There should be no problems with what you are trying to do and the engine life will be extended, propane is carbon deficient in its combustion so it will clean the engine, if you have trouble starting close the plug down 5 thou propane has a higher ignition temp, if the engine has points not electronic ignition it could eat the points more quickly, it has a slower flame front so there is a longer push on the piston so the bearings should last longer.
This reminds me of something that's been bugging me. I had always thought running a generator on propane or natural gas would make it live longer, but when I was looking at generators to purchase earlier this year, I kept finding comments on the various websites (mostly dealers' sites, don't remember if I saw any on a vendor's site) clearly stating the opposite - that a generator run on propane or natural gas would have to be replaced sooner. In some cases, considerably sooner!
So, why would they be saying that, when it seems fairly logical that it should live longer? Or maybe I missed something - I was lumping propane/NG together, but only paying attention to NG since that's what I would have run. [ Parent ]
If the engine has high carbon valve seats it can suffer damage to the seats, and rotory engines ie Wankel require fuel lubrication of the rotor tips, and suffer excessive wear of the tips.
As several generator companies offer LPG as an alternative fuel option, and CAT do an engine that will run on diesel, petrol, or various gasses by selecting the choice of fuel from the panel, but they are 12 ltr V12 not used in many RVs.
Generator manufacturers don't normaly go for high performance engines, 900, 1500, or 3000 depending on the number of poles, sorry in the US those RPM figures will be corespondingly higher. I would have no hesitation in running a small domestic generator on LPG, add to the fact the exhaust gasses are mainly CO2 and water, the Nox products are minimal.
Hope this helps
Brian. [ Parent ]
