The Feds Plan To Start Diluting Gasoline This May: Explained

This week, Lee Zeldin’s EPA announced “approving nationwide E15,” pitching it as “fortifying the domestic fuel supply.” What that means exactly is that the federal government will allow more stations to cut gasoline with ethanol, which, yes, makes it cheaper, but it also yields less power and worse fuel economy in your engine.

The only thing I remember about premium leaded gas was I needed to change my spark plugs every 6-7000 miles and the lead residue in the crankcase oil. The other thing is you’re breathing in lead fumes. I wouldn’t consider that lucky.

I feel sorry for you. It must be more difficult for you to be go through life so disillusioned. I assume that you hold similar views on other topics that you know nothing about. You had issues with your car that had nothing to do with leaded gasoline son. As for the fumes, I'll be just fine. Thank you very much.

There is an additive, TCP $35/qt, which aviators use to reduce lead fouling on spark plugs.

It seems that our experiences differ with your being aircraft and mine being more ground based and we may both be right. And I apologize, I was a little short with you and that was ignorant and rude of me. But at the time we were talking about getting gas for old cars, lawnmower and chainsaw engines. Chainsaws absolutely love av-fuel! Most lawnmower and chainsaw engines don't get far enough off the ground to have the rich fuel mixture and cool head temperature issues that a piston driven aircraft might suffer from due to thin air at altitude and overly effective cooling from lots of cold thin air blowing past them. That can cause all sorts of buildups internally. Incorrect fuel mixtures will cause far more engine problems than just fouling plugs. I suspect that the reason that you were burning through plugs on your old car was that you did not have enough octane for the compression and timing advance of your engine. That's not to say that the octane was not right for the compression ratio though. Many factors come into play, fuel mixture, ignition timing engine temperature as well as compression ratio. They must all be in harmony. To much timing makes an engine perkier at some rpms but if the advance curve does not match exactly right and the engine spark gets too far ahead of itself, that causes damage. Even a little corrosion inside of a distributer can cause such a problem. If you saw little grey balls on your plugs, that was not lead. Those were melted parts from the top of your piston from "pinging" or detonation. That would also be consistent with going through plugs like crazy. I imagine that your plugs ran kind of gray instead of a nice tan color. I will agree with you in part about consuming gas by breathing or drinking it by quoting Mel Gibson when he, playing Marten Rigs, and yelled "Yuck! Ethyl!" (short for tetraethyl lead) while siphoning gas.

There is a way to get around having to buy premium fuel. Water/methanol injection can raise the octane considerably. If you are kind of handy, you can come up with your own system. Racing systems are a bit too expensive to be practical for street use. But it might be worth looking into. Lots of mixtures will work but the optimum for most cases is about 30% methanol to 70% water. A side benefit is that it keeps your combustion chamber and valves clean as a whistle.

My 1974 Porsche 914 started life in the age of MTBE additives. At some point the ethanol containing gas arrived. I didn't drive the car very much because it kept having expensive problems. In early 1999, I put the key in the ignition, turned it and the fuel pump started. Next, the smell of gasoline and gas dribbling under the car. Good old ethanol had eaten all the fuel hoses.

So many of those and the Square-back VWs burned to the ground because of that. You were lucky, or maybe not?

So many of those and the Square-back VWs burned to the ground because of that. You were lucky, or maybe not?

I recognized the problem immediately and shutoff the power. The car was towed to Black Forest in San Diego where the hoses were replaced. There was other damage as well. It was fully repaired and made safe to drive again. I put less than 100 additional miles on the car between the time it was repaired in 2000 and sold around 2008 in Idaho.

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