Leaded to Unleaded Fuel....

[Flairbird5]

I am buying a 65 T-bird and dont know what has been done to the engine in the past years but it looks to be nice and clean considering its only 2900 dollars, texas car so there is also little rust... But what do people do so the engine isn't harmed by using unleaded gasoline?? I am a member of altimas.net(99 altima) which is the opposite of this car(65 t-bird),,,,,any help would be appreciated....thanks

[Darel]

Use lead additive.

[Flairbird5]

Yeah, I knew you could do that but do most of you on here do it or just run with strraight unleaded fuel... Let me know, thanks......
I notice that not many people on here post or reply so thanks for repliying.

[Asher]

Flairbird5,

The correct way is to modify the cylinder heads. You need to have a machine shop install hardened valve seats. These will stand up to the use of un-leaded fuel. Watch the cc's of the heads too. Yours will be in the range of 62 to 54 cc's. This and a few other things will determine the compression ratio and the octane of the pump fuel you need to use.
Asher

[Darel]

Sorry to sound so curt with you. Click on the following link if you want to see a thread I started on Auto Restorer On-Line about some more efficient ways to get older engines to run on pump gas. If you scroll down, look for threads that are about shimming heads, or just do a search for my name.
Never mind, looks like that thread was archived or something. Anyway, the gist of it was that you could pay a machine shop to install hardened valve seats, or you could go to a place like Summit and for just a little more money get a new set of heads with larger valves and better flow, with the seats already installed. FWIW I did a frame-off on a '67 IH Scout 800 and to have a machine shop rebuild just one head (deck it, new valves, springs, and seals, already had hardened seats) was $330. A new set of 390 heads runs around $800 unless you really go gonzo.
As far as running on pump gas, the guys on the other forum said they only add lead very rarely, as opposed to each gas tank. One guy said he only adds it when he first buys the car, then never again. That seems a bit extreme to me. I do it once a month or so. For the higher-compression engines that run premium, what they said to do was just run it on cheap gas, and if it starts knocking retard the timing. If you have to retard the timing too much, you can add a second, high-quality head gasket to "shim" the head up and lower your compression ratio slightly. Most guys have said they've had no problems just playing with timing, but if you have to shim it make sure you use a really good gasket, since they're not really designed to work that way.
Darel

[Flairbird5]

Thanks, I got lead additive but how much do you think I should put in each month or however often I do it?? Any ideas.. I have no clue what to judge it on except an old 1980 moped that i had running off lead additive to the beach or wherever....