Unleaded Petrol and V8's.....Leon

[72cat]

It seems that by the year 2006 we will only have unleaded petrol available. How is that going to affect our V8's that are not able to use unleaded, I believe it has something to do with soft metal and hard metal, or something like that. Leon, I believe that Australia only has unleaded, if this is true, did you have to make any changes to your V8's?

[cmpcpro]

The US sells only unleaded, and all our cars run fine on it. They do sell an additive, if you are worried about it.

As for the metal being soft, what your talking about is the valves, and you can get a valve job done, with hardend valves, but yours should be just fine with unleaded. Although, everyone has a different view on the subject.

[leonbray]

Dayle -

We don't have any leaded fuel, neither does the US. Ihave converted the 69 to hardened valve seats so it can run inleaded (its on LPG at the moment) and will convert the others to unleaded when they are rebuilt.

Biggest problem in Australia is the lousy octane rating that cause pinging and having to retard timing. Our premium unleaded is about the same octane as standard unleaded any where else in the world

[72cat]

Thats it, the valve seats. Our unleaded fuel is 95 in major centres and at the coast, its lightly lower upcountry. Shell says it will not affect the performance of any car as it is equal to leaded without the lead.{?}, they also gave this little speech which I thought was extremely technically written.
Q.Will the use of unleaded petrol damage my car's engine?

A.Not if your car is designed to run on unleaded petrol. Car engines designed to run on

unleaded petrol are said to be compatible with unleaded petrol while car engines not

designed to run on unleaded petrol are said to be incompatible with unleaded.


Duh

[cougarguy]

I remember when they were removing the lead from california gas entirely and the news said i quote as i will never forget this " That manufactures have been slowly removing the lead from our gasoline for years now and because of this cars that required lead have been WHEENED off the additive" end quote. I still LMAO over that one every time i think of it. it is amazing what the uneducated will swallow.

[swamper]

I'm still using lead substitute in mine but have been told by other owners that they don't and have done so for years with no trouble.

I plan on swaping to Rush heads and the wory is over.

[sixt9coug]

you are complaining about having 95 octane?? wow... im in California and the best we can get at any local pump is 91 octane now... sure there are a few places that sell 100 octane.. but ive never even seen one in person. my car runs fine on 91 without any modifications. ive owned it for 3 years and have given it alot of freeway miles. no problems here

[leonbray]

in South Africa and Oz we use different measures for octane ratings. Your 91 octane is same as our 95

[cougarguy]

Swamper we are really lucky since ford used allot of nickle in the castings which makes them harder and more resistant to running without lead but mopar owners will burn out a seat in no time. I have heard of some people adding a cup of transmission fluid to each tank to lubricate the top end and its allot cheaper than lead substitute.

[72cat]

Leon, you've just burst my happy little bubble about our 95, oh well, its not like we roar around the track or anything.
Milo, its good to hear that about the Ford engines. And yes the uneducated public will believe anything. Sad but true.
I also read in the same article that it takes about 20 000kms for the lead to completely disappear out of your car's system, which would be about [where's that @#!#@ calculator] 12195 miles.

[swamper]

Thanks Cougarguy

In spring I will stop the pb(lead).