AV gas for the generator

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
The tetraethyl lead is primarily for *lubrication of valve seats* You figure it out. It exists via the exhaust as tetraethyl lead. In excess of 2.2 grams per gallon of gasoline. If a thousand gallons of gasoline is consumed at 28 grams per ounce then how many grams is expelled? Two point two thousand
Do the numbers. Green Blue and Purple those were the dyes used. Red for off road diesel. 87 Av has only faint traces of lead.

México has problems with CFE the power company buying illegal 1100 PPM marine diesel

Lubricating valve seats was not really the primary reason for tetraethyl lead, it is more of a side benefit for those manufacturers that cheaped out and didn't bother hardening the valve seats.

Early engine pioneers 1880s-1950s did not have gas with tetraethyl lead. Those engines never needed tetraethyl lead to live long lives. Early engines often were not much more than 4:1 compression ( Model Ts I think were something like 3.5:1 compression) and would run on pretty much any light flammable liquid or even vapor.

Many PA oilwell owners ran straight "casing head" gas in their vehicles (illegal due to no taxes being taken out but was done). Casing head gas is the natural gas vapors that are naturally present from Crude oil (has different names like Head gas, Well gas, White gas).

The vapors are drawn off the well head via a large vacuum pump, then that vapor is run through a compressor up to 60 PSI, then sent to a cooling tank to condense into a liquid natural gas form. The engine (read up on Hit AND MISS engines) that run the well would use some of the high pressure vapors and any excess was condensed in the high pressure tank.

Oilwell owners often flared off excess well gas if their wells produced too much.

Casing head is very close cousin to what we call Naptha, Naptha is used as a paint thinner/cleaner for oil based paints and also IS what folks know as "Coleman Fuel"..

And yes, I do have family connections to the old time oil wells history in PA..

But I digress..

As I pointed out, tetraethyl lead was added more for reducing Knock/Ping in early high compression engines (10:1-11:1)by raising the Octane level. Tetraethyl lead slowed down the burn speed inside the cylinder helping to prevent/reduce preignition ping with advanced ignition timeing.

Tetraethyl lead also worked as an "oxygenate" allowing more complete fuel burn before exhaust stroke and at a slower rate. The combination allowed one to raise compression, advance the spark timing ahead much further and yielded more power with less fuel.

Modern day large engines have antiknock/ping sensors feed back to the ECU and the ECU adjusts timing and fuel delivery all automatically making it unnecessary for high octane levels. That is the reason modern high compression engines can be operated on 87 Octane..

Sure, you could put high Octane and you might see a few more HP and perhaps a couple of tenths better mileage but often the higher cost outweighs the slight improvement in HP and mileage.

Yes, I am not a fan of E gas blends but I do not let the scare tactics of good intentioned folks scare me.

wopachop wrote:
A Facebook friend just posted a spot hes getting AV gas at. Runs it in his generator. Any of you old school guys have advice on slight tuning changes? Lean out the altitude screw maybe? Different plug?

I'm mostly just curious. Enjoy topics like this. Next camping trip maybe I will finally try AV gas. I've heard about people using it for offroad toys.

Quite a thread!

Yes, off road toys. Around here it’s custom built, turbocharged, high horsepower high compression snowmobile engines. There are a few guys who show up at the local airport with 5gl jugs every winter. Word is they go play in the snow at 10,000’ above sea level.

ajriding wrote:
older airplanes were built for leaded gas. Newer ones do not use leaded gas. if you can still get leaded gas it will be ONLY for those airplanes that HAVE to burn it. There are substitutes now, and I can't remember the details. The AV gas is color coded. I doubt u can get leaded gas for your generator, only the modern blends.

I’m not aware of any substitutions for 100LL (aviation gasoline aka avgas), in my immediate area, but since I sold my last airplane 2 years ago, I’ve had no need. Yes there are some newer aircraft engines designed to run on unleaded Mogas (car gas), and certain conventional aircraft engines can be modified to use it but not many. The higher displacement/horsepower aircraft engines, 360 to 540 cubic inches and up to 350 hp, must use 100LL gas. That’s most of the light, general aviation fleet and it’s sold at all airports with fuel service. For now. Research on substitute fuel continues.

$3.99 low to $6.85 high. That’s the price range for 100LL at airports in my area. Most from $4.50 - $5.50. Why anyone would pay that for a mower, generator, whatever, when non-ethanol gas is readily available, is beyond me.

As always, JMHO.

The tetraethyl lead is primarily for *lubrication of valve seats* You figure it out. It exists via the exhaust as tetraethyl lead. In excess of 2.2 grams per gallon of gasoline. If a thousand gallons of gasoline is consumed at 28 grams per ounce then how many grams is expelled? Two point two thousand
Do the numbers. Green Blue and Purple those were the dyes used. Red for off road diesel. 87 Av has only faint traces of lead.

México has problems with CFE the power company buying illegal 1100 PPM marine diesel

wopachop wrote:

DrewE wrote:

I find it rather astounding that people will spend extra money to get leaded gasoline for their generators--which are not designed or specified by the manufacturer to operate on--in order to avoid ethanol, which the manufacturer specifically approves and permits.

I think you got me. Hard to argue im not a jerk to still buy leaded gas. I run it in my dirt bike sometimes. Lately i buy sonoco brand 110. I think its leaded.

Let say i dont spill a drop. Please feel free to make fun of this question. Does the lead come out as a gas? How does it work in terms of leaded gasoline exiting the exhaust?

