Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site osiris.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!mhuxn!mhuxj!mhuxr!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!osiris!phil From: phil@osiris.UUCP (Philip Kos) Newsgroups: net.auto,net.consumers Subject: Re: No Leaded Gas -- Now What? Message-ID: <168@osiris.UUCP> Date: Thu, 7-Mar-85 13:34:55 EST Article-I.D.: osiris.168 Posted: Thu Mar 7 13:34:55 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 9-Mar-85 08:39:13 EST References: <132@ucbcad.UUCP> <147@tove.UUCP> Organization: Johns Hopkins Hospital Lines: 97 Xref: watmath net.auto:5996 net.consumers:1945 > > Well, now that the EPA is actually cracking down on leaded gas, let's be > > realistic and assume that soon (too soon) there will be no leaded gas > > available at all. What do I do with my wonderful old '68 VW Ghia that is > > so cheap, reliable, fun to drive (it's not quite stock!), etc? Replace > > the valves and run on unleaded? Find gas additives? Sell it quick? > > RELAX! As I understand it, the only purpose of putting lead into gas is to > raise the octane rating--and one can do that without using lead. I think > EPA is to be commended for taking this step. I have heard people who "should know" argue both sides of this subject. Basically what it comes down to is this: 1. The octane of gasoline can be raised in two ways. An additive can be put in (like tetraethyl lead), or it can be refined more. Lead was the solution of choice way back when because it was cheaper than extra refining - less time, less equipment, greater yield from a given quantity of crude = greater profits. In those days, the EPA wasn't even a twinkle in anyone's eye. 2. Unleaded gasoline has been around longer than a lot of people think. Supposedly, Standard Premium (Amoco for you modern types) was unleaded as early as the 1960's. This was a _real_ high- octane premium gasoline, not the 91 or 92 octane "super" gas we're stuck with today, unless we happen to be lucky enough to have Super 76 in our area. (The last real premium gas I saw was at Mars stations in St. Louis in 1981.) 3. Tetraethyl lead is _not_ the only additive used to increase the octane of gasoline. Many of the "premium" unleaded gasolines you see today use methanol or ethanol (alcohol, that is) for a couple of extra points. There are other additives too, which are generally "invisible" to the buyer because they aren't consi- dered to be health hazards (like lead) with EPA regulations requiring the pumps to ring a bell and cry out "Leaded! Outcast! Unclean!". 4. One of the main arguments for keeping leaded gasoline around is that the lead helps lubricate the valves. I don't believe that the people who ran unleaded through their high-compression, high-rpm MGA Twincam engines in 1961 had any trouble with valves from not having any lead in their gas. An argument could possi- bly be made that a box-stock 1943 Chrysler inline 6 will last longer if it burns leaded regular, but how many box-stock 1943 Chrysler inline 6's have you driven today? Well over 99% of the engines still running today will run just fine on unleaded gas. 5. Today's unleaded regular does tend to have a lower octane rating than (yesterday's?) leaded regular. This is because of the economic considerations (see point 1). It is quite possible to make unleaded gas with an octane rating equivalent to regular leaded, or even higher - see most gasoline stations for examples of this. This "unleaded premium", however, is _not_ the equal of the old-fashioned leaded premium, which is a point that a lot of people have been trying to make. Unleaded gas of a sufficiently high octane just is not commercially available at this time. This leaves many people with older high-compression engines out in the cold, as it were. This is also why people have been mixing gas for some few years now. 6. Ah, on to the great mixing debate. By mixing the higher-octane unleaded with a smaller quantity of leaded gasoline, you are effectively using that small quantity of lead to boost the octane of a stock with slightly higher quality than that used for the leaded gas (note difference in price). Note that this does you very little good if the premium unleaded is gasohol. It has to be the real thing - super-refined gasoline with little or no octane-boosting additives already in it. This stuff seems to be getting harder to find all the time. 7. There are octane boosters which do not use tet. lead for their kick. These, I believe, mostly use some mixture of methanol and xylene, with maybe some other stuff thrown in - I'm not an organic chemist, so don't quote me on the exact recipes. It is also poss- ible to get straight tet. lead to put in your gas, but handle VERY carefully as this stuff is quite hazardous. That's why the EPA is cracking down. (You couldn't pay me enough money to make me want to handle a jug of tet. lead octane booster.) It seems that the EPA crackdown on lead is going to do two things besides improving air quality very slightly. It will put a lot of older cars off the street because they will no longer have gas of a high enough octane to run on. It will also give the oil companies a chance to make a bit more money - older cars which previously ran on regular will now be running on unleaded (if they can), which, I believe, will improve their profit margin. If the EPA ultimately gets _all_ lead out of gasoline and makes it illegal to put lead back in then any engine built before 1975 with a compression ratio over 9.5:1 had better be converted to either straight alcohol or propane, or shelved. Philip Kos Johns Hopkins Hospital Of course, I may be wrong. :-)