Do you use lead additive in your fuel?

[DSMtuned]

What fuel do people use in cars that originally required leaded fuel?

Do most of you use the lead additive?

Is the ethanol in pump gas enough to combat knock?

-Craig

[Bob Kinker]

I use plain old unleaded pump gas in my antiques. From the Model T's to the GTX. Have had no problems.

[Oxnard Montalvo]

I've never had any problems with today's unleaded either.

[Guest Randy Berger]

I used unleaded Amoco in the 50s-60s and still use it today (if BP can be believed).

I never had any problems, but when I had a valve job done I had hardened seats and stainless valves installed.

[Guest Dave Mills]

Most of the time I just use unleaded fuel. Occassionally I will put a can of lead additive in. More out of habit than because of anything else.

[oldefar]

It all depends on your car and your driving. As a general rule we can say that driving your high performance, high compression car hard,WILL burn your valve-seats. Driving your antique or newer regular car at moderate speed and stress WILL NOT danmage your engine. Or the whole car for that matter. There have been some test on unleaded gasoline addetives, and the conclusion was that most of these addetives were just baloony, and a loss of mony. Personally, I have used the STP oil addetive since the 1960s on all of my American made cars, and this product is simply fantastic. I NEVER had an engine breakdown on any of my antique or any newer cars with STP in it in my whole life. Just one example: Driving more than 10 miles with NO WATER in the cooling system, but with 2 cans of STP oil addetive in the engine. I also use STP in gearboxes, and rear axles. Oh, don't worry, I don't sell STP myself, and have no stocks in the factory. No family or friends working there ither. Just some 45-50 years experience with this product. Anyway, last time I was in the U.S. it cost approx. $ 400,00 to have hardened valve-seats installed. If you want to be sure, I mean.

[241psa]

Remember, tetraethyl lead was introduced by Charles Kettering in 1924 and came into general use by 1926-27. No engine built before that time can possibly need leaded gas or lead addatives, because they weren't designed to take advantage of it. Also realize that 4, 5 and 6 to 1 compression ratios are really not putting a heavy load on an engine. Now 10.5 to 1 is something else.

[Aanderson44]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Remember, tetraethyl lead was introduced by Charles Kettering in 1924 and came into general use by 1926-27. No engine built before that time can possibly need leaded gas or lead addatives, because they weren't designed to take advantage of it. Also realize that 4, 5 and 6 to 1 compression ratios are really not putting a heavy load on an engine. Now 10.5 to 1 is something else. </div></div>

Not to mention the manually controlled spark advance that was still prevalent in the 1920's. For that matter, even the relatively anemic 6's built in the 50's, even flathead V8 Fords, didn't require all that much lead to prevent knocking or pinging.

Art

[ted sweet]

i do in my 66 newport and my 68 300.

[Guest De Soto Frank]

I have not used it in any of my vehicles, but also have not had the opportunity to run a fresh engine thousands of miles and then check the condition of the valves.

Chrysler Corp. was one of the pioneers of using hardened exhaust valves and seats in their engines, going back to about 1935...

I have not noticed any "sudden" deterioration in the performance of any of my vehicles that would suggest burning valves due to no-lead fuels...

Would think the greatest threat would be to pre-WW-II vehicles without hardened-valves that are run hard...

?

I run the cheapest no-lead I can find...usually BP or Exxon/Mobil.

[241psa]

Would think the greatest threat would be to pre-WW-II vehicles without hardened-valves that are run hard...

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> </div></div>

Any damn fool who runs one of those cars hard today, other than a true racing vehicle, deserves what he gets.

[Guest De Soto Frank]

As opposed to running it "hard" then ?

How hard is too hard?

When the subject of hardened valve conversions was being kicked around in the old car hobby mags 20 years ago, they kept talking about "sustained high speed operation"...even in 1940 terms, that can mean many things depending upon whether we're talking about about an eight-cylinder Chrysler with a 3.90 rear or a Model A or Chevy 490 ?

I'm not saying that pre-war cars should be beaten to death, but how does one determine the limitations of a given vehicle ? (Other than to "kill it", determine "what killed it", resurrect it, and try not to "kill it again")

And not all post-war cars are equally hardy either...I personally "killed" several stovebolt Chevy sixes when I was younger and didn't know any better...I wouldn't have thought that driving 55 mph was "excessive" for a 1950 Chevy Fleetline, but the 216 told me otherwise after a while...

I admit, I don't have the answers to all of the above questions...so how do we know which cars would benefit from valve upgrades or lead-additive ?

[Guffin]

I use it when I drive my Buick 32-87 because it has got new valves. From my experience lead may be important in a new engine or after a valve job. The valve seats seem to develop a hard surface after some use which will prevent pitting of the valve seats. I used my Hupmobile for many years using leaded gas. When leaded gas was forbidden here in Sweden (About 25 years ago?) i used unleaded gas without additives. Three years ago I took off the head and inspected the valves and they were in perfect condition. I usually drive the Hupp 60 on the highway.

A misunderstanding is that a low compression engine put less stress on the valves. This is only true at low rpm and low load. Fact is that the exhaust temperature is higher for a low compression engine than high compression engine. This is because the efficiency increase with the compression ratio which means that more of the heat is transformed to useful power. Most of the wasted heat goes out with the exhaust.

Jan

[Guest sixpack2639]

I use Shell 89 octane gas in every vehicle I own because as far as I know Shell does not add ethanol to their gas as yet.

As for using lead additive in my '51 Buick the answer is yes.

There have been many discussions on this forum about using or not using lead additives and many opinions as to weather or not to use them but I have yet to see any concrete proof that they are needed or not needed. Therefore I look at it like this, I pay hundreds of dollars a year for insurance on my vehicles so if lead additive helps prevent major damage to my engine why would I not spend the pennies per fill-up it costs to use it?

Just my .02 Carl