I'm not making fun of you here. You asked a question, and, I will try to answer it with minimal technical mumbo jumbo. Lead is not added to gasoline. Lead is a metal, like what's in bullets. Tetra ethyl lead (a hydrocarbon soluble liquid) is whats added to gasoline. In addition, ethylene dibromide, (also a hydrocarbon soluble liquid) must also be added to gasoline as a scavenging agent to minimize the formation/buildup of lead particles in the combustion chamber. This reduces the tendency of lead particles to form around the spark plug(s) which will eventually cause lead fouling. During the combustion process, the negative bromide ions (in ethylene dibromide) combine with positive lead ions (in tetra ethyl lead) to form lead dibromide, which is a very high molecular weight gas, but, still, a gas which exits the combustion chamber into the atmosphere. (which, it is believed goes on to cause learning disabilities in young developing brains) Or, if it goes through a catalytic converter, it absorbs there, until it ruins it, THEN it passes into the atmosphere. That's as simple as I can say it.

Chum lee

older airplanes were built for leaded gas. Newer ones do not use leaded gas. if you can still get leaded gas it will be ONLY for those airplanes that HAVE to burn it. There are substitutes now, and I can't remember the details. The AV gas is color coded. I doubt u can get leaded gas for your generator, only the modern blends.

wopachop wrote:

Let say i dont spill a drop. Please feel free to make fun of this question. Does the lead come out as a gas? How does it work in terms of leaded gasoline exiting the exhaust?

Not making fun of you.

Even IF you do not "spill a drop" while leaded fuel is in liquid fuel, it IT DOES come out the exhaust, it does not really burn up or decompose but it must come out of the exhaust.

Before unleaded fuels came about in the mid 70's (due to the EPA antismog regs which required cat converters on large gas powered engines) my Dad taught me how to tune a carb properly by watching the exhaust color.

When you have achieved the proper (not over rich and not over lean) fuel/air mix you would get a very light grey to off white powder/residue inside the exhaust pipe shooting for light grey.

Too rich and you ended up with black color, too lean sort of off white (not as grey).

Granted, you could do the sniff test for too rich but it is difficult to tell the difference of just right and too lean.

In essence, the lead in the fuel does not fully burn and will come out of the tail pipe, that may be a powdery residue or it could be tiny particulates which are too small to see but they are there none the less (those particulates if run through a cat converter are small enough to plug off the cat which is why it is bad idea to run leaded fuels of any level in a engine with a cat system).

When the lead was removed for cat converters, it HAD to be replaced, lead served as a anti knock/octane booster and assisted with adding oxygen to the burn, the oxygenate/Octane booster action had to be replaced with something, but what?

MTBE..

Well, MTBE ended up being even worse of a polluter..

READ HERE

"Methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) is a flammable liquid that has been used as an additive for unleaded gasoline since the 1980s. MTBE increases octane and oxygen levels in gasoline and reduces pollution emissions. Because of concerns for groundwater contamination and water quality, MTBE is now banned or limited in several states. MTBE is also used in small amounts as a laboratory solvent and for some medical applications."

Once the blunder of MTBE being even worse of a pollution issue they had to find a fix, but what?

Yeah, ETHANOL..

Then once the dire "plight" of the save the earth folks made things political, ETHANOL became the "hero" to them, pushing it on everyone saying it is good for the earth and has a side benefit for corn farmers who got subsidies from growing even more corn..

However, in the over zealousness of the save the earth folks they forgot that corn crops cause considerable amount of damage to the land, it removes considerable amount of nutrients from the land and renders the land UNfertile to grow ANYTHING . This requires farmers to heavily dose the land with fertilizers..

Guess what the base material for fertilizers is?

CRUDE OIL OR NATURAL GAS FEED STOCKS!!!

Yep, we dump tons of CARBON BASED fertilizer which the base comes from good old dead dinos that every tree hugger whines about killing off the land from..

But, hey, I guess Ethanol is saving the earth :R

50 years ago I used AV gas in my race car and my friend is still using it today. 100% synthetic oil and 112 octane leaded gas in my own. Lots of miss information in some of the previous posts.

DrewE wrote:

I find it rather astounding that people will spend extra money to get leaded gasoline for their generators--which are not designed or specified by the manufacturer to operate on--in order to avoid ethanol, which the manufacturer specifically approves and permits.

I think you got me. Hard to argue im not a jerk to still buy leaded gas. I run it in my dirt bike sometimes. Lately i buy sonoco brand 110. I think its leaded.

Let say i dont spill a drop. Please feel free to make fun of this question. Does the lead come out as a gas? How does it work in terms of leaded gasoline exiting the exhaust?

Me, me, me.

All caps for emphasis is easier to read and makes controversial subjects very clear. People can make statements orally and not raise their voice, Tonal inflection is not possible in print. I have recently adopted use of *xxxxxxxx* to make effect without caps.

I was told 50 years ago, choose one, either the aircraft or it's manifest was necessary to get AV gas. Eleven airports between San Jose and Sacramento was pretty darn convincing.

The issue was and I suppose still is the avoidance of paying road tax to the state of California. I also tried in Reno NV before they had a general state tax and was told at McCarren airport no ticket no wash.

Benefits of AV gas? Heck if a chainsaw or outboard operates OK on Mexican refined gasoline, then demanding aviation fuel is a little picky don'tcha think? Like Aviation lube oil. The advantages are specific for aircooled engines. With gasoline the elimination of carburetor icing.