Which is better leaded gasoline vs unleaded?

[Leaded_gasoline]

Think that lead is no more harmful to nature. Which is better? For example (Speed, Which is cheaper, Engine's health).

[SkilledRebuilds]

4 minutes ago, James Evens said:

Where can you even buy leaded gasoline?

You don't, you buy an additive to add to the fuel you throw in for older cars these days... (I'm not a car guy I just heard this on the internet so it must be true)

[Leaded_gasoline]

5 minutes ago, SkilledRebuilds said:

You don't, you buy an additive to add to the fuel you throw in for older cars these days... (I'm not a car guy I just heard this on the internet so it must be true)

I mean which is best? Let's talk.

[SkilledRebuilds]

2 minutes ago, Leaded_gasoline said:

I mean which is best? Let's talk.

You should consult your nearest oracle... I'm not the One.

 

[Chris Pratt]

Man, there is "off topic", and then there is off topic. Maybe try a forum for auto enthusiasts or gearheads. I'm pretty sure LTT isn't the place to get the best answers for a question like this.

[Leaded_gasoline]

Just now, Chris Pratt said:

Man, there is "off topic", and then there is off topic. Maybe try a forum for auto enthusiasts or gearheads. I'm pretty sure LTT isn't the place to get the best answers for a question like this.

Sorry i'll not do it again.

[Chris Pratt]

Just now, Leaded_gasoline said:

Sorry i'll not do it again.

No, it's not a problem per se. I'm just saying you're probably wasting your time asking here. You might get lucky and find someone with the necessary crossover of interests/knowledge, but you'd have far better odds of getting a solid answer to a question like this on a forum that specifically deals with motors and vehicles.

[Beerzerker]

4 minutes ago, Chris Pratt said:

No, it's not a problem per se. I'm just saying you're probably wasting your time asking here. You might get lucky and find someone with the necessary crossover of interests/knowledge, but you'd have far better odds of getting a solid answer to a question like this on a forum that specifically deals with motors and vehicles.

At least I can tell you what the purpose was for having lead in gas.
Had to do with the valve seats in the head of an engine wearing out, they discovered way back in the day adding lead eliminated this wear.
Today you have hardened valve seats which makes the addition of lead no longer required, the addition of lead itself never did enhance the fuel for more power or efficiency.
Yes you can buy an additive that does the same thing for valves lead used to do, it's for older engines that do not have the hardened valve seats.

[flibberdipper]

3 minutes ago, Beerzerker said:

At least I can tell you what the purpose was for having lead in gas.
Had to do with the valve seats in the head of an engine wearing out, they discovered way back in the day adding lead eliminated this wear.
Today you have hardened valve seats which makes the addition of lead no longer required, the addition of lead itself never did enhance the fuel for more power or efficiency.
Yes you can buy an additive that does the same thing for valves lead used to do, it's for older engines that do not have the hardened valve seats.

Lead was added to improve octane and reduce knock back in the 20s since gas was pretty shit back then. I don't really think the effect of lead on valve seats was a known thing until later on.

[Beerzerker]

5 minutes ago, James Evens said:

@Beerzerker But technology advanced. Now there are auditives on the market which do the same with lower impact on the environment/health so I don't see the point in the continuous use of lead.

Not even sure if you are allowed to buy these chemical's anymore. It is unusable for explosive production (which would outright mean it is restricted) but might still be restricted due to the environmental impact even chemicals like DCM (e.g. "welding" plastics) are difficult to buy.

 

 

I didn't say lead was added anymore because it's not added to any fuels you can get sold at the pump today.
There are some lead "Substitutes" that's used for older engines that need the lubricating effect lead had on the valve seats the older engines have, newer engines (From about 1974 and onward) have the hardened valve seats so you don't need to worry about needing lead in the gas.
The hardened valve seat are WHY you no longer need any lead in fuel.

Never realized lead was a component of octane but probrably not a critical one, you can get high octane fuel that's unleaded but I've have to think back in the day they used lead because they didn't know any other way to do it.
Never be too old to learn or at least be reminded of what you forgot.

