The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Engine/Gas Additives

What engine/gas additives are people using in their vintage trucks?

better question would be .... why? plain old gas is expensive enough without adding anything else to burn

Bill

preserve, clean, and have a newly rebuilt engine run at optimal performance...I want it to last a long time. I'm currently experimenting different brands with plans to use on regular fill ups. What's everyone's thoughts?

What are you trying to prevent???? Wear? Smell?

I can think of things that you can do... a pre-oiler is probably the best thing you can add to a car to prevent start up wear. If you are in a cold climate engine warming systems (for oil and water).

But nothing you pour in your tank will make much difference.

Just prevent general wear and gunk build up, etc. I'm just concerned about the lack of lead in gas and the horror stories about E85.

Best thing you can do for your engine is drive the vehicle frequently -- on the highway and every month if possible

for starters, you won't be using any E85, and E10 will be no problem if you don't store it unused for long periods without a preservative like Stabil .... the lack of lead doesn't hurt a thing, especially on a newly rebuilt engine that should have gotten hard seats ... then it's the oil that prevents wear and good hot runs when you use it prevent 'gunk' - as well as regular oil changes of course .... just drive it and enjoy it

Bill

As long as your crankcase ventilation is up to snuff then simply using modern oil will prevent sludge.... and as mentioned drive the thing long enough to get it to operating temps for 20+ minutes to boil off any condensation in the pan.

I don't have hardened seats in my engine so a lot of old timers told me to dump some marvel mystery oil in the gas so it will lubricate the "upper engine." Anyone have long-term success with this stuff?

I have had somewhat long term success without added upper-engine lubrication, with no hardened seats.

MMO will quiet down noisy rockers... but I fail to see how it can lubricate anything with a surface temp of over 500F

The general consensus is that the motors are not run hard enough to need hardened valve seats. Now if you were toting around a full bed or materials... up a hill, on a hot summer day.. then yeah.

the only time you'd have trouble without hardened seats is if you were always pushing it hard hauling heavy loads - even as a daily driver in 'recreational' mode, you could put many thousands of miles on it without problems, many of us here still have original engines in use trouble free .... but if it was just rebuilt, why didn't the valves get upgraded??

Bill

Thanks for the clarification on everything...I'll save my money!

P.T. Barnum had a comment about people who use gas additives. A 5% mix of Diesel fuel/Gasoline will bump the octane number up a few points, if you're running compression above 9:1. It raises the specific gravity of the gas and slows down the burn rate for less detonation. I gallon of Diesel to 19 gallons of gas.
Jerry

heavy40........ Ethanol is harmful to any fuel system. Use one of the fuel stabilizers 'for ethanol fuel' or you won't have a problem, until you have a problem! Use the 'new' Sta-bil (for ethanol fuel), Lucas Ethanol fuel additive, etc...

Lead additive can't hurt anything either.

you need no additives, maybe some stabil in the tank if you don't drive it a lot, but I even have my doubts about that. All additives do is remove money from your wallet. As was said above, the best thing to do is drive it regularly, long enough to get it up to temp for 20 minutes or so. What exactly would you be lubricating in the upper engine, the top of the piston? These engines are so inefficient, they don't produce enough combustion heat to really hurt any thing in regards to the hardened/lack of hardened seats.