To Whom It May Concern,

Ive taken on a new job looking after a fleet of BA taxi's. (20 of them)
we carefully monitor the fuel consumption everyday, we work on Km's per Litre. Average is 5.0, anything under 5.0 I need to look at. Best car get about 7.0.
5.0 is only 20L/100KM so it's still not great but these drivers drive like they aren't paying for the gas so consumption isn't ideal.
I've been playing around with them this week, driving while monitor the o2 sensor voltage and they all run pretty rich even from factory.
They usually idle at around .870 - .950mV until they go into closed loop.
Go out the road and go flat to the floor and they are all around .900mV-1.0V

Just wondering if there is a way to lean these converters out a bit?
I tried putting an adjustable "powervalve" in the main hose to the throttle body and although it does lean them out a tad up too, the low-end driveability is terrible. they just lean right out off idle, they don't like this at all.
Tried changing the secondary lever spring to a heavier one (off the shelf from bunnings), the spring i got was barely stiffer, got the mixtures down to about .780-.820mV full load/high rpm but it didn't make much difference. This didn't affect low end power.
Just wondering if I should try an even heavier spring or is there an easier way?
The seem rich everywhere even off idle when they are in open loop I usually get high o2 sensor reading as well.
I was thinking maybe that I could make the idle jet smaller in the converter? I measured the orifice to be 1.0mm I was thinking about soldering up the hole and redrilling it to .9mm and see if it makes a difference.
I have also cleaned the throttle bodies, checked for sealing balance pipes, fitted BF spark plugs, clean idle jets, stepper motor & solenoids all once per month etc.

I wonder if the cappa flash tuner is available for Duel fuel/Egas falcons. If it is then bobs your uncle. just lean it out by altering the fuel map.

egas cars don't have a fuel map.

The mixture is determined by the converter only.
The stepper motor & pcm only trims the mixture in closed loop.

If i could figure out how to put it in closed loop all the time that would work well too.

what sort of o2 sensor wide or narrow

i also thought there was a self tune mode on these....thats how they used to tune the EF and EL taxis.....

just had to hold the motor at 3000rpm (when in cal mode) and the stepper adjusted to get the mixture right..

the factory narrowband sensor.

the ba egas is different to the earlier models. they don't have a seperate ecu, the stepper motor is controlled with the pcm on the front left strut tower.
there is no self tuning procedure that I'm aware off, & I have the genuine manual.

i think u can put it in closed loop all of the time by disconnecting the tps wire

Don't the Ba's use the tps as a reference to the throttle opening degrees?

Just wondering how you got on with the BA gas tuning?
I just bought a BA with Egas. It was idling pretty rough but still averaged 11.5 l/ 100km open road. Someone suggested checking the plugs/ ignitors. Bingo, one of the plugs wasn't making a good connection, idles beautifully now.
I then took it too Ford to get a cruise system enabled and while they were there they cleaned the idle jet. It now averages 15 l/100km open rd and 17l/100 around town (driving as economical as I possibly can - With or without cruise enabled) !

I assume that cleaning the idle jet and enabling the cruise system should have no impact on economy?

Any ideas?

I have checked the stepper motor with Multimeter (all good) and also found everything is grounded really well.

cleaning the idle jet could be allowing full gas flow again (and also more power etc) which is making it use more than before but its very unusual.

Also, in regards to the leaning out mixtures etc, if the vehicles would run problem free leaned out surely ford would have done this from the beginning?

Power is actually down from before. I assume this is due to it running rich at the best of times...now it's running even ritcher!
If I could get it back to the way it was I'd be happy. Just wondering if enabling the cruise control in the computer has any effect on the LPG system, ie using a petrol flash instead of an LPG flash?

off topic sort of

luke can u post some pics of your 225 mixer on the EF 6 cyl???

My BA only uses 11 litres driving at 60km. But still in the 14-15's at 110km. Therefore I'm getting better mileage city driving than open rd!! any ideas what's going on here?? O2 sensor maybe???

O2 sensors seem to last a while. If its got less than 160,000km it should be ok.
Connect a multimeter to the o2 sensor and measure the volts.

cheers luke. At idle everything seems to be ok..in the .870 - .950mV range. I will try to rig something up to see what I get when driving under acceleration.
P.S car has done 137 000km

I have noticed that as soon as I put my aircon on my gas economy jumps 2 litres per 100km, does everyone else get this? Perhaps I need to re check all my earthing points again as this still may be my economy problem.

Secondly, I noticed that you can get self warming O2 sensors that reduce the time required for the O2 sensor to go closed loop. Do the BA's have such a sensor?

cheers guys