Ford LPG problems

Necam/Koltec GSI Replacement LPG Injector Cartridge

  • Vauxhall & Ford Dual Fuel Factory Fit
  • Astra, Combo, Vectra, Zafira, Transit Connect
GSI Gas Injector

GSI Gas Injector

These later type vehicles frequently suffer from injector failure. Common symptoms are uneven and poor engine idle, engine misfires at light throttle or under load. In some cases, symptoms may cause the LPG system to switch back to petrol. Vauxhall and Ford Motor Company have been selling factory LPG dual fuel converted vehicles since the late nineties. The early systems used a mechanical metering head but, from about 2002, vehicles were fitted with GSI systems with electronic type LPG injectors.

Even when these vehicles were purchased from new these symptoms commonly occurred, sometimes at very low mileages. Many owners who returned their vehicles to the main dealer, hoping to have the fault fixed under warranty were told that due to contaminated fuel (LPG) the injector replacement would not be covered without charge.

GSI Gas Injector - Cross-Section

Injector Cross-Section

Regardless of any fuel contamination or lack of regular LPG system servicing, these injectors, unlike most injectors used in aftermarket installations, have a very high failure rate.

CRD Performance have been Millbrook and Necam / Koltech approved for more than 10 years, to service and repair these systems. We have replaced hundreds of failed injector sets and have also, with varying results, replaced individual injectors where a budget repair was necessary due to limited funds. Sometimes we were lucky but on other occasions engine management lights were activated, resulting from single or multiple cylinder engine misfire detection due to the mismatch and better flow delivery rates of the injectors compared with that of the remaining old injectors. We have also tried to ultrasonically clean and recover these older injectors using our ASNU petrol injector test bench but found this does not work reliably.

To ensure smooth running, stable engine idle, guaranteed emissions, with no switch back to petrol or EML activation, these injectors should only be replaced as a matched set.

Replacement Injectors

Generic Gas InjectorIf you meter and measure the impedance (ohms) of these Necam injectors you will find they are approximately 20 ohms, which means when operating at a typical battery voltage of 13.5 volts, there is just 0.675 amps flowing through them.

Some LPG installers have made the very costly mistake of substituting the original high impedance injectors with one of the many common and cheaply available aftermarket types. This results in ECU failure of the Necam LPG system. We often receive calls from customers and garages asking if we can repair their damaged LPG ECU as a result.

What We Can Offer

Injector Pack InstalledCRD Performance, Bolton, is now able to offer owners of these factory LPG fitted vehicles a much more reliable and relatively low cost solution.

Manufactured in China, specifically for The CRD Group, this injector pack has built-in injector current limitation circuitry and is the only aftermarket compatible replacement injector pack that cannot cause damage to your vehicle’s LPG ECU.

Cost of Replacement

CRD Performance normally charges £165.00 or £265.00 + vat, depending on the make and model of vehicle to service a Necam LPG system. A replacement set of LPG injectors from Vauxhall will cost you in excess of £800.00 + vat and still leaves you with an unreliable system.

A replacement set of injectors for a Transit Connect from Ford, for example (available complete with inlet manifold only), will cost you over £1000.00 + vat, plus labour.

On most vehicles, CRD Performance will supply and fit the replacement LPG injector cartridge for only £400 (all inclusive), this price includes a full rolling road set-up, using our Sun Ram X11 Rolling Road. If an LPG service is also required, this will be discounted by 50% if carried out at the same time as the injector replacement.

Following the injector upgrade you will experience much better throttle response and better driveability as well as slightly more BHP higher up the engine’s rev range. Although fuel enrichment on throttle progression is improved slightly, closed loop fuel control remains the same, so that fuel economy or the vehicle’s ability to satisfy the MOT requirements does not change.

Availability

Injector Pack Close-UpIt is known within the LPG industry that Necam have stopped manufacturing new injectors. This new replacement injector cartridge is exclusive to CRD Performance in Bolton and cannot be purchased or installed through any other LPG specialist in the UK.

If you are an existing LPG installer or repair garage, please do not ask us to supply you with these units. We have negotiated an exclusive supply agreement, which has taken a lot of time and cash investment enabling us to do this, so please do not be offended if we refuse supply-only enquiries. The programming software required has also been specifically written.

Original Injectors

On some Ford and Vauxhall engines the original LPG injectors are inaccessible because of they are located under the inlet manifold, these types we leave in place. On most engines however we remove the original injectors as part of the upgrade and retain these ourselves under our surcharge policy. Customers who wish to retain their old injectors will need to pay a surcharge of £40.00 per injector.

Re-fitting of your Engine Cover

Customers should be aware that due to the size of the new injector cartridges it is often not possible to re-fit the engine cover.

To Book in Your Vehicle:

Contact CRD Performance on: 01204 529 529
Ask for Eddie or Vinny to discuss your requirements.

We will need your vehicle for up to two days. A free courtesy vehicle can be made available, provided we are given sufficient notice and you have your own 3rd party road risk insurance. Alternatively, there is an Enterprise Car Hire at the entrance to our Industrial Estate.

Repair and Servicing

Ford Logo Ford Motor Company also have vehicles on offer with a factory fitted option. The kit fitted can be one of three, the most popular one is the metering head variant of the Necam / Koltec system and this is the same system as the one fitted to the Vauxhall vehicles.

The other two systems are liquid injection systems. Liquid injection systems works similarly to a petrol-injection system, liquefied fuel is pumped out of the tank to a fuel pressure regulator and to the injectors. The system comprises of an LPG fuel tank with an integrated pump, a fuel pressure regulator with a pressure sensor and safety valve incorporated into it, liquid gas injectors and the LPG ECU

The Icon / Metatron system is a standard Multipoint system where as the Vialle system is a fully sequential system, apart from this the kits operate in the same way, for more information on how they work please visit the ‘talking technical’ section of the ‘LPG Conversion’ page.

These systems require less time to service and rarely suffer from a build up of contamination, but theses systems do develop faults that we are equipped to deal with, using the wiring schematics of the system, and having a full understanding on how these systems work we can diagnose and repair them.

Of the two systems we see more Icon / Metatron systems than we see of the Vialle type, unfortunately the Icon pumps have a reputation to suffer from failure, fortunately we have acquired a number of replacement pumps in which we can remove and install a brand new pump, the Vialle pump has been designed with an internal lubricating system and varies its running speed dependant of the gas demand, these wear reducing technologies reduce the number of pump failures we see with the Vialle system.