My son-in-law, who builds rock-crawling 4x4's, says he has seen severval propane powered 454's powering various types of rock-crawlers. They like the propane because the truck will still run upside down. Has anyone seen or have some thoughts on converting a 454 in a 28' Regal to propane? Seems like I saw an older Barth for sale that was propane powered. Now, I don't have any ideas of running by Barth upside down, just a little less dependent on Arab oil.

I have a 1973 454 propane powered Barth that we just went East across Canada and then West back through the USA for an 8000 mile trip.
The propane system works very well and behaves just like fuel injection.
BUT ... propane burns hotter than gas and you can burn out valves . My propane system was installed in the 1980's and they rebuilt the engine for propane with the hardened valves.
Propane seems to have about 10% less power than gas but fuel economy was about 8 mpg.
Propane is hard to find in some states but when you do it is cheap ... 1.39 - 1.99 gallon.
Conversions to propane systems are probably running $3-$5k with tanks , lines , vaporizer , carb change , new heads , etc.
George

When the Canadian Government gave some incentives to customers buying propaned, I
was assigned to work with the Engineers at the Oshawa Truck Plant to come up with a factory-installed propane fuel system. I believe it was in the late 70's. The system we used could have be used on Motorhome Chassis, but was never factory-installed by Chevrolet. That's not saying that a dealer could have ordered the parts, and installed it himself on a special order.

Propane burns hotter, and needs stellate valves, but the Btu's are lower on each combustion cycle. So, the coach won't have
the horsepower that the gas engine has, and
so, it will take longer to pass someone.
But it burns a lot cleaner, and should last
longer, unless there overheating problems.

Incidentally, we had to be very cautious to
assure everyone that there were no leaks in
the fuel system, because of the fire hazard.
Propane is heavier than air, and it will
seek the lowest point, such as the sewer, in
the garage and stay there. One little spark
can easily set off a fire.

Jake Jacobson