IAM (Motorcyclists)

[grantp]

Originally Posted by midgetman

Purlease Grant. You're only one step away from the FB "friend" who claims the the fuel panic is caused by the oil companies trying to get rid of unsold petrol stored too long due to lockdown.

Max, well, possibly a bit extreme but with so many strange decisions being made these days I'm sure a few unusual and possibly unauthorised middle-management decisions could slip through although simple cockups are probably more likely reasons.

We are at the point where winter spec. fuel would be coming into distribution (possibly less of a concern in the UK) and we ARE being advised that having more ethanol in the fuel means it does not store so well for so long ...

Just saying.

There is a great little book, written in the mid 1800's about "The Madness of Crowds".

One sometimes wonders whether there may be some people trawling through for ideas about how to generate similar responses to those of the Crowds mentioned therein but in the modern era.

[Tel 911S]

Originally Posted by grantp

Max, well, possibly a bit extreme but with so many strange decisions being made these days I'm sure a few unusual and possibly unauthorised middle-management decisions could slip through although simple cockups are probably more likely reasons.

We are at the point where winter spec. fuel would be coming into distribution (possibly less of a concern in the UK) and we ARE being advised that having more ethanol in the fuel means it does not store so well for so long ...

Just saying.

There is a great little book, written in the mid 1800's about "The Madness of Crowds".

One sometimes wonders whether there may be some people trawling through for ideas about how to generate similar responses to those of the Crowds mentioned therein but in the modern era.

I am not sure about winter spec fuel .
I remember back about 1992 [ I think ] , Winter came early and caught a lot of vehicles out with freezing fuel . After that I believe they kept Winter spec fuel going here all year round .It is less efficient and therefore they sell more of it .
Might have only been for diesel. But I was finding that tanks full of fuel in France or Spain were doing a lot more miles than in the UK all year round . Through the 90s I was doing hundreds of thousands of miles around UK and Europe & noticed the difference a lot .

[John Elwin]

Originally Posted by Tel 911S

I am not sure about winter spec fuel .
I remember back about 1992 [ I think ] , Winter came early and caught a lot of vehicles out with freezing fuel . After that I believe they kept Winter spec fuel going here all year round .It is less efficient and therefore they sell more of it .
Might have only been for diesel. But I was finding that tanks full of fuel in France or Spain were doing a lot more miles than in the UK all year round . Through the 90s I was doing hundreds of thousands of miles around UK and Europe & noticed the difference a lot .

I can concur with that! I used to find the same thing when coming over here on trips before moving, & filling up in France.

At the time, a friend had an Alfa 155 (2-litre petrol engine) - the same as myself - and he had exactly the same experience.

[GORDON STREETER]

I had a garage and petrol pumps from 1968-1989 and had to get through shortages and "waxing" diesel in winter. We used to mix paraffin to diesel back then to use it during extremely cold weather , in actually fact an inline pump diesel engine will run totally on paraffin but only when it is hot, but I don't know about newer electronic injection stuff.
During one shortage spell back in the70s I was running one of my petrol vans on a 50/50 petrol/paraffin mix, it didn't start or go too well but at least it was usable to get about.
As for unleaded going off after a long while, It will last a lot longer if you put a lump of lead in the tank ! Indeed I used lead balls in the tank of my race car for years and sometimes ran it on low octane unleaded with no problem at at a static CR of 13/1

[Tel 911S]

Originally Posted by GORDON STREETER

I had a garage and petrol pumps from 1968-1989 and had to get through shortages and "waxing" diesel in winter. We used to mix paraffin to diesel back then to use it during extremely cold weather , in actually fact an inline pump diesel engine will run totally on paraffin but only when it is hot, but I don't know about newer electronic injection stuff.
During one shortage spell back in the70s I was running one of my petrol vans on a 50/50 petrol/paraffin mix, it didn't start or go too well but at least it was usable to get about.
As for unleaded going off after a long while, It will last a lot longer if you put a lump of lead in the tank ! Indeed I used lead balls in the tank of my race car for years and sometimes ran it on low octane unleaded with no problem at at a static CR of 13/1

Was it Williams F1 team who got into trouble for bags of lead shot in their fuel tanks . They claimed it was ballast , but it was well known to raise the octane rating .

