US to UK Lighting Conversions
To drive an American RV in the UK or Europe, you’ll need several modifications to make your rig not only road legal but achieve a good level of comfort while living in it. The main ones include:
Exterior lights
- Separating the rear indicators from the brakes and converting them from
red to amber - Adding rear fog lights
- Installing white front side lamps
- Adding side repeater indicators
- Fitting a seven pin tow sockets
LPG Conversions
If you live, work or travel in a vehicle up to 12 metres long and weighing 8.5 tonnes, suddenly petrol consumption and the economy becomes extremely important. At up to £290 for a tank of petrol, it’s no wonder many RV owners are looking to avoid the sudden apprehension that accompanies ‘filling up’ and is now choosing to switch to alternative, cheaper sources of fuel like Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG).
LAS Motorhomes is a Liquid Petroleum Gas Association (LPGA) member and we specialise in converting petrol RVs to LPG.
Adding a second, independent fuel system offers a large number of benefits including:
- Cheaper fuel bills
- Increased engine life
- Lower maintenance costs
- Less engine wear when cold
- Quieter running
- Reduced harmful emissions
If your vehicle currently runs on petrol, you may consider converting it to LPG. LAS Motorhomes can convert your vehicle to run on LPG and effectively halve your fuel costs. The system we use at LAS Motorhomes is called “Zavoli”, which we have chosen specifically for its injectors. As injectors need to pump large quantities of gas when the engine is running on high load (which in the case of the American Motorhome is ~25% of the time), they need to be strong to prevent problems arising.
Zavoli pan injectors, when used with 2 reducers – as they are after a LAS conversion – have the capacity to run an engine producing 600 BHP. As an American Motorhome engine will traditionally produce around 360 BHP, the system is more than adequate for motorhome use. If an engine does not get enough LPG when running at a high load it is said to be running “lean”, forcing the combustion chamber temperature up. If the combustion chamber temperature rises too significantly then damage can be caused to the pistons and valves. A further advantage of the Zavoli pan injectors is the way they are fitted. Other manufacturers have a rail of 4 or 5 injectors which feed into the cylinders, proving costly to replace when only one has a problem (almost £500 for a new rail). Thankfully, Zavoli injectors fit one into each cylinder, so a breakdown in one cylinder will only mean one injector needs replacing at a cost of around £50. A few extra reasons why LAS use Zavoli injectors are:
- The 10 cylinder kits were developed for the V10 Ford Trident engine because LAS were a part of the development and test.
- The Zavoli warranty for the equipment is 3 years, without any extra cost.
- The system has been tested to Euro 5 emissions.
- A mainstream engine manufacturer asked 3 LPG manufacturers to fit 2 vehicles with their systems. The vehicles were then extensively tested and the engines examined microscopically. Zavoli was the only company to take up this challenge; the other 2 having dropped out.
