No more decent fuel?

[Camshaft1]

Pulled into a servo the other day. cracked open the diesel cap pumping diesel into her and glanced over to the bowser. No more Lead replacment! they'd taken out the LRP pump and put in a second unleaded pump. and the whole servo was the same! This was at a BP and i was very suprised. Has anybody else noticed this around the traps? What are old high comp engines gonna do without some nice high octane juice? Drive around pinging i suppose. Also not sure as i probably wasnt listening in fuel class at trade school at the time but doesnt unleaded have another ingrediant in it to make do for the lack of lead? And doesnt this ingrediant when burnt and not swirlled around a cat convertor come out and kill us all? I know exhaust smoke is not great to be sucking in at any rate but this cant be good. am not a mechanic so small facts may be all wrong? have you seen any other simmilar fuel stops?

[MARKx4]

It must be a BP thing. The BP up the road is the same. To have good fuel know you have to get 98 octane and if in a older car run those additives. Leason for you who are buying the addatives, buy a 4ltr bottle and keep filling the little singke use bottles. I think the little bottles at mobile cost between $2-$3 dollars for a lazy amount and a 4ltr container costs around $40 i think.

[-Scott-]

The catalytic converter is a platinum grid which acts as a catalyst to ensure some of the harmful emissions are oxidised into less harmful emissions. The lead in leaded petrol coats the platinum, thereby stopping the process, and making the converter useless.

LRP had some different additive to mimic the effect of lead on soft valve seat inserts, thereby limiting valve seat recession on older motors. Motors which don't need the additive to protect the valve seats can run ULP without problem - high comp motors will need to either retard ignition, or use PULP. The 96 octane stuff should be fine, as that was the rating of leaded/LRP. But 98 should be better.

Those vehicles with soft valve seats need the additive if they can't get LRP. Anything below about 9:1 compression should be fine on standard.

And yes, anything without a catalytic converter (i.e. my Sigma ) is producing more harmful emissions than those vehicles with a fully functional one.

Cheers,

Scott

[MKPatrolGuy]

I was in the Mobil near my work the other day and noticed no more LRP. What they had in its place was "Synergy 6000" which is meant to be 96 octane Unleaded

[grazza]

I have always wondered if a car running on unleaded without cats is more harmful than running leaded.
Other questions: what is the life of the catalytic converters?
When do they start working off cold?

I am getting an engine conversion and the mechanic said I dont need to run cats because my GQ is a "commercial" vehicle - even though I am fitting a modern motor that had cats on the donor car. Is this irresponsible? Should I get cats?

[Camshaft1]

Not sure on that grazza but i know if a car has one on from factory and you take it off it means big, big, fines. likewise if its got a hole in it. a few grand iv'e been told. but then im a gulable bastard too.

[grazza]

Well my car did not have them on from factory, with the TB42 (no cat but it ran unleaded)
But the 1UZ-FE did. So I guess I am safe...

[RichardW]

My understanding is LRP is being phased out, like now. For older vehicles you will need to buy the addative and add it to the fuel.

[ISUZUROVER]

What are old high comp engines gonna do without some nice high octane juice? Drive around pinging i suppose.

High octane fuel is still available for engines that need it - Optimax, etc - that is 100 RON - much higher than LRP (94 RON???). For engines whith cast iron heads and no separate exhaust valve seats you just have to buy "valvemaster" and add it to each tank - or get hardened exhaust valve seats fitted.

doesnt unleaded have another ingrediant in it to make do for the lack of lead? And doesnt this ingrediant when burnt and not swirlled around a cat convertor come out and kill us all?

No - the most harmful thing in unleaded fuel is the aromatic carbon content (expecially toluene and benzene) however this is proportional to octane rating (RON) so LRP had more than normal unleaded as it was higher octane. The rumours about unleaded being more harmful than leaded (without a cat.) were started by the company making the lead additive - and are complete bullshit. Leaded is worse.

[Tas_Dean]

I agree that those who need to use flashlube or similar should buy it in bulk, it's heaps cheaper.

You can buy a flashlube kit (and I'm sure all the others would make a kit too!), that hooks into a carby vacuum line and suction feeds flashlube into the motor, the kit costs around $60-$80, and no more hassle adding to the fuel. You then just top up the reservoir every now and then, and it doses at a more economical rate than the little doses into the tank.

There are quite a few webpages on the internet with info about which cars need to use additives and which don't.

I've also been told that it only takes about cupful of leaded (not LRP) to kil a catalytic convertor, therefore a lot of older cars (and probably some newer ones too) will have useless "cats" anyway. You should see what goes on in a lot of fuel depots, you really don't know what fuel your getting!!!!!