[Monkey Dust]

Fun fact: Violence has been declining in developed countries for a couple of decades, which roughly correlates with taking lead out of fuel and other products such as paint. Lead is a neurotoxin, with one of the symptoms being aggression. There is a theory (unprovable because ethics) that the violence that blighted the 20th century, particularly cities, was in part caused by lead in the environment. Everyone had mild lead poising, making them a bit angrier than they would have been otherwise.           

[vf1000ride]

8 hours ago, Leaded_gasoline said:

I mean which is best? Let's talk.

Unleaded fuel is best for anything you want to last long term and generally be street legal.  Leaded fuel is actually still available but it's special purpose and extremely expensive.  Sunoco, VP and several other brands that make 100+ octane race fuels that still contain lead.  They usually run somewhere at a minimum around $15 to over $30USD per gallon and can be purchased in 5 gallon to 55 gallon drums. Piston engine aircraft fuel normally called 100LL (100 octane, low lead) fuel from an airport is also leaded fuel but hard to get unless you know someone.

 

Like others have mentioned, lead was initially an octane booster and anti-knock additive.  The valve thing was found out as part of it testing and use. 

 

Downsides, environmental obviously that lead in the air is a bad thing.  It will also damage modern engines not designed for it.  On a fuel injected engine, Leaded fuel will very quickly damage the O2 sensor in your exhaust and it will also permanently damage the catalytic convertor.  Long term use of lead will also build up hard lead oxide deposits in both the combustion chamber and will fill the gap around your sparkplugs insulator and the outer casing causing them to short out and fail in a very short amount of time.  In aircraft piston engines that are even designed to run on the stuff you need to periodically pull the spark plugs and clean the lead out of them (sometimes as short as 100hours of use).  As already mentioned the downfall to how much it costs as well as the fact that as far as I know, in the US at least, it is illegal to run in a street car.

 

Here is a list of the fuels VP makes with a column for leaded/unleaded.   https://vpracingfuels.com/master-fuel-tables/#fuel-tables

The same list for Sunoco. https://www.sunocoracefuels.com/fuels/compare-fuels?fid=39

[dizmo]

You don't think leaded fuel is any more harmful? You're wrong. Plain and simple.

[atxcyclist]

9 hours ago, Beerzerker said:

I didn't say lead was added anymore because it's not added to any fuels you can get sold at the pump today.
There are some lead "Substitutes" that's used for older engines that need the lubricating effect lead had on the valve seats the older engines have, newer engines (From about 1974 and onward) have the hardened valve seats so you don't need to worry about needing lead in the gas.
The hardened valve seat are WHY you no longer need any lead in fuel.

Never realized lead was a component of octane but probrably not a critical one, you can get high octane fuel that's unleaded but I've have to think back in the day they used lead because they didn't know any other way to do it.
Never be too old to learn or at least be reminded of what you forgot.

A similar issue arises from using ultra low sulfur diesel in older diesel engines. The older mechanical pumps relied on the sulfur in diesel to enhance the lubricity on wear surfaces, so running an older diesel with new fuel can cause wear on parts that need very small tolerances to function. Thankfully, there are additives that have other ways of adding this lubricity when running ultra low sulfur diesel in old engines.

 

I know some aircooled VW guys that run some lead substitute in some of their original engines, though many of them have had them gone through and the valve seats changed or replaced the entire heads.

[CerealExperimentsLain]

10 hours ago, Chris Pratt said:

Man, there is "off topic", and then there is off topic. Maybe try a forum for auto enthusiasts or gearheads. I'm pretty sure LTT isn't the place to get the best answers for a question like this.

And the user name to match?  This is like someone's weird AI post bot let loose while their dev partner asks 'Why did you train it on 1970's gas trivia???'

[Guest]

A car mechanic told me that Lead runs worse than modern gasoline, produces more bad waste, & makes the inside of your engine dirtier.
It may have been better than what was available when it was created, but modern gas is better in every way from what I've been told.

Also lead gasoline is illegal in just about every country. No one makes it anymore & cars aren't designed to use it anymore.

 

Diesel is best though iirc.

[pythonmegapixel]

Unleaded. Even if it did run better in an engine - which it doesn't assuming the engine was built for unleaded fuel - I consider it impolite to damage the essential organs of or even kill pedestrians and wildlife just so that the car runs negligibly better.

 

18 hours ago, Leaded_gasoline said:

Think that lead is no more harmful to nature.

