Aviation gasoline (avgas) in cars

[Frankoid]

Has anyone tried avgas in their cars? I live not too far away from Biggin Hill and there are a lot of aeroplanes using high octane high lead fuel with impunity. If I put on my pilots uniform and drive the Jensen in with a Jerry can in the boot for my Spitfire juice I may give it a go.....

[RAP72]

why stop at Avgas? try Avpin

PS from your address 'Letsby Avenue" were you ever at Episkopi in Cyprus? the Guardroom /Jail was on Letsby Avenue - apparently names by the RSM at the time when the road was opened.

[Frankoid]

why stop at Avgas? try Avpin

PS from your address 'Letsby Avenue" were you ever at Episkopi in Cyprus? the Guardroom /Jail was on Letsby Avenue - apparently names by the RSM at the time when the road was opened.

No, but my uncle was a RSM Cyprus (Ron Ellerbeck)

[colin7673]

Has anyone tried avgas in their cars? I live not too far away from Biggin Hill and there are a lot of aeroplanes using high octane high lead fuel with impunity. If I put on my pilots uniform and drive the Jensen in with a Jerry can in the boot for my Spitfire juice I may give it a go.....

if your on FB there's a guy on there who is a Jensen owner and member who runs his cars on avgas, as he also has his own plane. So I pm you with his details

[VFK44]

For non-UK readers who may be a little puzzled:

the Guardroom /Jail was on Letsby Avenue

In Britain it has been traditional for policemen to apprehend criminals with a cry of "Let's be having you!" (Lets-by Aving-you). The correct response to this was "Alright Guv, it's a fair cop..."

All part of the strange arrangement of policing by consent whereby British career criminals would surrender voluntarily to an unarmed policeman.

[RockyUSA]

Do the criminals still do that (surrender voluntarily)?

[VFK44]

I think in many cases they do. They know that they will usually be treated like humans, and given a fair trial, so why try to escape against the odds and risk further charges? I watched a recent UK documentary where a major drugs importer was arrested in a "raid" on his house; the police introduced themselves, asked "you all right?" and left him to get changed before taking him to jail. Once there, they apologised sincerely for arresting him on his son's birthday and said they would never do that deliberately. No cuffs, no walk of shame. Didn't stop him getting 20 years.

Same thing with repeated minor offenders/drunks etc. Police know them like extended family.

[Frankoid]

A fair cop? thats a blonde policeman!

[sespie]

Ha ha. But yes - I’ve mixed in Avgas with unleaded 98. Probably about 50:50 mix.
Ran beautifully and with a nice white/light grey exhaust pipe.

[felixkk]

Pete Brocker, the previous owner of Joerg's 541 with the Chevy 327 used to have the car running on more than 100 octane. When I asked him where he gets his gasoline he said at the airport...

[Wolfgang]

There is so named 'race fuel' or avgas available, it's having around 113 octane, was formerly used in F1 until the FIA restricted them to use standard fuel. Yes you may get it on private airports for sport planes, but be careful - in some countries they mark it like Diesel, because of difference in tax...
Please don't confound it with Kerosene, this will never work in a carburetor.

If you use 'superfuel' with your carbs, you have to adapt your setup of the carb because the explosion temperature is much higher, the internal pressure to the piston is comparable to the top fuel class running with Nitromethanol - and these engines are designed for max acceleration for a quarter mile...

We have only used it for hill climb competition or for the legendary quarter mile. For my Interceptor I'm not seeing any improvement, the acceleration out of 7,2l with about 280hp (perhaps a little bit less) is always enough for the Belgian highways - this is a cruiser...

If we're going for a hill climb challenge (the quarter mile I stopped some years before - it's only a challenge to create max acceleration, there is no big challenge for the driver) we're using standard fuel E95 and some 'additives'.

If you want to have max acceleration, implement an NOS injection system - but it may blast your engine, and if your not having enough grip in the best case you're doing a 360...

Have fun witch your cars
Wolfgang

[jlebberes]

With a compression ratio of +/- 9.5 I rather doubt there would be much of an improvement in performance. These are certainly not high compression engines. That said, I do use av gas in cars that tend to sit unused for extended periods of time (early pre-war cars) . Modern oxygenated fuels are formulated to go from refinery to tailpipe in weeks. Av gas will remain stable for 10 years. Something to think about the next time your cleaning varnish out of the float chamber of that next barn find.

[sespie]

Yes, it was mainly in the Lotus that I used it. Compression ration of 10.3:1 and designed for 100 octane fully leaded, which was sold in the UK at the time.
But presumably also good for a bit of valve seat lubrication.

[Frankoid]

I believe that Jensen and other high end marques originally recommended 5-star petrol in their cars. An online site says the "star" system, from 2 to 5, effectively ended with the arrival of un-leaded fuel. On 5 star the same site says;
"The 5-Star rating was the motor equivalent of avgas and was only used in high-performance cars with high compression-ratio engines, such as Jaguars, etc. It was also used for racing engines".....

[Grant]

Most of the early Interceptors up to 1972 were High Comp 10:1 running best on 5 star fuel, there were exceptions like the last of the 383's that were down on comp, but then the earlier 440's were back up to 10:1 again untill 1973 when they started to drop the comp ratio down