Yes, but the purpose of lead substitute is to protect valve seats from
recession in the absence of lead.
There are products marketed as octane boost which are for the purpose of
boosting octane (duh).
It is possible your product purports to do both, but they are separate
functions. Lead just happened to serve both functions, but the chemical
brews that replace it are targeted at one or the other.
The effect of higher octane fuel is NOT (as commonly believed, and actively
promoted by the oil companies) to instantly improve performance -- it is to
allow your engine to run with either (or both) a higher compression ratio or
more advanced timing. It is these tuning factors that provide higher
performance. (I should add that some modern cars have automatic knock
sensing, so that they achieve optimum performance using premium fuel, but
are able to run using regular fuel. In these cars filling up with premium
will indeed boost performance, if you are used to running on regular).
Unless you swapped pistons, shaved your cylinder head, or fiddled with the
distributor, the performance improvement WAS all in your head. If your
engine was "pinging" or "knocking" under load prior to using the additive,
then, yes, you could say it improved performance. But essentially you are
saying you had the timing set incorrectly.
on 4/15/04 2:05 PM, Pointparty@aol.com at Pointparty@aol.com wrote:
>
> thanks to all who replied, the consensus seems to be the improvement is in my
> imagination. However, the containers also brag about octane boost, which
> makes sense, since the primary difference between leaded and unleaded gas is
> tetraethyl lead compound. TIsn't the he purpose of the lead in leaded gas was
> to increase octane number?
>
> thanks..........mel 1971mgbgt
>
--
Max Heim
'66 MGB GHN3L76149
If you're near Mountain View, CA,
it's the primer red one with chrome wires
|