Thread: Mustang on Leaded Fuel...>help

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Hey Bob, here is another detail to support your statement:

Valve recession occurs in older heads with soft, cast iron seats. The solution to stop the recession is to replace the seat with a material that is harder....typically Rockwell 45 or so. Lets see.....
the lead is a cushion to a soft seat and all we do is to make a seat hard and remove the cushion.....kinda backwards logic if the lead is a cushion since the harder seat would need more cushion.

The lead info is kinda like the sugar in the gas tank legend......it won't hurt your engine but folks will argue forever that it's true.

Here is some info from the net:
"A small amount of valve recession results from normal high mileage wear, but it can also occur when unleaded gasoline or a "dry" fuel such as propane or natural gas is used in an engine that isn’t equipped with hard seats. Recession takes place when the seats get hot and microscopic welds form between the valve face and seat. Every time the valve opens, tiny chunks of metal are torn away and blown out the exhaust. Over time, the seat is gradually eaten away and the valve slowly sinks deeper and deeper into the head. Eventually the lash in the valvetrain closes up and prevents the valve from seating. This causes the valve to overheat and burn. Compression is lost and the engine is diagnosed as having a "bad valve." The seat also has to be replaced, but it many instances it may not be recognized as the underlying cause of the valve failure."

The above suports Bob's statement about "tiny bubbles" being transferred......it's almost time for tiny bubbles anyway.

Originally posted by robot
Hey Bob, here is another detail to support your statement:

Valve recession occurs in older heads with soft, cast iron seats. The solution to stop the recession is to replace the seat with a material that is harder....typically Rockwell 45 or so. Lets see.....
the lead is a cushion to a soft seat and all we do is to make a seat hard and remove the cushion.....kinda backwards logic if the lead is a cushion since the harder seat would need more cushion.

The lead info is kinda like the sugar in the gas tank legend......it won't hurt your engine but folks will argue forever that it's true.

Here is some info from the net:
"A small amount of valve recession results from normal high mileage wear, but it can also occur when unleaded gasoline or a "dry" fuel such as propane or natural gas is used in an engine that isn’t equipped with hard seats. Recession takes place when the seats get hot and microscopic welds form between the valve face and seat. Every time the valve opens, tiny chunks of metal are torn away and blown out the exhaust. Over time, the seat is gradually eaten away and the valve slowly sinks deeper and deeper into the head. Eventually the lash in the valvetrain closes up and prevents the valve from seating. This causes the valve to overheat and burn. Compression is lost and the engine is diagnosed as having a "bad valve." The seat also has to be replaced, but it many instances it may not be recognized as the underlying cause of the valve failure."

in
The above suports Bob's statement about "tiny bubbles" being transferred......it's almost time for tiny bubbles anyway.

did i hear you say sugar in the gas tank wont hurt anything ?

Sugar in the gas tank will:

1. stop up the pickup sock
2. mess with the filter (maybe)

See http://www.snopes.com/autos/grace/sugar.asp

We tried it here at work since a large group of guys believed in the sugar legend. Snopes appears to be correct. As a kid we dumped a lot of sugar and never got squat for results.....sugar was 39 cents a bag then.....that was when I made 50 cents an hour before tax. duh.

By the way, after you mix the sugar into the gasoline, dont try to make creme brulee with your propane torch....

EVERYONE has a tale of knowing someone who knew of a sugared tank.

robot youer not helping bob with statements like that. obviously you've never seen a motor thats had sugar in it. i have and everything in it was frooze up, pure syrup. pistons stuck to the block, couldnt drive them out, carb. full of syrup. we pulled the complete motor, fuel lines and fuel tank out and threw them away. i dont know what you was doing, but it wont putting any amount of sugar in gas.

ps that guy that wrote that write up is crazy as hell. tell him to come down to my house and let me put the sugar in the his tank. ive seen it more than one time and it was just the way he said it wouldnt be..

Mike, I'm not worried about Mike's (that might get some heads spinnin' )posts................they're both accurate. Sorry if I used terms that were confusing, that's not the intent.

We talked about the valve seat recession less than a couple weeks ago; http://www.clubhotrod.com/forums/sho...alve+seat+weld

A little over a year ago Richard started a thread on engine tuning wherein we discussed some other of the factors involved in pinging; http://www.clubhotrod.com/forums/sho...alve+seat+weld

Personally it doesn't matter to me if folks want to accept the real causes of problems, or choose to believe mythology. I can't control that. I do, however, think it is useful to put out information that is valid and informed. Some folks will read it, some will do some extra research to proof it, and some will dismiss it out of hand. That's human nature. I've spent part of my career involved in fuel and lube developement and testing. We used a combination of dyno cells and real world fleet testing. I share the results of that research and developement here. Those that want to accept it will, others who don't won't. There are reasons for everything. For those curious to understand those reasons there's lots to be learned. For those that don't wish to spend the time pursuing that info, that's their choice.

