Jump to content
  • 0

Leaded Petrol Substitute


ian2b

Question

Hi Guys,

Whats your views on this lead substitute and has anyone used this, if so was it any good.

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BEDFORD-RL-RUN-95-UNLEADED-PETROL-INTANK-UNIT-5L-/270547177515?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_Cars_Parts_Vehicles_Other_Vehicle_Parts_Accessories_ET&hash=item3efdde502b

 

THE FORMULA POWER FUEL CATALYST

This will allow any engine designed to run on leaded petrol to run safely on normal pump unleaded 95 octane fuel.

The fuel catalyst has the desired effect of raising the octane lubricating the engine and burning at a slightly lower burn temperature.

There is no need to use a liquid additive or to retard the ignition timing or to fit hardened valve seats

The fuel catalyst is a tin amalgam and follows very closely to the original Royal Air Force receipe which was developed to combat poor quality and low octane fuel.

This product is not unique to us, there are a few companies producing a similar product but we hope you will be impressed with our honesty about this product.

It simply is placed into the petrol tank of any car or motor cycle and then only 95 unleaded fuel needs to be used.

Lead was put into petrol in 1936 to stop the KNOCK this product was developed in 1941 for the Royal Air Force.

HOW LONG DOES IT LAST? Some companies claim unbelievable mileage but you cannot claim this as cars and motor cycles differ in the amount of fuel they consume.

We therefore state that our product will be good for 100,000 miles.

We give a 6000 mile test period, a full refund if you are not satisfied and a £1,000,000 product liability insurance underwritten at Lloyds.

ONE FINAL POINT IF YOU LEAVE YOUR CAR OR MOTOR CYCLE FOR MONTHS ON END WITHOUT USING IT THE FORMULA POWER FUEL CATALYST WILL KEEP THE FUEL FRESH AND STOP IT BECOMING STALE.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Recommended Posts

  • 0
I used a Broquet catalyst

 

I think thats says it all really! :D

 

There are cheaper ways to put some lumps of scrap in your fuel tank, I am looking at some scrap right now you can have for free!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

Carbonflo

Fuelcat

Broquet

etc.

 

It keeps surfacing.

 

So is there any sound evidence that a person by the name of Henry Broquet of the RAF did in fact go to Russia during WW2 and sort out inferior fuel making it suitable for use in Hurricanes ?

This seems to be the starting point but apparently he improved the catalist later when in South Africa, I have my doubts about any truth in the story.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

"we hope you will be impressed with our honesty about this product."

 

 

they are such an "honourable" e bay seller that when I pointed out that Ferret is fitted with hardened seats and therefore their claim that the pellets are needed in ferret for valve lubrication, I got a very nice response thanking me for the info and they continued to "honourably" advertise it exactly as before

 

snake oil .... avoid

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

So let me see if I have got this right.

Lead was put in petrol to prevent valve seats burning out, by acting as a form of lubricant.

 

Lead was removed from petrol becuase lead is bad for you if you eat or drink it.

But unleaded fuel fumes are carcenogenic and you breath them in.

 

OK so we have mo lead in petrol which is supposed to be bad for your valve seats.

How long under normal driving does it take to knacker your valve seats?

 

The Broquet or similar catalyst are either good or a waste of money, depending who you speak too.

The reason for this is probably because nobody has done any proper research using brand new engines.

So they either work or they don't. If they do not work the engine would have gone on forever anyway.

 

The alternative is to pour some stuff in your tank when you fill up with petrol. Does this actually work or is it a waste of time and money also.

 

What happens to your valve seats if you convert your "leaded" engine to run on LPG, this has no lead or other additive/catalyst, so surely it must be detrimental to your valves.

 

Come to think of it does anybody actually know anything definitive on this subject.

 

So do I keep buying additives?

Do I get a catalyst?

Do I do nothing and wait for the valve seats to go and then get an unleaded head?

Do I try and source a 2 stroke motor?

 

I am tempted to get a catalyst, if a Montego can do 100K miles after fitting one they must do something, most people I know could get significantly less out of a Montego full stop.

