Sue,
You have a better grasp of the situation than many people! The tin
pellet "Magic Charms" are indeed a complete waste of time - my wife is a
development Chemist for Burmah-Castrol and delights in winding up the people
selling these objects at car shows! Any of the other options is viable,
though in the case of a car which sees frequent hard use, a rebuilt head
will be needed sooner or later.
In may we travelled to the STER event in Holland in my MkIV, where
due to the unavailability of Leaded 4 star, I filled up with LRP. The
Spitfire actually appeared to run better on this than on 4 star (there is
usually some pinking), doubtless because the LRP on the continent is 98 RON,
versus 97 RON for 4 star. I am not unduly concerned about using neat
unleaded in my cars except for the MkIV Spitfire, as it has a genuine
mileage of only 32000, ie., not a great deal of lead memory. I have
earmarked this one for an exchange head from John Kipping (who is
incidentally, significantly cheaper than any other supplier I have found for
exchange cylinder heads).
I hope this is of some interest,
Bill.
> As I understand it the options include the following:
> 1 - changing the head
> 2 - changing the valve seats
> 3 - putting a 'thing' in the petrol tank
> 4 - putting an in-line 'thing' in the fuel line
> 5 - putting additives in with the fuel each time
> 6 - using Lead replacement Petrol
> 7 - just putting in unleaded
>
>
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^================^
/ \ William Davies
/ \ Total Triumph Enthusiast
__ __________________ __
/ \ ______ ______ / \ 1959 Herald 948 Coupé Y128
\__/ \ || / \__/ 1959 Herald 948 Coupé
| A \____||____/ A | 1959 Herald 948 Saloon
| = H H = | 1960 Herald 948 Saloon Export
=====U==============U===== 1961 Herald 'S'
\________________________/ 1964 Herald 1200 Saloon
| | | | 1973 Spitfire MkIV
|_| |_| 1959 Standard Atlas Pickup
|