Lead in fuel once- why?

[RdsOnly]

Why was lead used in regal fuels in the 20-70's?
tetraethyl lead https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-a-brief-history-of-octane
1970: Congress passes the Clean Air Act. The EPA is formed and given the authority to regulate compounds that endanger human health.

1973: EPA mandates a phased-in reduction of lead content in all grades of gasoline.

1974: EPA requires availability of at least one grade of unleaded gasoline, in order to be compatible with 1975 make and model year vehicles. Lead damages the catalytic converters used in these new vehicles to control tailpipe emissions. Catalytic converters are still used in vehicles today.

1996: EPA bans the use of leaded fuel for on-road vehicles (leaded gasoline was down to 0.6 percent of 1996 gasoline sales). Lead is still used in some aviation fuels.

Thanks to coordinated efforts, lead is now absent from gasoline in most of the world. Following the lead phase-out in the United States, the oil refining industry chose to construct additional refining capacity to produce octane from other petroleum products, rather than from renewable sources such as ethanol.



When were all R series Yamaha made? 1970-1979  The only RD that was made to run on NONE leaded fuel was the RD400F.
Stock timing was 2.2mmBTDC, pipe restrictions , butterfly carburetors
What a DOG stock...
    Lead was the fuel of the day in the early to mid 1970's why was lead used [Anti knock] Octain booster.
Also COOLED pistons, coated them with their deposits, not a clean fuel- bad for the environment.

So do we need lead in our old bikes? Not really but it does have a place. 100ll airplane fuel has many good and bad thing in it. it can be used to keep modern fuels stable. BAD  anti-freezing additives, anti-foaming additives.

  Good over bad?
If you store fuel say 92 oct unleaded on the shelf- how long is it good for?
If you have 100ll on the shelf how long is that good for?
You go look it up....
100ll keeps longer, no ethanol to break down, also wont eat Buna- rubber parts.
Ethanol is derived from mostly CORN sugar= alcohol, the process is a quick one no real distilling [properly] for fuel. So we see after 1 year of a bike sitting with fuel in it. Sludge in carb, petcock and tank. Cleaning is needed.
Some stabilizers will keep the breakdown at bay.

Performance Lead vs no lead
Lead as stated is an anti-knock agent octane so we run ethanol high octane 98 - no issue except cost.
the manuals reference to fuel unleaded or low lead was available at pump 96oct leaded

Kevin looked into this https://www.cycleworld.com/2015/08/11/ask-kevin-do-two-strokes-work-better-with-leaded-gas/

triptane, toluene, and MTBE (methyl tertiary-butyl ether)
The lead in fuel suppresses detonation by acting as a negative rate catalyst for OH-, slowing its rate of
production.

Do we need it? lead?????
Kleem research
https://www.klemmvintage.com/91oct.htm

No we do not need lead- have your head modified for $$$
  Or blend your fuel- I do and have for 4 years, cheap insurance I can run 2.0mmbtdc on a stock RD350 at WFO all day no worries.
  I run a 11:1 RZ500 on 100ll  no issues.

I am no expert but have tried and found it works well, for bikes that sit for 3-6 months no issues starting up.
search 100ll your area. http://100ll.com/searchresults.php?clear_previous=true&searchfor=TX&submit.x=31&submit.y=7

Sonoco has a good fuel as well
https://www.sunocoracefuels.com/fuel-finder
https://www.sunocoracefuels.com/fuel/optima
$15- $20 a gallon

Around $5-6 a gallon

I am cheap so I blend.
JT

[teazer]

I am easily confused.  The post seems to suggest that we don't need lead in fuel but that we should use it anyway.  Or did I miss thr point?

Apart from the legality, there is no need to use leaded fuels on the street.  The 89 or 91 (I don't remember which) in my RZ350 is months old and it still fires up and runs well. For sure it prefers fresh gas, but gas doesn't seem to deteriorate as fast in my bikes as others have reported, so I'm not sure what to make of that.  It is illegal for an airport to sell 100LL for use in a street vehicle and illegal to use it in one as far as I know, but that's up to the user to determine.

AvGas 100LL is slow burning and lead fouls plugs, but quality is more consistent that regular gas, but who really notices the difference in a bike IRL?