 

Mike

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

Hard to say , the removal of lead was pushed through too quick.

 

The FBHVC more or less collated results , chemical additives are here (bottom of link) :-

 

http://www.fbhvc.co.uk/fuel-information/

 

A few more such as Wynns & Texaco introduced products but I have never seen any update on FBHVC website - the best type to go for , Castrol & Millers apparently.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

MIKE!! :nono: Are you implying the dear old Austin Montego was a heap of &*^^% ? Well, I must admit mine was odd. It was an old Auto estate, and what was really odd, only one rust spot! That was a tiny hole on the rear door surround. Kept waiting for it to grow bigger and scrap the thing, never did. I got it as leaded fuel was being phased out. The Broquet was about £10 so worth the punt. Worked for about four more years then basically engine wore out, and just not worth repair and wanted a change.

 

I'd fitted the Broquet on a wire so took it out. My replacement was Subaru L series estae. I stuck the Broquet in because it was there. The funny thing was when it was MOT'ed the emissions were so low it should have not been running. When I said to the examiner it had a Brocquet he just shrugged and said that explained it, they did lower emissions consedrably.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

I seem to remember that the FBHVC did a study of these Fuel Catalysts and None of them was found to actaully work, and that no manufacturer could support their claims. Also, I think that one of these companies was actually banned from Beaulieu Autojumble a few years ago over whether the stuff actually worked. Anybody help with details?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

So it may or may not have saved the engine. But it appear that it was a very good rust inhibitor.

Somebody nicked my brothers Montego, sadly the police recovered it.

I have also heard thet they redce emissions and have also seen reports that they increase performance slightly.

 

With respec to the company being kicked out of Beaulieu Autojumble I heard that aswell. If I remeber it was because they could not provide hard scientific evidence that it does what it is said to do.

 

Mike

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

Mike,

 

When an old engine has been running on leaded fuel for a long time, there will be sufficient lead deposited on the valve seats for it to continue to work without any problems untill the lead wears away. The lead protects the valve seats from wearing away, and once it's gone you lose the protection. Some engines, such as the B series in the Ferret were designed to run on poor quality fuel, so harder valve seats were fitted as standard.

 

If you don't know the history of an old engine, I would recommend that you use a lead addative. I use Castrol Valvemaster. One thing to remember is that the different addatives can react with each other, once you start using one you must keep using it. That's why I chose the Castrol one, I am fairly confident they are going to keep making it. Other addatives from smaller compaines may not be as easy to find in 20 years time.

 

If you hadn't realised by now, these catalysts do not work. They do nothing to the fuel, they don't make it last longer, they don't add lead and they don't improve fuel economy. The only thing they do is take money out of your wallet and put it in the pocket of a con man.

 

Please see the extract below from Wikipedia for more details on why lead was added to fuel:

 

The mixture known as gasoline, when used in high compression internal combustion engines, has a tendency to autoignite (detonation) causing a damaging "engine knocking" (also called "pinging" or "pinking") noise. Early research into this effect was led by A.H. Gibson and Harry Ricardo in England and Thomas Midgley and Thomas Boyd in the United States. The discovery that lead additives modified this behavior led to the widespread adoption of their use in the 1920s and therefore more powerful higher compression engines. The most popular additive was tetra-ethyl lead. However, with the discovery of the environmental and health damage caused by the lead, and the incompatibility of lead with catalytic converters found on virtually all newly sold US automobiles since 1975, this practice began to wane (encouraged by many governments introducing differential tax rates) in the 1980s. Most countries are phasing out leaded fuel; different additives have replaced the lead compounds. The most popular additives include aromatic hydrocarbons, ethers and alcohol (usually ethanol or methanol). In the US, where lead had been blended with gasoline (primarily to boost octane levels) since the early 1920s, standards to phase out leaded gasoline were first implemented in 1973 - due in great part to studies conducted by Philip J. Landrigan. In 1995, leaded fuel accounted for only 0.6% of total gasoline sales and less than 2000 short tons (1814 t) of lead per year. From 1 January 1996, the Clean Air Act banned the sale of leaded fuel for use in on-road vehicles. Possession and use of leaded gasoline in a regular on-road vehicle now carries a maximum $10,000 fine in the US. However, fuel containing lead may continue to be sold for off-road uses, including aircraft, racing cars, farm equipment, and marine engines.[15] The ban on leaded gasoline prevented thousands of tons of lead being released into the air by automobiles. Similar bans in other countries have resulted in lowering levels of lead in people's bloodstreams.[16][17]

