them were V8's on LPG. The other was a diesel. One of the guys who has a V8 on LPG regularly does trips to the south of france, towing a loaded car trailer - about 3K return miles I think he said. None of us have had the dreaded head gasket failure, or even worse the "oh you run on LPG so you're guaranteed to get a slipped liner" bollocks which seems to go around. I just laugh at people now when they try to tell me that LPG will kill my engine.. My old engine that I pulled out and sent back to the rebuilders didn't have burnt valves, blown head gaskets, or slipped liners after 8 years of running on LPG.

Once it's set up and running properly, there's next to no noticeable difference power-wise running on gas, and it's a lot cheaper (and cleaner burning usually) than petrol. I just make sure the cooling system gets a bit of an extra check over - and when I top up coolant, I make sure it's with a correct water/antifreeze mix - rather than just topping up with straight water.

Flashlube is a valve saver lube, which is fitted to some LPG installations where there is cause for concern that without lubrication the valves will burn out ( as LPG is dry and doesn't lubricate the valves, unlike petrol which does.).
That being said, the Rover V8 has hard enough valves/seals that you don't NEED a lubing system on them. Mine doesn't have one, and neither do pretty much every other P38 on LPG I've seen. I've heard the newer RR's with the jag engine have valves/seats made of something a tiny bit tougher than cheese - so with LPG on those, you need a lubing system or you'll burn them out..

My little pro-lpg rant over... and back to your issue...

If you have a system with injectors on each cylinder, then you shouldn't need a cat flap in the air intake - They were mainly installed as a flame trap for the earlier single point systems where it was basically a gas ring in the air intake, and a backfire could then blow the air box off and destroy the MAF.. The newer injection systems only deliver a squirt of gas into each cylinder inlet (as the petrol injectors do) when they're fired by the engine ECU - rather than having the whole inlet tract full of gas all the time!

If you've replaced the O2 sensors, and MAF with genuine Bosch ones not so long ago, then I would also look into the wiring and make sure that is all OK.. I've seen a couple of times a wire get squished on the Bosch ones, where the upper inlet goes on, as it is a bit of a squeeze under there, especially with extra LPG wiring.

If you are getting rid of the LPG - as I mentioned before - there are only a handful of connections to the petrol loom.. a power source, 16 injectors feed/return wires, a rpm signal, possibly 2 lambda sensor connections, and I think that's it. The rest of the lPG wiring goes to it's components - the tank/vapouriser solenoids, temperature/gas sensors, level sender, changeover switch etc.

Some systems have piggyback plugs for the injectors, which makes it easier to install/remove, but the others (if it's a decent install) should be soldered/heatshrunk into the original loom. On mine, they tapped into everything in the engine loom where if goes into the rubber sheath along the firewall. The other option is, buy a second hand Thor loom without LPG installed, and just swap the whole loom over, then you don't have to worry about trying to find/remove other wiring.
 
LPG doesn't destroy these engines - lack of maintenance does. Yes, LPG runs a bit hotter, but with a well maintained cooling system it doesn't run any hotter than normal. Also if the LPG isn't set up properly, then it can cause bad running, throwing fuel trims out, and can lead to rich/lean running all the time. Lean running can cause the engine to run hotter - but again, if the LPG system has been calibrated properly, then it will run with no ill effects.

Mine has been on LPG since 2008 - which is 4 years before I bought it. I put a new water pump in as matter of course when I bought it (the leak that I saw was actually the gasket, not the pump as I had thought). I put a new engine in mine back in January, as I had a couple of core plugs that were starting to leak coolant, and rather than take mine off the road for however long it took me to strip the engine - and have the logistical issue of getting to/from my workshop, I decided to fit a new engine that I built up myself. I ran it on petrol for the first 1K, and then started getting the LPG side back in with new pipes, injectors, ECU (the old one was showing signs of heat on the board), vapouriser, filter etc. It's now been running on LPG for the past nearly 5K and is happy. Whilst the engine was out and as part of the rebuilt, it again had new water pump (Quinton Hazell), thermostat (genuine LR), radiator (Nissens) and a new set of hoses.

I also did a summer meet up of a few P38 owners from another forum I'm on. out of the 6 that arrived... 5 of them were V8's on LPG. The other was a diesel. One of the guys who has a V8 on LPG regularly does trips to the south of france, towing a loaded car trailer - about 3K return miles I think he said. None of us have had the dreaded head gasket failure, or even worse the "oh you run on LPG so you're guaranteed to get a slipped liner" bollocks which seems to go around. I just laugh at people now when they try to tell me that LPG will kill my engine.. My old engine that I pulled out and sent back to the rebuilders didn't have burnt valves, blown head gaskets, or slipped liners after 8 years of running on LPG.