We ran 100 octane race gas in Australia in TZs and other race bikes.  We ran Methanol in our 4 strokes but that was a different story. I wouldn't run 100LL on the street because there are no real advantages.  The biggest disadvantage for most street riders is that it burns differently than unleaded and leaves a very different color on the plugs.  Leaded looks lean and plugs are gray where unleaded leaves more soot and looks rich even when it's not, so I tend to run harder (colder) plugs when running leaded gas and softer/hotter plugs with unleaded to get them to run clean.  100LL also has a different specific gravity to typical street gas IIRC so be careful with jetting.

We all have our favorite fuel and our own foibles but having tested a whole lot of drums of different race gas in a drag race GT750, I can't say that any of them were any better than street gas in terms of detonation protection or performance. Well maybe U4.4 but that doesn't seem to respond the same way in all motors.

For the street though 100LL has no use IMHO.

My preference in Sunoco race fuels is Maximal but 260 GT Plus is a good non-lead fuel and for the street, high test is adequate and stable enough to use even with high CR motors in my experience.

[sav0r (CL MotoTech)]

 

[m in sc]

I tune all my bikes and cars to run on premium pump  ethanol.  no issues no probs no clogged carbs no detonation. even my high compression big block ford. aluminum heads,  but hardened valve seats remove need for lead. watch engine masters on motor trend they do a whole episode on this with dyno results and furl consumption numbers etc. pump is fine. tune for it. track different. 

[Jspooner]

^^^^^me too. Even my TZ runs on premium pump gas. No issues.

[RdsOnly]

teazer
Great points, do we really need lead? No
You have to agree today's fuels cause more problem than solve when storing a 2 stroke bike.

I use this as a reference for 3-6 month stored= fuel is still good to run out in an air cooled 2 stroke.

If you prefer $15-19 a gallon fuels I like that.
This is a cheaper solution to stored fuels and works well.
In my experience, also runs cooler in the summer time- air cooled is cooled by fuel over air flow.

I prefer setting up a bike  for storage as:
Drain all fuel
Clean carbs
remove battery- charge table
check tire pressure every so often.
Set up
clean out tank- fresh fuel- witch ever you chose
check carbs
battery in- check timing
FIRE that mother up...
Time eats all thing- fuel/rubber all consumables
            Not saying it is better but a good start for long term storage of fuel.
I have good results from drag bikes on 100ll as well as road course bikes.. mind you a budget is why we did what we did.
If I had ELF giving me fuel sure might make a little difference.

Fuel is the issue not performance here
   longer lasting is 100ll - - - look it up
Today's fuel have a shelf live of 4-5 month that's it [separation of none petroleum based additives] SUGAR
   If you are in the Petroleum industry and can give me other information, please provide.
I have seen it on my shelf- where I store fuels, I put a small jelly jar of that fuel fresh, with date.
  We have all sen it / weird stuff in the float bowls
Hell I have seen so much muck that did no look like fuel/gas I thought it was bio-fuel residue.

    Today's fuel is no comparison to 1970-78 fuel at the pump, considered as HIGH PO fuels now.
  as air cooled 2t guys be aware- our environment has change but not the bike you love.
We ride then not everyday [mostly] so add a little love back to them. If you can afford 98oct $16 a gallon do so your bike will love you and you it.

Fuel cools our air cooled bikes not air..

JT
PS wont tell you a famous person that used 100ll ave gas to win a race....

[RdsOnly]

Love the response...

Was sponsored by VP in racing days [a blended fuel]
Sonoco fuel [not blended] different jetting??? WHy

Specific gravity was different??? So
Fuel is a key component to making power- am I wrong?
      Old stuff [https://www.bridgestonemotorcycle.com/documents/oilpremix6.pdf]


This paper DOES not recommend AVEgas
Aviation gasoline – We no longer recommend using AVGAS in paramotors.  The problem of using AVGAS in paramotors is that the lead deposits can foul the lands on the piston resulting in ring sticking.  This is less of a problem when operating at high altitudes (>4,000' MSL) but can be severe at sea level and in hotter climates. The addition of fuel additives e.g. TCP can lessen the problem but does not eliminate it.  We have discovered this from thorough testing at various altitudes and climates.

The bottom line is that those who use ethanol fuels must also use fuel additives that help preserve the gasoline and lessen the damage caused by moisture in the fuel.  If you must use ethanol fuels, be sure to add the correct additives to help lessen that damage

Good and Bad you decide- I like longer lasting fuel

Sugar in gas is bad that is all - ethanol -sugar.
https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/ethanol_fuel_basics.html


JT

Environmental politics will harsh your 2T buzz.. Old school is where it's at.

