Hi All,
Its been a while since I posted a Simple question, so here go's for my little band of followers And YES I do know there is another string about Premium Unleaded but this is a little differant, so bear with me.

I went to my local shell servo to fuel up my SS for a little spending spree with my wife and noticed a sign on the "Lead Replacement Super" bowser.

It said that they will no longer be selling "Lead Replacement " super and replaceing it with something called Optimax or something close to that.

1) Optimax to me sounds like a premium Unleaded fuel , is it ??

2) If so what fuel do I put in my 1200 ute now WITHOUT putting unleaded + additive for valve lub ?? Or going for a "Drip Lub system" $$$$

I know other servos might still have "Lead Replacement "(not 100% sure) fuel but my servo is close to home and just convenint etc.

regards
amshaw

Optimax = Premium Unleaded Petrol.

High octane, so your engine will not ping. But you'll probably be still wearing stuff out quicker, as things aren't as hardened or close tolerance in factory leaded engines.

If you are running any late model engine it won't be a problem.

Chris.

My understanding is that lead was primarily included in petrol not to prevent detonation but to lubricate valve seats, however i also understand that if a vehicle has an aluminium head it will have hardened valve seat inserts and that lead or lead substitute is then not required.
When it was on the road i used pulp in my A15, which is 98 octane in NZ, with 10:1 compression it never detonated.

Quote:Valve seat lubrication is definitely a feature of tetraethyl lead additive. However that was just a side effect. They were looking for anti-knock, or more specifically, looking for a high-compression fuel. They discovered that adding a little tetraethyl lead raised the compression capability of petrol.

There is some interesting stuff about it at Ethyl War (don't know how accurate it all is). The focus of the site is on the most dangerous side effect of lead: the health danger.

There are other newer additives in unleaded now that are pretty effective for valve seat lubrication. I've heard that in the 1960s, it was common to need a "valve job" done every 30,000 miles. The big improvements we have today are not due to lead (there was lead back then ... ), but to better materials and manufacturing quality in the engine.