So I've been looking at a few things here and there, I have heard the idea of running your car on CNG (Compressed Natural Gas), but never knew anything about it. What caught my interest was the cars on ebay that said they can run on either gasoline or CNG.

Long story short, I'm curious as to what advantages there are vs. the disadvantages? So far I've read that the engine will live longer with CNG, get better fuel mileage, CNG cost's less than 1/3 of gas, etc etc. O, and I believe I read once that CNG has an octane rating of 130, if that's true I imagine it would go great with boost.

So why aren't we using it? Obvoiusly the cost of switching the cars over but other than that?

Lastly, can you run a diesel engine on CNG?

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The List;
-96 Saturn SL 5spd (wife's car) -84 Rabbit diesel 4spd (55+ MPG of daily driving fun)
-87 Fiero 3800 S1 S/C 5spd (almost road ready) -87 Fiero coupe 5spd (swapping in a stock 40K engine)
-87 GMC S15 2.8 5spd (rusty, 4WD snow duty) -93 F250 7.3 auto (tow duty when cars break down)
-85 S10 diesel 5spd(DD before rabbit, body swap soon) -84 S10 2.5 5spd (body donor and parts truck)
-91 Mercedes 190E (diesel 5spd swap and 50 MPG coming soon) -84 Mercedes 190D (donor for 190E)
-87 GT (7730 ecm, 3500, izusu 5spd swap coming soon) -88 Fiero coupe (Parts car)

There was a fairly lengthy thread on CNG powered cars about a month ago. I'd search for it. It's not archived yet and it was here in T O/T.

Local gas company switched all their trucks over years ago.

Friend that works there finds they get a bit less MPG, and its not got as much power but its more then made up for since the natural gas is cheaper ( well, for them its free ). Trucks last longer as it burns cleaner. Not as winter friendly. ( not sure why ).

Would have to reprogram your ECM + the conversion kit at the least..

Had a friend in college that converted his truck over, and the only trouble he had was finding fuel up in the city ( he was a farm boy ), but thats not a big deal these days i don't think. About once a month he would head home to refill ( about 60 miles away ).

I somehow doubt a diesel would work.

[This message has been edited by User00013170 (edited 10-04-2008).]

Just gonna double the prices of that too. already have in many places..

quote Originally posted by Monkeyman: There was a fairly lengthy thread on CNG powered cars about a month ago. I'd search for it. It's not archived yet and it was here in T O/T.

here it is:

https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum6/HTML/058854.html

Ya the gas company here has ran them for many years. Ive seen a lot of taxis and police vehicles too. The biggest problem is finding places to fill up. Far as I know there are only a few places in columbus you can take them and has to be normal hours on only weekdays. Going on any kind of trip would be a huge hassle. One of the high points is they leave and engine clean as new internally, almost never wear it out.