Once it's set up and running properly, there's next to no noticeable difference power-wise running on gas, and it's a lot cheaper (and cleaner burning usually) than petrol. I just make sure the cooling system gets a bit of an extra check over - and when I top up coolant, I make sure it's with a correct water/antifreeze mix - rather than just topping up with straight water.

Flashlube is a valve saver lube, which is fitted to some LPG installations where there is cause for concern that without lubrication the valves will burn out ( as LPG is dry and doesn't lubricate the valves, unlike petrol which does.).
That being said, the Rover V8 has hard enough valves/seals that you don't NEED a lubing system on them. Mine doesn't have one, and neither do pretty much every other P38 on LPG I've seen. I've heard the newer RR's with the jag engine have valves/seats made of something a tiny bit tougher than cheese - so with LPG on those, you need a lubing system or you'll burn them out..

My little pro-lpg rant over... and back to your issue...

If you have a system with injectors on each cylinder, then you shouldn't need a cat flap in the air intake - They were mainly installed as a flame trap for the earlier single point systems where it was basically a gas ring in the air intake, and a backfire could then blow the air box off and destroy the MAF.. The newer injection systems only deliver a squirt of gas into each cylinder inlet (as the petrol injectors do) when they're fired by the engine ECU - rather than having the whole inlet tract full of gas all the time!

If you've replaced the O2 sensors, and MAF with genuine Bosch ones not so long ago, then I would also look into the wiring and make sure that is all OK.. I've seen a couple of times a wire get squished on the Bosch ones, where the upper inlet goes on, as it is a bit of a squeeze under there, especially with extra LPG wiring.

If you are getting rid of the LPG - as I mentioned before - there are only a handful of connections to the petrol loom.. a power source, 16 injectors feed/return wires, a rpm signal, possibly 2 lambda sensor connections, and I think that's it. The rest of the lPG wiring goes to it's components - the tank/vapouriser solenoids, temperature/gas sensors, level sender, changeover switch etc.

Some systems have piggyback plugs for the injectors, which makes it easier to install/remove, but the others (if it's a decent install) should be soldered/heatshrunk into the original loom. On mine, they tapped into everything in the engine loom where if goes into the rubber sheath along the firewall. The other option is, buy a second hand Thor loom without LPG installed, and just swap the whole loom over, then you don't have to worry about trying to find/remove other wiring.

Thanks for that Marty, I do know LPG is dry & hot, which is why I am not convinced about it... I do believe it originally had a boot mounted tank and single injection as there are bolts at each side just behind the rear seat (left in so no water could get in) and an unused copper pipe poking out on the passenger side engine bay.

I am happy to proceed to repair it if you really think it's worthwhile, but unsure where to start. I had to remove the twin underslung torpedoes as they are about as safe as torpedoes in my humble, so I removed the pipes & wiring to some sort of relay operated valve, I assume for regulating the flow from 3 tanks. The donut tank is in the spare wheel well and I want to remove it, dry the area as condensation is a bad thing, give the tank a check over & paint it. So, if I replaced the pipe direct from the tank to the filter & vapouriser, would I need to include that valve thingy? I'm guessing Ill need to take photo's, but Photobucket no longer wishes to play so I'll need to find another medium to host the pics...

Meanwhile, a thought has occurred, is it entirely possible my "leak" could b caused by the lack of pipe from the tanks? I mean, when they are filled, they are solenoid operated from the tank, so the pipe to the engine would be either pressurised or flat (no vacuum as there is a closed valve at the tank) so no air could travel in any direction. However, since I removed the pipe, is it possible that an air leak is coming through said pipe?? The more I think about it, this miss may have started after I fitted the new (factory) petrol tank? And to fit it, we had to remove the torpedoes & pipes, but I didn't blank off the gas pipe to the engine :eek:

So, if it is sucking in extra air, that is fine under full throttle, but on just above idle, it would interfere with the metered air and cause the MAF to think it is reading wrong!?