 

A side effect of the lead additives was protection of the valve seats from erosion. Many classic cars' engines have needed modification to use lead-free fuels since leaded fuels became unavailable. However, "Lead substitute" products are also produced and can sometimes be found at auto parts stores. These were scientifically tested and some were approved by the Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs at the UK's Motor Industry Research Association (MIRA) in 1999.[18]

 

 

Chris

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0
My Jeep engine has done near on 18,000 miles now (since i rebuilt it) no hardened seats, no lead substitute.......and no problems:D

 

Think of the C*** a WW2 miltary engine was built to run on? If you used original spec parts not suprising.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

Thanks I think I am getting the hang of this.

Never took that much interest as until now have always ha unleaded friendly cars (since leaded disappeared)

 

I should not bother putting any lumpy catalysty thing is nthe tank (have 2 so would be double the cost). If I am going to throw something in there I would be better off using the ol lead shod fishing wieghts in my parents garage. Total wste of time but atleast they are lead.

 

I have no idea what PO used so I am just going to have to fin something and hope there is no reaction with anything that may remain in the system.

 

I should go for a majr brand product inorder to ensure continued availability and that they will not change the mixture so it reacts badly.

 

The alternative is to get the head seen to.

 

Mike

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

Certainly where WW2 motors are concerned, they could run happily on "pool petrol" worse than two star ( remember two star ? ) So don't think you need to add anything to unleaded to save your valve seats, they'll be fine ! When unleaded was introduced, it was rushed through for political reasons, before the formular had been perfected, which did cause a few cases of valve seat errosion in vehicles produced when lead content was very high & component quality was correspondingly ****e ! Since then it has been perfected & by example I have run a landy fitted with a 3 litre essex lump for almost as long as unleaded has been available with no noticeable valve seat errosion . As for additives/catalysts, you may as well shout LEAD ! into the filler cap for all the good it will do !

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

The only leaded aircraft fuel easily available is 100LL (100 octane Low Lead) this will destroy your valves due to the higher octane content, we've found this with Ford model T engines and Ferguson tractor engines at the airfield. Another fuel we can get is a form of 80/87 octane but it only comes in the country in very small quantities for use in some of the older aircraft when the Moth club and a few other operators clubbed together and got some produced.(Very expensive).

From the little research I've been able to do Lead content was high in the 20's and early 30's until people started to go insane in the fuel plants and the amount was then reduced and wasn't put back up to a large amount until the 60's onwards. Like Basil says military engines were made to run on poor quality fuel so unleaded will be ok.. for now.

Governments worldwide want the amount of bio-fuel in unleaded petrol to be increased, the problem is as I understand it the cheapest form is Ethanol, good for octane bad for natural rubber diaphgrams in fuel pumps, we shall see.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

I'm most likely asking a stupid question, given what's been posted, however please bear with me - I'm a neophyte with a ferret. Was told it needed an additive to use unleaded fuel. However it seems that unleaded is perfectly safe to use and won't damage the valve seats. Correct? Or, do folk with ferrets recommend an additive?

 

Aussie

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

I have a B60 in my Pig & just use unleaded neat. I posted this up some years ago that I found in my collection of RR Service Bulletins.................. Although I did have an issue with an exhaust valve seat getting displaced:cry: Whether that was a associated with unleaded I don't know. The other valve seats were ok & I've not met anyone who had similar problems.

 

Unleaded.jpg

 

PS Sorry for the repetition I see Lee has posted my RR sheet whilst I was typing!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Answer this question...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...