Then you're wrong. Lead is quite literally a poison, and until a few decades ago motor vehicles were quite happy releasing into the atmosphere. There are other unpleasant things that come from exhaust fumes, but lead was one of the worst; it's a good thing it's gone now.

[Leaded_gasoline]

2 hours ago, SGT-AMD said:

In the U.S., it was banned in 1996....

In the turkey it was banned in 2006.

[airborne spoon]

Lead in gas will not do anything to help out your engine. Yes there is a little lead in super high octane race gas but the reason people use 110+ gas is because they run very high compression and the only way to reduce knock in that instance is to put in higher octane gas. Like my Harley i have 10.5:1 compression ratio and if i run anything lower than 91 gas it'll knock.

My grandpas boat, a very well taken care of Ski Nautique was originally built to run on leaded gas so when i was younger whenever he filled it up he would dump in a few oz of lead additive to it. In the last like 5 or so years he rebuilt the engine using modern parts for both more power and to no longer need the lead additive.

[Beerzerker]

On 7/25/2021 at 7:58 AM, pythonmegapixel said:

Unleaded. Even if it did run better in an engine - which it doesn't assuming the engine was built for unleaded fuel - I consider it impolite to damage the essential organs of or even kill pedestrians and wildlife just so that the car runs negligibly better.

 

Then you're wrong. Lead is quite literally a poison, and until a few decades ago motor vehicles were quite happy releasing into the atmosphere. There are other unpleasant things that come from exhaust fumes, but lead was one of the worst; it's a good thing it's gone now.

Yes, that's completely impolite to do BUT at the same time this is stretching it juuuuust a teeny bit.

I am not saying it couldn't have had any harmful effects but from the way this is worded, sounds like if one happens to driveby while running leaded fuel it would be as quick and deadly as mustard gas to all else around.

[thrasher_565]

On 7/24/2021 at 1:17 PM, Monkey Dust said:

Fun fact: Violence has been declining in developed countries for a couple of decades, which roughly correlates with taking lead out of fuel and other products such as paint. Lead is a neurotoxin, with one of the symptoms being aggression. There is a theory (unprovable because ethics) that the violence that blighted the 20th century, particularly cities, was in part caused by lead in the environment. Everyone had mild lead poising, making them a bit angrier than they would have been otherwise.           

hmm its that saying that everything is killing us...bit by bit....

[pythonmegapixel]

6 hours ago, Beerzerker said:

Yes, that's completely impolite to do BUT at the same time this is stretching it juuuuust a teeny bit.

I am not saying it couldn't have had any harmful effects but from the way this is worded, sounds like if one happens to driveby while running leaded fuel it would be as quick and deadly as mustard gas to all else around.

I could see why you would get that implication, and you're quite right.... one person driving past burning leaded gas is unlikely to do much harm. But if lots of people switched to it, to the point where the quantities of lead in the air were once again significant, then it could have a profound effect.

 

(Of course that's extremely unlikely to happen even if it was somehow proven to be better, so in a way both of my past two posts were pointless - because modern engines aren't designed to run leaded fuel, at the very least they would need to be tuned differently for it, the engine won't run properly and it could cause damage.)

[Biohazard777]

6 hours ago, Beerzerker said:

Yes, that's completely impolite to do BUT at the same time this is stretching it juuuuust a teeny bit.

I am not saying it couldn't have had any harmful effects but from the way this is worded, sounds like if one happens to driveby while running leaded fuel it would be as quick and deadly as mustard gas to all else around.

:

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/lead-poisoning-and-health

 

https://www.cdc.gov/biomonitoring/lead_factsheet.html

 

 

[Beerzerker]

8 minutes ago, Biohazard777 said:

:

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/lead-poisoning-and-health

 

https://www.cdc.gov/biomonitoring/lead_factsheet.html

 

 

With respect:
No shiite!

It has it's risks but I stand by what I said before.
It's not instant death if a vehicle that's using it rolls by anyone.

[Biohazard777]

Just now, Beerzerker said:

With respect:
No shiite!

It has it's risks but I stand by what I said before.
It's not instant death if a vehicle that's using it rolls by anyone.

Shite or no shite, only an ignorant person (with respect) would tolerate any amount of lead pumped into the air next to him.