Fuels and octane for vintage critters

rvich said:

Snorton74 said:

"I can buy 92 Octane, corn-free, gas right at the pump. The bike runs good on it.".

I keep trying to put a mast and a sail on my Commando, but so far it hasn't been a very satisfying ride.

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I'm starting to think about my upcoming trip to LOP and Barber. There have been times in SE Colorado and Kansas when a sail would do pretty good. Unfortunately the wind is usually going the wrong way. Jim

A dash of castor bean oil makes a nice flash back perfume of old time race tracks and model airplanes. interesting JIm's 'mile' high dyno gets less power on extra volatile avgas. There are lists of energy density's of various fuels to compare. Here's long article on avgas and octane history.
http://www.eaa.org/autofuel/autogas/art ... 0Avgas.pdf

By far most the "octane" booster DIY additives just dampen down the ignition points and dilute the power making part of fuel. The term Octane has two meanings now, one the 8 carbon chains and two, a fuel's resistance to detonation, not necessary the same thing.

Peel must work from 500 to 2000 ft with 7:5 to 17 CR with 87 no lead in tank.

It's friggen hard to tack on the highway.

Here is my answer to to the problem. Of course it has 14-thousand pounds of lead bolted to the bottom!

Hey I wonder when they are going to get rid of the lead in sailboats. It's going to be pretty pricey to replace all that lead with Mallory metal. Jim

Shoot I tack all the time in one lane of hyw or in/out a rut on THE G... sharper and faster till the tires are flung off surface or I'm flung down. Got a chance to try sailing on a parking lot which gives surprising acceleration when aligning sail and tires sideways to wind, whoo whoo w/o ballast but definitely some lead and aluminum and barium and radioactive fleas in the air. Thankgoodness none of our liquid fuels can be lit off snuffing out a burning cig in them. When they out law pump gas in our polluting ole things I'll switch to high 'octane' vapor fuel.

comnoz said:

Lead is great for motors, not so much for the environment. Too bad there is no such thing as a non-toxic replacement for lead. Just snake oil substitutes.

Without lead or alcohol for an octain booster what are they using to get those high octain numbers? Things that are probably worse. [carcinogens such as benzine?] Jim

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I'd rather have the lead in fuel,because it's less toxic than the alternatives.You won't get lead poisoning from exhaust fumes,but it is toxic to catalytic converters and it kills them.As the amount of lead in fuels increased last century,the amount of lead detectable in human bodies steadily decreased.For a long time the biggest cause of lead absorbtion was from chewing on pencils that had paint on them containing lead.
The alternative octane boosters are benzines and other volatile organic compounds.They make up about 30%-40% of the fuel,and they do cause cancer.It's not safe to breathe the fumes or the exhaust fumes (unless they passed through a hot catalytic converter,and it takes about 4 miles to heat up) and skin contact with unleaded fuel is never safe (wash it off immediately).There is no safe exposure limit,and it can take 15 years after exposure before you find out the damage.
Even the used oil you drain from your engine will be contaminated with these carcinogens.

Breathing while you fill your fuel tank is about as healthy as smoking 2 packs of cigarettes.In this country,the rate of cancer detection rose 30% in the first 10 years of unleaded fuel use.

There wouldn't be many doctors in the western world who have ever seen a case of lead poisoning in the last 100 years.Lead poisoning is still more curable than cancer.When you have friends who are dying from work-related exposure to this fuel,you will wish they only had a small dose of lead poisoning instead.
A google-search "cancer from unleaded fuel" is worth looking at.

When you have friends who are dying from work-related exposure to this fuel,you will wish they only had a small dose of lead poisoning instead.

+100

Gosh if only we could apply such good logic and data points to our engine scope of operation. As youths we got a good dose siphoning and washing in tetra-ethyl lead hi test and didn't seem to bother us then. I have to taste new age gas now and then too, last time to get SuVee's ethanol gas out that set up most a year before painting damage of parked knock over. Yuk that would not spit out in a few trys like the good ole days. Also of note was Fla. spraying DDT in street foggers to planes over head so low the droplets landed on us playing in tiny white specs. There is some controversy in toxicology if the lead spewed out tailpipes is even very bio reactive. Lead is fairly straight forward to chelate out of bodies and so is mercury or cadmium but not if aluminum also involved which blocks and locks up detox pathways brain to toe nails. Al is associated with dementia d/t direct effects but also blocking detox of other things and Al is the hardest if not impossible to get out of the system. Volatile organics insidious effects also magnified by the various metals Al about topping list nowadays. This stuff could lead to questions of why worse things being introduced into public than what they replaced.

comnoz said:

Hey I wonder when they are going to get rid of the lead in sailboats. It's going to be pretty pricey to replace all that lead with Mallory metal. Jim

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Gold. That would be a good substitute in this application.