Just to add some extra research possibilities for those interested, the Discovery Channel show "Myth Busters" did the sugar/gas tank thing in season two, episode 15 or 16. It's worth looking up or viewing if they do one of those marathon days again.

You are also correct about the octane rating numbers being different today than 30 years ago. But it's not just that actual octane ratings are lower today than then. If you look at that small octane rating sticker on the pump you'll see a formula printed there in tiny print. It says, R+M/2 (or it may have the division symbol instead of the slash). That means that the number on the pump, known as AKI (anti-knock index) is a product of averageing the R (for Research) method and the M (for Motor). The numbers used in the early '70's were based on the Research method, which is usually 6-8 points higher than the Motor method. So, as you've probably already figured out, the AKI is half way in between, so about 3-4 points lower than Research numbers.

My problem is that naturally occuring vanadium in the fuel I use forms in tiny little beads on the valve seat. Vanadium is extremely hard and when the valve closes on it, these little pieces get driven into the seat. Then, they eventually fall out leaving a nice little pit. We also have problems with oxides of sulfer condensing out of the combustion gasses after all of the fuel has expanded within the cylinders. Well, oxides of sulfer and water from combustion mix forming sulfuric acid which eats away at the cylinder walls and decreases the time between overhaul. On our particular design of engine, the sulfuric acid can get into the lubricating oil where it eats away at bearings so we must use a more basic oil. Too basic of an oil will eat away at bearings too, so we must maintain a very delicate balance.

Originally posted by Bob Parmenter
Mike, I'm not worried about Mike's (that might get some heads spinnin' )posts................they're both accurate. Sorry if I used terms that were confusing, that's not the intent.

We talked about the valve seat recession less than a couple weeks ago; http://www.clubhotrod.com/forums/sho...alve+seat+weld

A little over a year ago Richard started a thread on engine tuning wherein we discussed some other of the factors involved in pinging; http://www.clubhotrod.com/forums/sho...alve+seat+weld

Personally it doesn't matter to me if folks want to accept the real causes of problems, or choose to believe mythology. I can't control that. I do, however, think it is useful to put out information that is valid and informed. Some folks will read it, some will do some extra research to proof it, and some will dismiss it out of hand. That's human nature. I've spent part of my career involved in fuel and lube developement and testing. We used a combination of dyno cells and real world fleet testing. I share the results of that research and developement here. Those that want to accept it will, others who don't won't. There are reasons for everything. For those curious to understand those reasons there's lots to be learned. For those that don't wish to spend the time pursuing that info, that's their choice.

Just to add some extra research possibilities for those interested, the Discovery Channel show "Myth Busters" did the sugar/gas tank thing in season two, episode 15 or 16. It's worth looking up or viewing if they do one of those marathon days again.

You are also correct about the octane rating numbers being different today than 30 years ago. But it's not just that actual octane ratings are lower today than then. If you look at that small octane rating sticker on the pump you'll see a formula printed there in tiny print. It says, R+M/2 (or it may have the division symbol instead of the slash). That means that the number on the pump, known as AKI (anti-knock index) is a product of averageing the R (for Research) method and the M (for Motor). The numbers used in the early '70's were based on the Research method, which is usually 6-8 points higher than the Motor method. So, as you've probably already figured out, the AKI is half way in between, so about 3-4 points lower than Research numbers.

all of this is very interesting and im sure a lot of things have changed in the last 30 yrs to a dif. way of thinking on a lot of this stuff, so ill just have to try to come to some understanding of my own, but i can talk about something i do know, that is sugar in gas. it will fill your carb. and motor up with syrup and stick pistons to the block and anybody says it wont don't know what he's talking about, or that guys wife know something about sugar that all these other people don't know, because she shut him down with sugar.

Geez, what's up with you guys? I loved leaded gasoline and I wish they still dispensed at the pump. My 327 has stock 11:1 compression and it loved 102 Sunoco when I could get it. Even 96 octane ethyl let me run 12 degrees initial advance. I can only run 4 degrees on the high octane unleaded crap they sell now; there's gotta be some difference somewhere.

Yeah, I know all about lead pollution from gasoline, but I never knew of anybody that died from it. We all used to wash parts it the stuff and we didn't even get sick from it. Lead will kill you alright, you've just got to take it in the right form, like lead acetate for instance. That stuff will go right through your skin and into your bloodstream in a hurry. But, they didn't put lead acetate in leaded gasoline, they used tetraethyl lead.

And there is the reason leaded gasoline worked so well to control combustion in high compression engines in the first place. Lead is simply the metal atom that the four ethyl functional groups are bonded to. Breaking the bonds from the lead to the four ethyl groups is what slows the combustion process. The metal molecule could have been antimony just as well as lead, possibly even cadmium or zinc. Lead was probably chosen because of economics alone.

