zbull, I can only give you my experience. I too had excessive yellow flames with LP. Even after adjusting the venturis open all the way there was still some yellow tips, but it didn't seem to affect the cooking any. I had read some posts from one or two others that had a similar problem. They had contacted Virco and received smaller orfices to compensate and it seemed to solve the problem. I am at a higher altitude than many (4500) and I atributed this to the problem. When I received my conversion kit I noticed the size of the orifice was 1.70 mm which, not to be too technical, converts to about 16000 BTU output, not the 20K that the burners are rated at. I actually found this to work rather well for me as I am getting nice blue flames. I had to adjust my venturis all the way closed after installing my conversion kit, because the increased air supply was not allowing the gas to travel all the way to the end of the burner tube where the ignitor was. I only discovered this after lighting the burners by hand and noticing the flames did not go all the way to the end of the tube. Once I closed the venturis, this problem was solved and the burners lit fine again. I could probably increase the size of the orifice to both regain my BTU's and be able to open the venturis a bit, but I am getting plenty of heat. By my estimates with an oven thermometer, I am getting about 600 at the grates! More than enough to sear any cut of anything for me. I don't mean to get too technical, but it is more than just a yes or no answer. The bottom line, I think, is that the orifices they send you are undersized for the BTU's that the grill is rated for, and if you have 7" of gas pressure (same as I did) then you should have similar results. I think I might try and drill the orifices out one size larger, according to the charts, this should increase my BTU's to 18K per burner. Well see though. I hope this has helped to some degree.

Converting to NG was quite easy. You will need to obtain a hose to hook up the grill to your gas line. I purchased mine at Home Depot. It is made by Charbroil, is a 12' long hose that attached directly to the grill on one end and has a quick disconnect fitting on the other end. The fitting has a female 3/8" pipe fitting on it, so if you have a standard 1/2" pipe stub, all you need is a reducer and some thread tape. I personally didn't use a regulator. Some people feel it is helpful in maintaining a certain pressure, but I haven't seen a need for one. I installed a gas pool heater a couple of years ago and didn't put one on there either, no problems with that. After all, I think that is one thing the gas meter does for all of your appliances anyway. The kit that you will get from Virco should contain all new valves with the orifices in them already. I am not sure why they do that, the valves seem the same and the orifices just screw in. You will also get a new "cage" for the side burner that mounts underneath it. The easiest way, for me at least, was to first remove the knobs from the front of the grill (after of course turning off, disconnecting, and removing the lp tank). Then, if you look under the edge of the control panel, you will need to undo the lp hose, the fitting for the side burner, and the fitting for the rear burner. Once you remove these, then disassemble the ignitors. This is done by simply unscrewing the buttons and removing the batteries, then unscrew the plastic nuts that hold the ignitor assemblies to the front panel, remove the assemblies from the rear of the panel and let hang. Now, you can remove the four screw (two on each end) of the front panel, and the panel will come off. With the panel off you can now replace the valves. You will need to disassemble the side burner to replace that orifice, it is pretty strait forward. The rear burner orifice needs to be replaced as well. Just remove the cover on the rear of the bbq (two screws). I Hope this helps, I am sure you will find it easy.

Glad to hear you are happy. The Webers get good ratings from Consumer Reports, as well. However, it's not quite the same type of grille as the Members Mark or the Virco, which have a more "professional" or restaurant quality appearance. I admit that looks were a large part of my decision to purchase the Virco. That it works well is of course very nice. I see no problems with the rotisserie other than the left hand warming shelf support interfering with the thumbscrew. Apparently this is a problem on one run of the Vircos. I fixed in in about 10 minutes with a dremel tool. For me, no biggie. The spit on the Virco is very strong and thick and looks like it could easily hold a 20 lb turkey. However, the Virco is not easily transported. It has high quality wheels, but the whole thing weighs about 200 lbs so I'm not planning on loading it into the truck and taking it to picnics. That's just not what it's designed for. Another good grill in the sub-$500 price range is the Great Outdoors grill series. These have 25 year burner warranties, and sound like they are excellent as well. Again, not a restaurant quality look, but like your Weber a well built functioning unit. In terms of temperatures... I frankly don't understand the preoccupation with temps over 500F. I don't think these extremely high temps are necessary or desirable for good cooking results. Searing can be done at 450F, indirect, or on the grill for direct heat. Roasting or smoke-roasting (which is what happens when you lower the lid) is best done at temps at or below 325. The rotisserie gives great results - the chamber only heats to about 150F - but who cares about that as long as the food is cooked properly?

