The anti spam system ate my response again and when I hit the back button, the response was still gone.
Anyway, I intended to go for a short drive today but due to a flat tire, I wasted several hours that has resulted in one new innertube, and 4 newly rotated and balanced wheels.
Otherwise the car is running well and I may be on to why it smokes in my care. I am beginning to suspect that it has to do with the 50/50 mix of pump gas and 100LL AvGas I like to run. Any thoughts on this?
Regards,
Art S.
What is the compression ratio of your 330? I've heard 8.5:1 on some of these V-12s, which may mean you can run these engines on lower octane ratings if you don't hear pinging. How does your car run with straight high test?
A friend of mine is writing a book on the fallacy of lead in gasoline. The Nation did a whole issue on his piece preliminarily. If you want to read it, it's here:
Lead (as tetraethylead - TEL) in gas has been used mainly for 2 reasons:
1) Raise the octane
2) Provide an antiseize film on the valve and valve seat.
As far as raising the octane, a no-lead gas can be manufactured with the same octane as a leaded gas - but it is more costly because the yield of the high octane gas is less than the lower octane gas. How much of the savings gained by using TEL (instead of refining to a higher octane) is passed on to the consumer is not a technical issue.
Whether a no-lead gas is needed for valve seat protection depends on the engine design. For engines with hardened valve seats (all modern engines, and our Ferrari's) it is not needed. In my days of driving flathead Fords, we could use Amoco's no-lead gas - the V-8 engine had hardened valve seats. Other engines had seats just ground into the block - leaded gas was an advantage to them. And severe use, like a truck engine under continuous heavy load could use leaded gas if they did not have hardened valve seats or leaded gas.
The disadvantages of lead do not need to be repeated here - but in 1950 for me it was only a tradeoff between cleaner plugs and higher gas price, or leaded cheaper gas.
As far as the emerging countries using higher lead gas - I have never been a big conspiricy fan - there may also be issues with locally produced engines which need lead, and/or local refiners which do not produce a high octane gas. It is an observable fact that a lot of emission related factors are not as important some places as here.
In your car or mine the use of too high an octane will not hurt, too low may, depending on whether you get detonation or not. I am using 93 octane in mine, have no indication of any problems. But I have not inspected my plugs yet to see if there is any overheating apparent. And I am at a complete loss to see how a smoking problem can be caused by the gas one uses.
Coincidentally, I read this 23 page article a few days ago. All 20,000 words.
The article never mentiones the lubricating properties engines needed back then (Back when you were lucky to get 100K out of an engine). It often referred to "other alternatives" to anti-knock methods with no backup. Also, it took "quaint" (ie: misinformed) quotes and applied only when it supported their view. Long on drama, short on tech.
I found it be a rather shrill piece that tries to be a Ken Burns documentary.
For the record, I have no dog in theis fight and don't see any viable reason to use it today.
Jaime got interested in the subject of the lubrication properties of lead in gasoline when they were taking lead out of gas in the UK and all the Brit car mags were foaming at the mouth about valve seat damage. He has 23, mostly British, cars and though it had been many years after they took lead out of US gas, he had never had any issues with this supposed major engine crippling situation.
So he investigated and feels that despite the claims, lead in gas not only destroys our health but actually shortens engines lives. He points out that cars engines used to be good for 60,000 miles or so and now even older engines routinely last longer. And of course says quite a bit more in that article and forthcoming book.
Best,
Yale
Ex - 1964 330GT #6097
1963 Abarth Monomille
1970 Porsche 911S
1974 BMW 2002turbo
I have an Ansa exhaust system, I'm lead plating the inside of it to prevent rust :)
By the way, the smoke mostly occurs when the oil is above 220F, after coasting while in gear, then hitting the throttle . No smoke on start up (usually). Either the guides are going in a weird way or it has something to do with the fuel.
That symptom sounds like valve guides and/or valve seals. When you decelerate with the throttle plates closed, like coasting down a long hill, the high vacuum in the intake manifold tends to suck oil past the guides, and when you accelerate it blows it out. It is a pretty common, almost classical symptom, with all kinds of engines. I have had more than a few. But it is not a mortal illness, if your rings are still good, as they apparently are.
Guides were also my first inclination but I do not have smokey start-ups nor does the car smoke unless the engine is hot. I'm starting to suspect that it may just be the AvGas that I'm running (it's hard to tell the color in the rear view mirror). The next tank will be just pump gas so, we'll see.
I have to go with Warren on this one. Typically when engine oil is hot and thinner it will be sucked past the guides with all the vacuum from a closed throttle coasting. My oil takes a long time to warm up. New valve guides did the trick for my motor.
I obviously hope you are right - a much easier fix than valve work. But black smoke from an overly rich mixture seems unlikely given the other clues. In any case it sounds like your car is runing pretty well. Just pretend your race car is at LeMans where a little smoke might be normal. I saw several of thse million dollar cars smoke at Goodwood.