If everybody is so concerned about air pollution, especially the self-righteous, federally funded EPA; then how come someone doesn't yell about all the jet airliners spewing hundreds (thousands?) of tons of hydrocarbons into the stratosphere every day? Would it be economic suicide to impose smog controls on the airlines? I bet it would, so they go unregulated by the EPA and you get smog controls on your lawnmower and cannot cook out on a bad air day. Hoo Boy! What a system we've got!

Anyway leaded gasoline is not the demon it's been made out to be, or I'd be dead instead of 50. High octane allows for high compression which allows for more horsepower period. If you think octane rating doesn't matter, fill your tank with hexane, it has an octane rating of about 0. Where do you get hexane? Coleman lantern fuel is mostly mixed hexanes, you can try that. I guarantee it won't even run good in a lawnmower, and it will absolutely destroy an automobile engine. Ever hear of anyone running on drip gasoline or casinghead. Same stuff more or less, just more impurities.

You can put 2,2,4 trimethyl pentane (isooctane) in a high compression engine like my Nova's and it will not ping or knock when you lug it in 4th! I know this from my own experience, I've burned a couple of gallons of the stuff contaminated with tetracholoroehthylene (TCE) from the EPA lab that I worked in for 14 years as a chemist. Isooctane has a octane rating of 100 and is the standard used in the motor octane rating of gasoline to this day. The 0 octane standard is n-heptane, but n-hexane could have been used just as well. What's the idea behind telling motorists that higher octane gas won't help your performance? I don't know, maybe they figure that the higher octane fuel by allowing greater initial advance, will cause more air pollution? That' my best guess because I really don't know for sure, even after 25 years of living with unleaded gasoline.

As to the original question of this thread, leaded gasoline will shorten your plug life to may 1/6 of what you'll get with unleaded. If you still have a catalytic converter(s), the lead will eventually and irreversibly poison the platinum/rhodium catalyst, and render it useless. Some types of converters (GM) will also stop up with extended lead use, although I don't think Ford converters are so affected. And leaded gasoline will generally dirty up your engine (internally) more than unleaded, specifically in the combustion chambers of the heads. I suppose it could leave deposits in your fuel injector nozzles as well, but maybe not. Anyway, these days, since leaded gasoline is history, I really can't see any advantage to using it in your engine, especially since so many years of engineering design has gone into making engines live on unleaded fuel. You would probably gain about as much benefit by dumping in a gallon of acetone into your gas tank as you would using the lead additive. I don't think I would do it myself.

Randy

Denny,

As far as I know, no petroleum comes from the ground with lead in it. Lead is practically insoluble in an organic solution, which is what would probably best describe crude oil. For lead to be soluble in gasoline, it needs to have some type of organic functional group attached to the lead atom itself; hence, the use of tetraethyl lead in the first place.

I remember hearing back in '72 or '73 when unleaded gasoline first started becoming commonplace in the U.S., that the oil companies were gonna have a heckuva time getting the lead out of the gasoline, and the extra expense to do it was gonna cost every motorist bigtime. Do you remember how unleaded cost roughly 10 cents/gallon more at the pump than leaded regular until they took leaded fuel completely off of the market? I used to think that must be due to lead removal from the processed gasoline. But, since gasoline initially doensn't contain ANY lead, that didn't exactly make sense.

After about 20 years working with gasoline and gasoline products, the only thing I can offer as an explanation for the supposed problem of removal of lead from gasoline is that they must have been referring to lead contamination both at the refinery level and the dispensary level due to years of use of leaded gasoline. It was probably just a scam, like the first gasoline shortage in late '73. At 10 cents/gal on every gallon of gasoline sold in the country for almost 10 years, they could have practically built new refineries, much less cleaned up the old ones. As for contamination at the dispensary level; (gasoline filling stations) that expense fell on the owner, not the supplier. Anyway after about 3 storage tank emptyings and refillings, there wouldn't be enough tetraethyl lead left in the thing to find without some very sophisiticated analytical instrumentation and a good chemist to interpret the results.

And lastly, the only naturally occuring gasoline that I know of is drip or casinghead, and that is almost completely composed of pentanes and hexanes that condense from extracted crude at the wellhead. It does not contain any lead whatsoever.

Randy

stupid epa

There are real reasons why building octane rating without lead costs more than with it. But you guys seem to be having so much fun with conspiracy theories I'd hate to ruin your fun.

Bob, you're probably next gonna say that the octane rating
of water approaches infinity.......

mike in tucson

another thing.....i love the smell of leaded fuel exhaust......thankss for the replies now i got more info

Does leaded gas weigh more than no lead? For a lightweight car, we should consider this.

Originally posted by Mustang5.O
another thing.....i love the smell of leaded fuel exhaust......thankss for the replies now i got more info

If U think it smellz' good U should taste it ........... mmmmmmmmm