As a rule i have never considered leaded petrol an option, once unleaded fuel was born. In fact I drove 10s of 1000s of miles on unleaded fuel in cars that were supposed to be unsuitable, and proved that the 'soft valve' claims were all a bit exaggerated.....
what about in stationary engines. I guess for most of us, the engines are not over-worked, so they should be fine on unleaded for a few hours now and again.....what do you guys run yours on? Do you use a lead substitute?
regards
ivan
Shouldn't be any need for anything like that, most industrial engines ran on
2-star or less, they had the luxury of 4-star later in their life but there was no such thing as leaded petrol for most people in the 1930's and most of the 1940's, it was only in the 1950's onwards that it became common at the pumps and there were cars available to use it.Get hold of a copy of Schlaifer/Heron's book on Aero Engine and Fuel development, gives a detailed history of the road to leaded petrol, leading up to some very high RON figures towards the end of WW2.
Peter
Peter
Shouldn't be a problem on most of our low compression, slow revving, understressed stuff. Some of the faster running engines (small Villiers JAP etc) from the 60's onwards could potentially suffer VSR if worked hard, but keep an eye on tappet clearances and it will still take a very long time to wear them out! My only observation on unleaded is that its keeping properties in vented tanks seems to be poor. It soon develops a stale smell and if left will gum everything up much quicker than leaded used to. I have taken to draining the whole fuel system, including float chamber, of any engine which is not likely to be run for a few months.
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