A lot of issues to discuss.
Up front, you won't recover many $ on a 3 door Disco 1 although you can often find 4 door D1 with gas for not many K$.
I run non-sequential LPG on my 4.6 RRc, I lose about 7% of power when running on LPG. You can have after ECU modules fitted that change the distributor setting when running on LPG, this overcomes the problems when you don't have a dual map ECU. I get within 1lt/100Km of my petrol economy on LPG
The back-firing of Rover V8s is often an installation problem. I have seen numerous LPG systems where the PCV is still connected to the original port of the plenum. This means that any crank case flame that bypasses the flame trap is discharged into the LPG rich fuel/air mix in the plenum, blowing apart the air induction system. The PCV hose needs to re-positioned to a point before the LPG mixer ring. I have never had a backfire on my LPG setup.
The thing that will most frustrate you is the loss of cargo space, a big issue in a D1. I would be looking towards the twin tanks where the original fuel tank is situated and one of the small petrol tanks in the RHS mudguard. Hopefully also a pair of petrol sill tanks would also help. Fuel endurance on LPG is always less than on petrol. While lots of places have LPG, it is still a problem in remote locations.
Regarding the cost, I was able to do anything I wanted at the height of the fuel price crisis, including trips to melbourne etc because I could always afford LPG. I would have had to seriously consider long trips on petrol.
Fitting a Toyota diesel, you are not going to get change from about $8,000.00
How so?
Even if they put the full 38c/lt tax on LPG it is still going to be a lot less than the price of petrol or diesel because of the low market penetration of LPG. Just look at the cost of LPG at your local servo, add 38c and compare it to the price of petrol or diesel. During the fuel price crisis, the price of LPG was hardly any different to what it is now, except that instead of being half the price of petrol it was sometimes a third of the petrol/diesel price.
Diana

