The Jensen Owners' Club

Hello All,

I have just been reading a presentation by MOSS EUROPE about the above. It would appear the implications for Classic Cars could be serious and I believe during the Turin tour in 2016 the Mk1 of Nigel had a fuel pump failure. From arriving in France and travelling to Italy E10 was commonly available and could have contributed to the issue on Nigels' car.

Given that an introduction date for E10 in the UK is 2021 I believe it is something within the JOC that should be discussed, and soon!!! The article indicated that E5 'might still be available but not at all petrol stations'. It also mentioned going up to grades such as Shell V-Power (95+octane), which is more expensive and not always available.

regards

DavidM

I've read the government report on this and it is very well written. They assess the cost of converting older cars to E10 as: "a high estimate of between £1150 assuming a non-franchised garage and £1650 for a franchised garage. " Classics cars are mentioned, but not specifically addressed.

Earlier fuel scares have been met by using additives. This is to add something to the fuel that regulations have removed. In this case, something has been added to the fuel, so can an additive neutralise this?

Using Super grade fuel instead of Premium should keep us going a few years. The extra octane boost may get us a better mpg, so it is not all "wasted" expense.

I notice that my Skoda (VAG) 1.5 tsi petrol engine is approved to run on any pump petrol; the electronics takes car of the change from 2-star to Premium to Super without any warnings about engine damage (due to octane rating).

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultat ... -labelling

To be quite blunt, there is little we can do about this. The FBHVC has lobbied Parliament with the All Party Parliamentary Historic Vehicles Group chaired by Sir Greg Knight and the Government has agreed to allow E5 to remain available for the next 5 years, the time limit allowed by law.
The reality though is that the entire classic car fleet represents less than one tenth of one percent of the vehicles on the road fuel usage with it being almost non-existent during the winter months. Commercially then, the scenario of special fuels for historic vehicles at any meaningful level of availability is a complete non-starter.
Petrol stations have at most 4 tanks, 2 for petrol and 2 for diesel. Standard grade petrol will be E10 and the only E5 will be Super Unleaded grade petrol which is around 23p/litre more expensive, adding over £1 per gallon to your fuel cost.
Unfortunately it must be reluctantly accepted that we will have to use the available fuels and make the adjustments or small changes to our historic vehicles to enable them to operate satisfactorily on the changing fuels.
Also bear in mind that from 1953 until the late 1960s Cleveland Discol petrol had ethanol at concentrations varying between 25% and 30%.

I suspect this will be another storm in a tea cup, I remember all the scare mongering about Unleaded fuel when that was introduced in the late 80's, there was even a program on TV telling us that our engines were all going to be junk within a few years.

Some cars will need fuel pipes and they are probably over due replacement anyway, some cars will have some parts that will degrade in the carbs and if you leave a lot of fuel in your tank it could cause the inside of the tank to rust due to the fact it is hygroscopic.

Steve

Surely nobody runs a Jensen on 91 RON fuel?

Standard unleaded in the UK is 95RON. Super Unleaded is 98RON. Those are the only 2 grades generally available. Depending where you go standard unleaded is currently around 111p/litre, super unleaded is around 135p/litre. The highest price standard unleaded reached was around 133p/litre in 2018 with super unleaded around 145p/litre.

That makes more sense.

Wouldn't most of you use 98 RON anyway? It won't be good if even the 98 RON has 5% ethanol in it.

Why would you need to run 98 RON unless you have a modified engine? I have run my Mk. 3 on NZ 91 RON for 16 years with no issues and I have a slightly increased comp. ratio (9.2:1 if I remember right!).

David knows only too well about Nigel's fuel pump leak when in Turin! This was just before it started raining on them!

Doubtful though if it was caused by E10.
As in the old days we have had to replace some parts now and again. Petrol pump diaphragm is one of them. It was and is is called regular maintenance. No different from the present.
Stop worrying about E10. We have had E5 for donkeys years without any problems. It will be no different with E10, although the industry is trying hard to make us believe otherwise.
Kees Oudesluijs

RayR wrote:Why would you need to run 98 RON unless you have a modified engine? I have run my Mk. 3 on NZ 91 RON for 16 years with no issues and I have a slightly increased comp. ratio (9.2:1 if I remember right!).

I was actually thinking of the B motors that had a 10:1 compression ratio vs 8.2:1 for the RB motors. So, yes the 440 engines would be far more tolerant of fuels with lower octane ratings.

How accurate the factory compression ratios were is another question.

Yeah too right! it's easy to slip into our own context with general comments!

I had my heads worked on a long time ago in the US and they said it should give me about 9.2 - don't know how accurate that is either but definitely helped the performance with no issues on US gas or NZ petrol!

This topic was covered by Brian Philpott in a letter in the February 2019 issue of the magazine. Brian tests his petrol every time he fills up, and confirmed then that Esso Supreme was still free of ethanol, despite what may be written on the pump.
Apparently, this may not apply to Devon and Cornwall.
Also, in Kent and Sussex, the Power brand of petrol is ethanol free.
David

Hi Guys,

It would be interesting to hear whether Brian has undertaken any more recent tests and whether the Esso supreme is still ethanol free 12+ months later. If that is the case, I may swap from my usual Shell to that.

Jon

I'm pleased to report that now that Brian has filled up with Esso Supreme again recently, his previous findings on this petrol remain sound.
He emailed me with the following announcement -

The fuel I picked up was in Camberley, and was zero ethanol.
However, the Esso website still says that the only areas where they put E5 in Supreme 97 are Devon/Cornwall, Teesside and Scotland.
So the South East and indeed most of the country is safe.

So there you are use Esso Supreme!
(I must go and collect my cut!)

David