well the verdict is in....drove to calif. and back on one fill of cng and 4 tanks of dino fuel including 5 days of driving around redding. If the infrastructure was in place it would have even been better but that was the only issue,no availability in redding although there is a plan for one in the next year. didnt throw a cell for the whole trip, maybe its getting used to the fuel!
bottom line is that I am glad I did the conversion although there is a little tweaking yet to do (stumbling at 1000 to 1500 rpm on cng). unless something happens this may be the last report as it works as planned!

 

It's been really amazing to see this evolve, and I'm really happy for you that you got the whole thing to work right.

If I were GM, I'd be taking notes.

Congrats!

PS. Someone forward this asap to t boone pickens ...

 

LOL! forgot to say that I still have 1/2 a tank of dino left from my trip...filled the CNG so I am going to see how much further I can go before my next dino fill....then I can crunch some numbers.

 

Wish I had been paying more attention - would have loved to see the setup and buy you a beer to convince you to swing through south tahoe.

 

I travel pretty often to both reno and calif. if you would like I can send you an emaiil on my next trip. I may be in reno around fathers day (depending on IF we have the air races this fall)

 

Minor issue....from 900 to 1500 rpm I have developed an acceleration stumble. It will balk if I try to accelerate to hard otherwise it is still working fine. This is kind of irritating as in typical traffic I am running in this RPM range. its going in on sat. for a check......

 

installed larger fuel rails as there was a fuel starvation issue. its driveable BUT there may be some cat damage. They have already agreed to replace the cats if needed, but I am going to Reno next week to work operations during PRS (pylon racing seminar, the required training for the NCAR races in sept) They need to check the cats then remap the fuel system so I can't really use the cng efficiently now. I am hoping that this will resolve all minor issues, otherwise it was an expensive EXPERIMENT.......oh well ay least I tried!

 

Are the issues related to the 2 mode or would they also have manifested in a gasoline only truck?

 

IF there is damage it is directly associated with the CNG. The car seems to be running fine on DINO no cels etc so I doubt the cats are damaged but when I get back from my trip they want to check them then remap the fuel system for the larger fuel rails we installed. It runs fine on CNG but i am not going to use it until I get back unless its an emergency.

 

back from a 3000+ mile trip. DID NOT use the CNG as it is going in fri for a system remap to the new larger fuel rails. there were no issues at all on the trip so I doubt there are any issues with the cats. I was running my diagnostic tool in my ipod and never saw any problems .... more to come.