But this E10 fuel thing is all about taking more money off motorists .
It is claimed to be environmentally friendly , but the claim turns out at less than 1% lower emissions than normal petrol , when a lot of cars will use between 10 & 20 % more . So it actually produces 9 to 19% more emissions .
But it does increase fuel taxation income by 10 to 20% for the government .

[grantp]

Originally Posted by Tel 911S

Was it Williams F1 team who got into trouble for bags of lead shot in their fuel tanks . They claimed it was ballast , but it was well known to raise the octane rating .

Tyrrell.

But I thought it was indeed ballast in order to make sure they were not underweight at the end of the race.

I wouldn't have thought that lead in a foam tank would make much difference for the few minutes it would be in there after re-fuelling.

Whether Williams or others also employed the same ideas at some point I have no idea.

[E.B]

Originally Posted by grantp

Tyrrell.

But I thought it was indeed ballast in order to make sure they were not underweight at the end of the race.

I wouldn't have thought that lead in a foam tank would make much difference for the few minutes it would be in there after re-fuelling.

Whether Williams or others also employed the same ideas at some point I have no idea.

I think in the era of DFV's v Turbos the FOCA (non manufacturer) teams saw the reduction of weight as to their only answer to turbo power.... Williams answer was water cooled brakes.... water injection to 'cool' the brakes. Basically they had a large water tank in the sidepod that injected water onto the brakes, The water dissipated very quickly, the tank emptied in a lap or two leaving the cars to run underweight for the race, covered by being allowed to refill 'cooling' fluids used. The water tanks were IIRC a decent size so the weight loss was noticeable. Williams came 1&2 in I think Brazil and were protested (by the FISA / manufacturer/turbo teams) on the water cooling 'scam' and DSQ'd.

Edit: Found an article confirming the above plus highlighting others doing similar (includes the Tyrrell one explained) Interesting read.
https://au.motorsport.com/f1/news/ba...rules/4791237/

[Tel 911S]

Originally Posted by grantp

Tyrrell.

But I thought it was indeed ballast in order to make sure they were not underweight at the end of the race.

I wouldn't have thought that lead in a foam tank would make much difference for the few minutes it would be in there after re-fuelling.

Whether Williams or others also employed the same ideas at some point I have no idea.

Thinking back , you are right , it was Tyrell.
I think it was played down at the time to try to deny that they were running very high compression engines which needed higher octanes than were allowed under pump fuel rules .

But lead pellets were used in WW2 for fighters that were shipped to Russia .Merlin engines needed high octane fuel , which the Russians had very little .
So lead pellets , [ possibly plus some other metals ] were used in the fuel lines / tanks which raised the octane rating high enough for the engines to work .

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by Tel 911S

Thinking back , you are right , it was Tyrell.
I think it was played down at the time to try to deny that they were running very high compression engines which needed higher octanes than were allowed under pump fuel rules .

But lead pellets were used in WW2 for fighters that were shipped to Russia .Merlin engines needed high octane fuel , which the Russians had very little .
So lead pellets , [ possibly plus some other metals ] were used in the fuel lines / tanks which raised the octane rating high enough for the engines to work .

This reminds me of a device called (if memory serves me correctly) something like POWER+. It was a small cartridge containing lead pellets & other 'precious metals' that was supposed to be connected to your fuel line so when the fuel passed through it, the octane level increased. They claimed at the time that it used technology that was used during WW2...

[Lancsbreaker]

There was a device called the Broquet (IIRC) that was promoted quite a lot a while ago that similarly purported to have "magic" results by being some sort of lead substitute....

[Tel 911S]

I believe that the "Broquet " product was based 0n the idea of the WW2 aircraft fuel cell.

Lead and another metal ,[ not quite sure what ] have an electrolytic reaction when a fluid conductor , [ petrol ] comes between them . [ Something like a lead acid battery ].
This causes fine lead fragments to mix in with the petrol , and therefore raises the octane rating by a fair bit .

Can,t remember all of the tech details , but it did work .
So it is quite possible that the idea has been used for various other applications .