[rodneya]

I dont like ethanol fuel, but so far it has helped me buy my snow blower, lawnmower, kids and wifes dirt bikes amongst other things for less than 10% of what they are worth because the carbs were gummed up and they would not run.

[teazer]

Lots of good points being raised.  Engine Masters did an interesting series of tests that showed that as long as a motor had fuel with high enough octane to prevent detonation, more octane made absolutely no discernable difference.

Our dyno tests on small 4 stroke Honda twins showed that race fuel like say VP C12 made slightly less power than street gas in our motors. We didn't change compression to see if we could eek more power out and I suspect that the additive package might have made those small differences.

Back when we were racing RS250 Aprilias we tried different fuels and back then there were a few magazines (remember them) that tested fuels on the dyno and for sure, some chemical soup combos made more power than others.  Elf used to blend the most lethal blends of chemicals back in the days of 500GP 2 strokes and the fumes were interesting and cancer causing or so I heard. Honda techs could be seen with industrial type breathing apparatus akin to hazmat quality just to put that fuel.

But back to your main point which was that fuel without ethanol can last longer without causing deterioration of fuel system parts and that may be true but hasn't been my experience so far.  It's a worthwhile point to consider though.

When we ran a bike on methanol I had to sit down and work out the change in energy released.  Mathanol and ethanol are less energy dense than gasoline but burn at much lower stoich levels and the end result of burning over twice as much fuel with just less than half the available energy amounted to around about 17% additional power theoretically and about 10-12% increase in the real world but allowed us to run very high compression ratios and of course we had to light the fires much earlier than with gasoline.  Closer to50 degrees BTDC versus 40 or so on gas.

Yamaha changed head shapes when the FIM moved to unleaded fuel and combustion chamber shapes have continued to evolve along with multi dimensional ignition maps.

For our old bikes there are new tricks still to be learned and more power to be released.  And that's one of the aspects of playing with bikes that keeps us awake and learning. I'd like to see a test of different fuels in a motor with variable compression ratio to see the effect of raising compression with different fuels. A single cylinder motor with a range of domes (inserts) with say 3 to 5 fuels would be enough as long as the tester allowed for SG and H:C levels and energy density.  Could be fun to see the results.

[sav0r (CL MotoTech)]

We use to import 5 gallon cans of Elf leaded 102, the shit was nasty. It stunk, even with castor it smelled bad coming out of the exhaust, and it required constant cleaning of the combustion chamber as it liked to carbon up. It made great power though. Later we were required to purchase spec fuel from Parc Ferme, and that meant we no longer needed to import Elf, but we also had to change our tunes a bit. The big difference was in the carbs, almost exclusively limited to the Venturi shape. We never really could quantify why those changes allowed us to regain Horsepower, but we suspected it had to do with atomization of the different density fuel.

[m in sc]

AS FAR AS  HP, etc, this is the reality of octane.

there was another episode that went deep into methanol, etc, but basically... run pump gas. Its good up to... about 11:1. with recut heads and especially with variable timing curves (or just retarded ones), its no longer a real issue, at all. If you are worried about storage... a trick that the oldfart concours guys use is 1 oz tcw3 rated outboard oil (lol) in 3-4 gallons of fuel will stabilize it. and, its true. stabil and startron and whatever other snake oil out there is just fucking garbage IMHO.

[sav0r (CL MotoTech)]

Yep, you need just enough octane to stop detonation, otherwise you are just burning money.

Avgas is great stuff, literally a life saver. It's just not needed for motorcycles, nor is it all that well suited to the application.

Premix is great for storage.

[Daytona1]

Years ago I was in a conversation with some engineers from Stihl back when they were West German. And we talked about octane. Basically what I got out of it was use no higher octane than was necessary. Higher octane fuels resist detonation by being harder to ignite. And using higher octane than necessary would result in less power and clogged exhaust. It proved to be true. Basically if the engine is not set up to need it the higher octane fuel would not burn as clean.

[SoCal250]

Not applicable to two strokes but lead in gasoline also served as a "cushion" to increase valve and seat life. Without hardened valve seats you will experience premature wear with unleaded fuel.

[RDFL]

I would be happy if they just quit putting alcohol in what's sold now.