Mini-review of Expo's Professional grill and a comparision to the Virco. After five or six years of frustration using my Weber (not enough heat) I decided to consider an upgrade. I really wanted the Weber to work, but I just couldn't get the temp over 450F. One day at Home Depot I saw the Straublestone (misspelled, I'm sure) and felt that was an upgrade at a reasonable price. So, before buying that I shopped around to be sure of my choice. One of the trips included a trip to Home Depot's Expo Center. This place is loaded with all the high-end grills, very painful to go in there because I want to buy ALL of them. ;-) But on this trip they had a new grill called the 'Professional'. It was priced at $1000 (actually $999 I think) and upon inspection it looked almost as good as the others that they had and a considerably lower price. I also strongly considered the $900 'Jenn-Air' which is really made by Vermont Castings. I choose the Pro over the Jenn-Air due to construction. It was almost all stainless where as the VC was not. So I coughed up my $1000 and went home a happy kid with his new toy. Well, about three months later I spot the Virco during a trip to Costco. Sheesh, two hundred dollars cheaper and ALL stainless. So I set out to sell the Pro (at a loss, of course) and buy a Virco. But I ended up with the MM Y0660 as explained earlier in this thread. The Pro grill is made by Charbroil for the Expo Center. They have also introduced a smaller, 45K BTU, 3-burner model for $800. Both grills has an unlimited warranty on the SS, a 10 year warranty on the burners and a 2 year warranty on any other part. Both grill come with a heavy-duty rotisserie standard and no side-burner. I don't know if this is an option, but I don't think that it is. The grill does not include a cover. It did come assembled at no additional charge. These grills arrived at the Expo unassembled and they sub-contract the assembly at their store. The Pro grill, while still a good product, seems to be overpriced when compared to the Virco. The Pro grill uses four 15K BTU cast iron burners for a 60K BTU total, same as the Virco. I was able to reach an indicated 550+ and I could tell that it was noticeably hotter than my old POS Weber. The pro's single biggest weak link is its drip tray design. First, it's fabricated out of epoxied or powder-coated steel, not stainless. Second, it is only accessable from the rear which makes it a bit of a pain to clean. and third, the dang thing is so poorly designed that it barely slides in it's slot. The tolerances are so poor that it wants to come out of its track and fall on one side or the other. It's hard to explain, but trust me, it sucks big time. I was so frustrated that I was in process of designing a new drip tray to be fabricated out of SS to replace that sorry design. I was quoted $100 by a local sheet-metal company. The Pro's rear IR burner is set in a black powder-coated steel panel wheras the Virco uses SS for the panel. The Pro's flame-tamers are make of regular steel and are black powder-coated. These will NOT last very long. They were starting to degrade during the three months that I owned my grill. They have a two-year warranty so you can probably get a set or two for free before the warranty expires. The cabinet on the Pro is inferior to the Virco. The cabinet is a single-walled wrap of stainless that has a two to three inch opening all the way around the top. So it does not offer any protection from the weather, it will get wet in there if the grill is uncovered. On the front are two single-wall doors, just folded SS sheetmetal. The Virco's cabinet is far superior. The Pro's lid is folded stainless sheet that is spot-welded on the sides. The Virco's is welded, ground and polished and as a result looks much nicer. The Pro did have a double wall lid but the gap is quite narrow. In spite of this, it did not discolor on the outside during my short ownership. The temperature gauge worked well and seems to be reasonably accurate but I never calibrated it to be sure. The handle on the lid looked like chrome plated steel, not solid SS as on the Virco. The handles on the sides of the cabinet were also chrome-plated, not SS. The Pro grill uses beautiful, cast & machined SS knobs. These really looks impressive, even better than the Vikings and DCSs. So there is absolutely nothing really wrong with the Pro except for it's price point. It served me very well and I was willing to deal with the non-SS parts as needed. But when compared to the Virco, it seems like it should be priced well under the $800 range. The Virco is truly unbeatable under $1000, at least for now. Who knows, maybe next year Virco will have some competition at that price point. -Terry