Premium or regular unleaded

[WilliamBos]

I only buy premium for our small engines, and my atv. Both get a healthy dose of Marins Stabil.

 

[Huskerfan]

Premium only. I add Stabil and Sea Foam to the can before filling at the pump.

 

[bikerzing]

Do I need to add a lead substitute to my fuel? It's a 1970 gas JD 1020.

 

[MossRoad]

Do I need to add a lead substitute to my fuel? It's a 1970 gas JD 1020.

How long have you been running it without leaded gas?

 

[George2615]

Do I need to add a lead substitute to my fuel? It's a 1970 gas JD 1020.

Older engines were designed to use leaded gasoline. Lead in gas acted as a lubricant. The lead was removed from gas back in the early 70's so engines prior to that should use a lead additive. I've owned several classic cars prior to the 70's and used the lead substitute additive. My current classic has a 1988 big block in it. The engine is designed to run on gas with ethanol. I have to use 89 or higher octane.
If the JD1020 has been running for the past 40 plus years on today's fuel I'd guess the motor was rebuilt at some point and rebuilt to use unleaded gas.

 

[MossRoad]

I thought Tetraethyl lead (TEL) was added to gasoline as a method to raise octane to reduce knock. That's what its primary use was for. It was secondary that it helped prevent valve and seat wearing.

Tetraethyllead - Wikipedia

http://www.eesi.org/files/FactSheet_Octane_History_2016.pdf

History of Lead Use - Toxipedia

It was also known back in the 20s that ethanol could do the same thing in regards to boosting octane. However, DuPont and GM teamed up to promote lead as the octane booster of choice (for profit for them, of course), and ethanol was run out of town. Several people died in the lead factory and many more were severely sickened, and lead was suspended for a short while. Then it was approved again. And the poisoning of America soon followed. Read up on it. Its quite interesting that for about 60 years, it was allowed to be spewed into the air from every car. Once it was removed from gasoline, there was something like a 75% drop in lead levels in American's blood level.

 

[sld]

Yep, Hardened valve seats was one of the changes from pre-lead to post-lead.

 

[George2615]

I thought Tetraethyl lead (TEL) was added to gasoline as a method to raise octane to reduce knock. That's what its primary use was for. It was secondary that it helped prevent valve and seat wearing.

Tetraethyllead - Wikipedia

http://www.eesi.org/files/FactSheet_Octane_History_2016.pdf

History of Lead Use - Toxipedia

It was also known back in the 20s that ethanol could do the same thing in regards to boosting octane. However, DuPont and GM teamed up to promote lead as the octane booster of choice (for profit for them, of course), and ethanol was run out of town. Several people died in the lead factory and many more were severely sickened, and lead was suspended for a short while. Then it was approved again. And the poisoning of America soon followed. Read up on it. Its quite interesting that for about 60 years, it was allowed to be spewed into the air from every car. Once it was removed from gasoline, there was something like a 75% drop in lead levels in American's blood level.

I stand corrected. Lead as lubricant was a poor choice of words on my part. It did raise octane and prevented valves and seats from sticking. I always assumed lead acted as a friction reducer for valve stems and guides.

 

[cat fever]

Use the octane the owners manual recommends; as others have said octane is related to compression and altitude. The higher you go the lower octane you can use.
The one advantage premium has over the other grades is the "major" oil companies add more of their additive package to premium. (at least they use to) I worked for both Amoco and BP, both added 10 times the amount of additive to premium. That's not a typo, 10 times the amount.

 

[buickanddeere]

Engines last longer and stay cleaner using unleaded fuel. That said we still use 100LL in a few engines that sit more than run.
For non highway applications we only use premium non ethanol . End of problems and even if the fuel is old the octane is still higher than fresh 87 octane.