LPG, CNG Rally cars

[Road hog]

Does someone know anything about rally cars powered by alternative fuels? I mean, are they legal by FIA regulations? Manfred Stohl raced in a Mitsubishi powered by CNG, but I think that Austrian championship is not compleatly under FIA so... Also I saw a many Ethanol powered cars racing, so I do not know if there is a diference between that fuel and LPG, regarding regulations of course.

[urabus-denoS2000]

Well I have one example:

Beppo Harrachs car in the Austrian championship ( Evo IX CNG that Manfred Stohl drove at Waldviertel) is more powerful than normal gr N Evo IX because it is not allowed by the FIA and has smaller restrictors.
But that can be solved by regulations.

Bioethanol cars are very popular these days,there are a lot of them.

I think that the FIA should allow these cars to compete because I talked to some drivers here in Croatia and they said that if it the FIA allowed that they would change to LPG immediately it is a lot cheaper than racing fuel and has nearly the same effect.

Some say that it is not safe becuse of the fuel tank but I think that is preety safe now.

[Mirek]

Road hog: CNG Evo IX doesn't suit the homologation. It has no restrictor for example.

Urabus: I don't agree it is as safe as petrol. Why it should be? A high-pressure tank of explosive gas will never be safe in crashes.

By the way E85 (not biothenol itself but mixture with petrol only) is not the way to go. Using biofuels becomes to be a big problem for third world countries. Simply people produce what they get money for and food production is going down. Because of that food becomes more expensive and may result in food crisis.

Massive production of biofuel monocultures also leads to devastation of soil. And in the moment it is also hard to estimate the real energy ballance because of big government grants going to biofuel producers. There are some studies that production of biofuel may use actualy more energy than is available for further use.

In my opinion Bio fuels are not ecologic way but only populistic. They may be used but only in limited emounth strongly regulated so as not to devastate large agricultural areas and not to push up the food prices.

[Road hog]

To Mirek Friz: I agree with you concerning the biofuel production, i.e. that it should be strictly regulated. I think of LPG and CNG as the only reasonable substitution for petrol at the moment, so it seems irrational to ban them. I think that the motorsport is supposed to go green as an example to the others. I think it s quite possible... :) As for the gas tank...I think it should not be a problem, since the tank is very thick and put under roll bar. And LPG is under pressure of 7 bars and that is not so hi.