Carina E 1.8 Leanburn On Lpg

[Sparrow_NL]

I'm interested in buying a Toyota Carina E car with the Leanburn engine. And i have a questions which i hope you can answer.

Does this Car work with LPG (gas) ????

When i look at websites with secondhand cars i come about a few of these cars (about 10% have LPG here in Holland)

When i called a Toyota specialized seller (not a Toyota dealer). He said "it sucks". I dont want to believe that.

What is the downside to having LPG in an Carina E Leanburn??

If i am correct all Carina E with 1.8 liter from 1996-1997 are leanburns?

[cal]

Hello Sparrow_NL,

I have a Caldina but uses the same 7A-FE leanburn engine running on LPG. I had exactly the same question before I had it converted.

The answer to your question is YES. This car works fine with LPG. I have been running it now for nearly 60,000km and still is running fine. Before I had to converted, there were people saying things like may encounter valve problems etc. but none of that has happened. I drew my own conclusion on this issue as 'leanburn' runs hotter anyway thus the valve and stuff on this engine should be tough enough to cope with the heat from LPG.

Performance wise, it is great. In fact the low rev torque has increased and runs a lot smoother. Plus the biggest incentive is the cheap running cost. The only thing I have done is fully open the SCV(Swirl Control Valve) as this will allow the intake air to move more freely.

The downside is, well it is not really a downside as such but since mine is an estate, I opted for underfloor tank thus the capacity is small so it can only do about 350 to 420km on tank full of LPG. But again if I had a bigger tank fitted, I will not face this problem.

[Sparrow_NL]

That's good to know!

are there any more people who drive a leanburn with LPG ?

[Beardie]

I've had and still have Carina E's with LPG. My estate is over 100K now with no probs. Runs really nice. I have converted many without problems. Excellent 4A-FE and 7A-FE units. Go for it...

[cal]

Hi Beardie,

Just out of curiosity, which engine and what sort of mpg do you get out of your LPG Carina E?

[Beardie]

I've had a few, but my old failthful a 93 Jap model 1.6 Estate returns 350 miles per £18 of gas. Calculates at 30+ mpg on Gas or the equivalent of 60+ mpg on petrol. I don't have a light right foot either. The car carries the extra gas tank and a towbar. I ain't complaining...hahaha

[cal]

Thanks Beardie,

My 1.8 does around 28 to 31mpg on LPG. I didn't know whether that was good or not since I have nothing to compare against but since looking at your figure, mine looks reasonable.

[noyvirt]

Hello there,

I have done 115000 miles (from 300000-145000) on mine 95 Carina 1.6 leanburn 4A-FE engine with LPG. No problem at all. The engine runs better on LPG than on petrol.

I had to adjust the valve clearance only once at arround 105000 miles.

It is very economical as well - 33-34 mpg(LPG) but I had to increase the advance of the ignition timing to achieve this.

At 105000 I had to change the ruber O sealing of the water pump. Perhaps because the engine runs hotter or perhaps it was time for a change.

So yes I can join cal and Berdie that Carina is very good for LPG.

Recently I got a 1999 Avensis 1.8, 7A-FE and hope to achieve similar results. However still cannot figure out how to change the ignition timing on this one. Does anybody know how to increase the timing on this model? On the Carina it was simple distrubutor that it had to be rotated. On the Avensis everything is done via the ECU. Timing advance processor is one option but there must be some other way. I tried putting extra resistor 6K in the intake sensor but is does't help much. Anybody with similar experience please reply to this post.

Also first 5-6 miles when you start the ride is rough. The system is Romano SGI and is well set. Anybody know how to solve this?