You think I may be on to something?? :eek:
 
When you get a post off Marty, you stay posted. I've been on the receiving end of one of them to my eternal gratitude. Forgot to mention, someone who'll remain nameless mixed the plumbing and wiring up to the injectors. That nameless one dismantled everything to get down behind the block. It's an easy matter to check and sort it out switching LPG to petrol in the software. If you haven't got it it's free to download but the lace up lead(s) can cost a few Bob. It's useful for general diagnosis as well. Sympathy.
 
Howdy do doo ..Injectors are some times pushed in on rubber seals,and if you have 16 injectors ,and sitting 5 years in a field with mice ect in the wire looms,, it might not all be as air tight or connected as it once was...Doint explain the maf prob though,unless its a wire :eek:o_O
 
I'm leaving the LPG side of things up to you as to whether you want to keep it or not... I'm only saying that from my experience, it's not as problematic as it's made out to be. And most of the other P38 owners I know run LPG on their V8's. a few don't as they don't do the mileage to warrant the cost of install, and some just want to keep it all factory. Others... well, have diesels :)

Regarding tanks - it does sound like you've previously had a single point system, which has been refitted to multipoint at some stage. In theory, if you disconnect the tank, vapouriser or the pipework in between, it shouldn't affect engine running. The LPG injectors should be air-tight when they are closed, so shouldn't let any additional air in. They are the last bit in the chain of the system, so anything being removed upstream of that shouldn't make a difference (I ran mine with old LPG injectors blocking the nozzles off on the inlet manifold whilst I was waiting for new injectors to arrive once, and didn't affect the running on petrol).

If you were to reinstate, then yes you would need a solenoid valve at both the tank end and there's usually one at the vapouriser end too (most of the time bolted to the vap).

Other sources for vacuum leaks from LPG are limited too, there are usually one or 2 pressure connections to the inlet manifold that would need blanking off - one usually goes to the LPG MAP sensor, and the other to the vapouriser. If either of these are open then that will let unmetered air in aswell.

If the LPG hoses from the injectors to the manifold are perished/cracking, or not a tight seal, then they could also cause addition air to come in, that could be hard to detect.

I would also suspect the air intake itself - if it's got a cat flap in it (again, suggests there was a single point system at some point) then if the intake pipe has been messed with to fit/remove the gas ring, and the cat flap, then again, other potential sources of air leaks in.

Pictures would definitely help, so we can see what's under there, and what it all looks like... I think some of the guys on the other forum I'm on have switched to Imgur or something like that, since photobucket went subscription!
 
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Worth spraying the inlets and ppes etc with carb cleaner and see if revs alter?

That would be my next move to see if it makes any difference.

The cat flap is before the MAF so it shouldn't make any difference if it had been leaking there (but it isn't as it's sprung shut tight).

I'll get the manifold & injectors checked when I can get a chance, but unless there is oil or some other contaminant getting to the actual sensor, I can't see "why" it's failing, which brings us back to a wiring fault to the MAF & it's heater components or resistance measuring parts of the ECU. But the code reader is SO specific and absolutely ONLY for Land/Range Rover so it's not as if it would miss anything such as a faulty ECU or throttle body or even O2 sensors :confused:
 
you really do need to have a look at the live data, that will give you a clue.. i'm recovering from an operation for the next few days, so ill ill plug in the faultmate and post the live data for a sorted P38 which will show the MAF reading for you.

NB. I have the same BRC multipoint LPG on the P38 and the Cayenne. the Cayenne has the flash lube reservoir, the P38 not as already said the RR doesn't need it. when I did the top end refresh, we checked pistons, liners, valve seats valves. absolutely mint. BikeTeacherDave will attest to that and I've had the BRC system on for oh 6 years and done plenty of mileage including towing a just shy of 1 tonne tilt bed trailer with range rovers on the back.
 
I had no faith in Hamish, twice I've told you now, (Bet he never charged you, friendly first name terms and all that jazz)
have you ever seen him with a multi meter?

But Mr Davidson was on the ball.;)
 
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Personally I also feel lpg is a killer of engines IF NOT MAPPED CORRECTLY. Rip out involves fixing injector wiring where cuts have been made. Fixing an ignition live where it's been cut. I plugged my manifold with Allen bolts and epoxy tbh. I did eventually replace the engine loom for one without cuts though but soldering also worked well. The rest can just be taken out gas won't escape as the tank solenoid is normally closed. Make sure to pipe the coolant correctly.....job done. Thor engines are better suited than gems for lpg tbh but badly adjusted lpg setups are a killer of any engine. I don't suggest they can't run right just most are not properly adjusted.
 
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