By the way, you can get better airflow (performance) through your cat by taking it out, drilling through the honeycomb inside it with a spade bit, and putting it back on. It would be very hard for transport to find pick this up!!!

Cheers, Dean

[Mytqik]

I
By the way, you can get better airflow (performance) through your cat by taking it out, drilling through the honeycomb inside it with a spade bit, and putting it back on. It would be very hard for transport to find pick this up!!!

Cheers, Dean

I went one better, I cut the thing open & pulled the contents out, then weled it back together. Was all fine & dandy until was pulled over by the transport department & told me I had to go over the pits (50mm clearance ).

So I returned everthing to stock, but forgot about the exhaust. They stuck a probe up & busted me for a defective exhaust. The only thing that saved me, was the welding on the cat look factory & not tampered with.

They told me at the time it was a $1000 for deliberate tampering on a cat.

[V8Patrol]

My understanding is LRP is being phased out, like now. For older vehicles you will need to buy the addative and add it to the fuel.

100% correct !

Its been gone from the pumps here for over a month now..... and was done so because of government legislation of "phasing out lead from the enviroment"
There was also a thing on ACA about it with a car dealer stating that "older cars are now worthless because of this fuels removal". They spoke to owners of leaded cars who were pi$$ed off at having to spend an extra $10 for a fuel additive everytime they filled up.

LPG solves the problem instantly for many cars of that era...problem is the "restored cars" yep those classic cars T model plords, right through to the A9X toranas etc are now very expensive to run let alone own & an LPG tank takes away the "originality" of the car too....

typical government shyte....lack of thought, lack of consultation, lack of passing a real effective law as per usual.

Kingy

[hienuf]

chep fix......run prem unleaded....keep ears open for pinging!

[Tas_Dean]

[color=yellow]

There was also a thing on ACA about it with a car dealer stating that "older cars are now worthless because of this fuels removal". They spoke to owners of leaded cars who were pi$$ed off at having to spend an extra $10 for a fuel additive everytime they filled up.


Kingy

I saw the same program, and it does NOT cost ten dollars for a fuel additive per fill. A 1 litre bottle of flashlube costs around $17, and from memory you use about 30ml to 50 litres of fuel! Just another case of the media trying to jump on the bandwagon!

Cheers, Dean

[bad_religion_au]

i haven't run my cruiser on petrol for ages, but i stuffed a few gas lines the other day (actually in camperdown kingy, and the same night a bloke in a como split a gas line in the same servo, and the CFA were called out) and filled with prem unl, and added the flashlube. definately only a couple of bucks per fill (mind you, the cruiser used 40 litres to do 120 k's... set up for gas though). ran awesome though.

i watched that ACA cause the ads said "if you own an older car, watch tonight to see how the government is removing it from you"... when i saw it was only about phasing out lrp, i promptly threw the remote at the tele.

for the classic cars, do you honestly believe that hardening the valve seats would detract from originality too much?

[360 scout]

there is alot of myths out there concerning different fuels.
1/ "we don't have any good fuel any more"
we actually have the highest octane (RON) for 30 years availiable from the bowser. only the early seventies leaded rivalled the 98 RON availiable today.
2/ "must use LRP in cast iron headed engines" LRP is crap & expensive,any performance enthusiest woke up about the first time they used the stuff. the fuel companies tried to replicate the removal of lead with magnesium which just doesn't work. why do you think they're phasing it out!!

3/ "if running ulp or pulp in iron headed engine you must run an additive"
again the fuel companies trying to squeeze more money out of un suspecting motorists. the servo attendants run out with their little bottle of snake oil what do they care if your engine burns out a valve they only want a few more of your dollars .

4/ "but if I don't run a additive I'll get valve seat recession"
NOTHING can replace leads job of stopping valve seat recession.
BUT valve seat recession is caused buy a very hot exhaust valve lifting small amounts of material from the valve SEAT . the exhaust valve is at its highest temp at high throttle openings under full load for long periods ie; towing or long high speed runs.
just driving aroung town in your old holden etc won't cause any damage.
in the US they haven't had leaded fuel in some states for 25 yrs & there are pre unleaded engines running around that have never been apart.
I currently have two engines still running that have been on unleaded for at least 100,000 k & never had any additives they also run long distances on the open road.

5/ "my engine still pings on optimax what can I do ?"
first off you must have pretty high comp. (10:1 plus) the easiest way to increase the octane rating is just add more toluene that s the basic difference between ulp & pulp anyway. we're running a 11.5:1 engine in a street strip car with optimax plus 10to 15% toluene added with no pinging or detonation.

I hope this explains a few myths ,some may disagree , but it's what i've learnt over the years of building engines & it works for me!