Mainly depleted uranium is used in ballast from boats to steam rollers as more cost effective and helps hide the deadly stuff from the public. Its also used in flywheels but heavy metal is denser and safer to handle but costs similar.
Another example of going backwards in false safety replacement.

https://www.google.com/#psj=1&q=uses+of ... at+ballast

Lead is not safer than benzene. Tell that to all the Chinese children born with learning disabilities or worse. Lead displaces calcium in the reactions that transmit electrical impulses in the brain, which is another way of saying it diminishes your ability to think, or recall information, or makes you stupid. I'll take my chances as an adult with benzene, rather than risk exposing more generations of children to the harmful effects of prolonged lead exposure. Some think lead exposure lead to the poorer and poorer decision making by the Romans and eventually their demise.

Snorton74 said:

Lead is not safer than benzene.

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The war against lead poisioning in the western world was was a victory more than 100 years ago.You will have less lead in your body than your grandparents or great grandparents.Your children will have even less than you,mainly because they stopped using it in paint.
The war against volatile organic compounds is far from over.

I that comment about the correlation between the decrease in crime and banning lead in the 70s. A study was conducted in Melbourne by analysing lead in infants cast off teeth and testing their IQ. The conclusion is that there is decreased IQ with higher lead levels. However kids also get into pica - chewing the painted furniture. All you have to really worry about in fuel is benzene, it can cause blood changes - luekaemia. Methanol is cumulative in its effects, its oxidation products are formaldehyde and formic acid which can cause brain damage.
As far as the light and heavy ends of molecules are concerned, all petrol is a mixture. The straight chain molecules burn quicker than branched molecules. Avgas starts at about 100 octane and is leaded up to 135 octane. You don't need it unless your comp. is above 10 to one.

acotrel said:

Avgas starts at about 100 octane and is leaded up to 135 octane.

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Not so - get it right.

LL100 is the common avgas these days.
100 octane, with what is said to be 'low lead' = LL - at least compared to the old days.
Note this is international octane calculations, not the USA version...

Avgas used to be 130 octane, with a tremendous level of lead.
(can you still get this, some aircraft engines would need it)
And also a fair old dose of 'halide scavengers' - thats what made the lead come out the exhaust as grey dust.
And put the brown ring on spark plugs.
And not build up hard fused semi-metallic lumps in the combustion chambers.

Don't know about that comment that the war on lead was won 100 years ago - its still being waged ?!
Auto paint only lost lead in it a few years back now.
And someone mentioned lead in the paint of childrens toys even still today.
Research into our feathered friends showed that high lead levels in fuels made them have difficulties with even basic survival skills, like nest making.
That shows how deeply into our environment this poison was getting....

Thanx for the review Rohan especially about the halides needed long term so to not poison the engine with lead. In the old days stiffing hi test could get ya high, not no mo. We gotta burn what we gotta burn to feed our cycle and other combustion addictions. With special effort there's alternatives like butane or even pure moonshine if their pollution-cost didn't exceed petroleum. Propane and methane don't go as far but propane burns inside homes and shop no problemo but humidity.

Here's eye opening article on toxic elements that filled me even more than I wanted to know. Like fuel there is a sliding scale of goodnees vs badness in everything. Radioactive minerals replacing normal minerals isn't covered here.

http://drlwilson.com/articles/TOXIC%20METALS.htm

Cadmium is called the pseudo-macho or the violent element. Like lead, it is an older male mineral that is associated with macho behavior, violence and horror. People who have orgasms more than once a week tend to accumulate cadmium, probably because it replaces zinc in the male testicles and even in women’s ovaries. Male and female sexual fluids are rich in zinc, and when one loses too much of these, cadmium from the environment seems to replace the zinc in the body.

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The more I learn of history and future predictions the more I think last 75 yrs may of been the best there ever was or will be. So we lucked TFO and still are so far. Part of my craziness is following this stuff mostly from SCUBA point of view early on. Some pessimists with various supporting evidence say we passed point of no return in the mid '80's. I've sure burnt up my share of Earths reserves.

LPG cycles
https://www.google.com/#psj=1&q=propane+motorcycle
but there always issues to wade through for a hot rod on LPG
http://jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthre ... &showall=1