I know they don't have lead...but is there really no value n the substitute? How do they market it if it doesn't work

 

I found two places in my county that sell non-ethonal gas. One is at a small airport the other is at a natural gas pipeline place. I hope they sell it to the public .

 

Airports still have leaded gas as most small private older aircraft use it. They usually will not sell it to anyone but a pilot having it put directly into the plane. It also cost more than pump gas at a station. Some very small airports have self serve tanks but again I believe you need your pilots license to get on the field. I haven't flown in about 12 years so things may have changed

 

I got a little curious and just drug up a copy of the MSDS for "Motor Medic" lead substitute, one of several.

It's 80% "petroleum distillate" and kerosene etc. Maybe it "works", but it's probably about 50 times the price of the base components. I think this is probably why a lot of folks run Marvel's, it accomplishes the same thing or even one better, at a fraction of the cost.

 

A lot of interesting reading here. If I may add a few things to the conversation that may shed a bit of light on the subject at hand. Lead was and is used as an octane boost to gasoline and is actually called Tetra Ethyl Lead or TEL. It is still being used in the aviation fuel as well as the race gas industry and leaded race fuel is available across the country. First and foremost fuel containing TEL is not legal for use on road although we all know people use it. In the "old days" fuel contained about 1 gram of TEL per gallon, modern race fuel (110 octane and above) contains 4.25 grams of TEL/gallon so if a person was inclined to add lead to their fuel for the reasons state earlier in this thread it could be done by simply mixing race gas into a tank of on road gasoline.

The ethanol debate has been ongoing for many years and in my line of work I have been in the middle of it. Ethanol has it's pros and cons just like anything else. I guess if you are worried about the storage side of it the easiest thing to do is to make sure the tank is either completely full or completely empty. Street gas should be stable for up to 90 days without much issue especially if the truck or container is stored inside and protected from quick temperature changes. I have had no experience with Sta-Bil fuel stabilizer but haven't heard anything bad about it so if you are inclined I would go ahead and add it to the fuel. Now that brings up the other topic I read and that is fuel additives, specifically Lead. I have never seen an additive even come close to what it says it will do on the bottle.
My old flathead has been around since 1953, never been rebuilt and has been running unleaded gasoline since the 70's. It doesn't burn oil and runs just fine. That could all change tomorrow but I figure if I have to rebuild it because of unleaded gasoline and I get another 40 years out of it......I'm ok with that.
Just one other thing about dry gas. Isopropyl Alcohol is just like any other alcohol and will absorb water very quickly. It was originally designed to absorb dissolved moisture in gasoline and basically make the moisture a flammable substance. With that being said the ethanol in modern gasoline does the same thing when moisture is introduced. It takes quite a bit of water or moisture to phase separate the ethanol out of the gasoline, in most cases humidity will not cause a phase separation. Leaving the fuel cap off in rain storm or when you are washing the vehicle could cause a phase separation issue.

 

One problem with using av gas is the government is not getting its road use tax that amounts to somewhere around $.25 a gallon.

 

Ray there is a "aviation" (if that is the correct name) tax that you pay. The govt gets their pound of flesh no matter what you try. I would not want to pay the extra cost just to get a little lead. Especially after reading the info DANGERUSS just posted - that was good reading.

 

Well, before you wrote this i had already ordered #49 mains... I put them in. However, now I'm having stallling/no power when putting the gas pedal down to the floor. It drove fine before this... Any ideas? Go back to #51 and/or get the #50? Also, Mike's carb doesn't seem to have the different power valves you talk about. Where do i get that?

The other change is I got the generator working, 7.6volts at idle... just under 7.0 volts when lights are on. Not sure if that matters at all, but thought I'd bring it up just in case.