Sunday 2 January 2000
Lead Replacement Fuels
I shall, on the Exeter, for the first time, be filling up with non genuine 4 star fuel. Has anybody got any preferences, based on experiences or heresay, of the best way to go? Everything I read about in the Press, regarding 4 star LRP fuel points towards it being no good. I shall be using unleaded and Castrol Valvemaster Plus additive.
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John,I'm doing exactly the same as you and using the Castrol Valvemaster with un-leaded. I'm shelling out the extra brass and using The "plus" version with Octane Booster as the engine I have in my Beetle at the moment has quite a high compression ratio and un-leaded and LRP are 95 Octane while 4 star was 97. I have read in Practical Classics that you should not use an adative with LRP as the adatives can conflict.I see that LRP doses with potassium at 10 to 12 ppm. The Castrol Valemaster uses Phosphorous at (I think) 20-25ppm.The article in Practical Classics lists the addatives that have been tested and approved by the Federatiuon of British Historic Vehicles Club (who ever they are). The following have passed the test and carry the FBHVC logo:-Superblend Zero Lead 2000 (Potassium), Carplan Nitrox 4-star (Potassium), Redline Lead Substitute ()Sodium), Castrol Valvemaster (Phosphorus).With Octane Booster:-Millers VSP Plus (Manganese), Carplan Nitrox 4-lead (Manganese), Castrol Valvemaster Plus (Phosphorus).Michael
ReplyDeleteI checked out autos/gasoline-faq on the net some time ago, it comes in 4 parts and gives everything you could possibly want to know about 'gasoline',trouble is it does not of course mention the current range of products. It does indicate that Valvemaster has been in use 'over there' for some time and is made by the same people who used to make the Tetra Ethyl Lead stuff.If like me you try to wade through the gasoline web site you will be just as confused as me!
ReplyDeleteLike the rest of the messages so far it will be Castrol Valvemaster for the Singer. Ian Blackburn swears that they will run ok just on unleaded and has been doing so for some time but just incase we will be using an additive to unleaded. It seems that the classic press at the moment are at war with the petrol companys in order to obtain a British Standard for LRP, until then dont use it they say.Hopefully we wont have the millenium bug in terms of fuel problemsBest Of LuckKevin
ReplyDeleteHow did you get on? I was using valvemaster plus in the Marlin. I have had the head modified for unleaded but it will not run on it without pinking. If I retard the ignition to stop it pinking the performance takes a dive. I went as far as double dosing the additive with little success. Next time I will try an octane booster or perhaps super unleaded with valvemaster plus.Pete
ReplyDeleteLRP was dreadful for me, I should have used valvemaster plus, I could not find super unleaded. At low revs the pinking was terrible, I have manual ignition so at least I can advance again later. As a motorcyclist I have the problem of hanging on to the handlebars in the sections! too busy to advance once underway. Will have to go for auto advance with manual retained for fine tuning. Running retarded meant that the engine got hotter and made the problem worse. Will have to put the pistons back on the shelf where I found them! The previous pistons were rejected after my first Lands End in 1988 for the same problem-bring back Esso Golden Extra which it was supposed to run on.
ReplyDeleteI had no problems whatsoever with Castrol Valvemaster Plus on the Exeter. In fact, the engine seemed to go better!! I got pinking as soon as I used to get any dodgy 4 star, in the past, but not a hint of it. I even found it easy to measure out the correct quantity of additive in the middle of the night.Even my barber is not happy with LRP, he used it in his Fiesta and was not impressed by the lack of performance and pinking.
ReplyDeleteSorry to be boring but I have been running my Marlin (bog-standard BMC 1800 B-Series on twin SUs and electronic ignition) on LRP from a variety of sources without any (new) problems whatsoever. I have had problems of an intermittent misfire but this started on 4 Star and the symptoms haven't changed at all since going to LRP. I certainly had no power problems on the Exeter and have never had any 'pinking' in five years of ownership.I had the car set-up on Aldon's rolling road when they installed the ignition and it ran so much better afterwards that I have been loath to change to unleaded + additives until I could find the time to go back to Aldon and have them set it up properly again. Pete Hart's comments (on an essentially identical engine) are worrying.Let the debate continue!
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