Is unleaded fuel ok to use in a beetle motor?
I have been using it for the past month in my 1776 without any noticable changes to the motor (heaps more grunt though).
Aren't the valve seats hardened in the factory? (therefore lead free fuel is ok to use).

I heard about that recently (either here or on another forum) so I switched to PULP in my 2L Kombi and it seems to run fine. I'm sure an "expert" answer will be posted soon!

EDIT: I found the post, scroll down it and you'll find a link to some great info:
http://www.aussieveedubbers.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=2909 

[Edited on 27-2-2003 by Purple Martin]

Ok - i am a pert just not an ex :bounce

this has been discussed to death but we will keep on telling people to keep VW's alive.
You can do a search as well

ALL VWs since 1967 came with hardened valve seats.
Leaded petrol has not been sold in the USA for approx 15 + years.
You will do NO damage with ULP.
If you run stock compression <8:1 you can run ULP
> 8:1 CR and i would strongly suggest PULP

If you run LRP i will NEVER talk to you again and i will personally come around and take your VW off you

Next question?

isn't LRP just PULP but with some sort or additive?? So we could use it with no ill effects???

PULP = Premium Unleaded Petrol
LRP = Shit

Dave, would you suggest any additives with PULP.

Dave
what evidence have you got to back up LRP is shit.
or is it here say??

:sandrine
My son works at a garage he was saying that LRP is just PUL with valve master &
other lead suppliments & dyes to make it look red like SUPER.
BUG (o\|/o)

I run vortex in the 1915....
It has an upper cyl lube in it....
I club member has a 1641 stan.. and he was told to use an upper cyl lube in it..
plus its sposed to higher octane....
i'm no Ex either but hey....
When i was running PULP it pinged....
Now it dont and its got better fuel econ...
:thumb:thumb

LRP ....... IS ........ just ULP with additives. It is the additives which screw engines up (dunno why) but you will get EXCESSIVE carbon buildup and then you will need to pull plug's heads whatever else to clean it and fix it.

Upper cyl lube cannot hurt, i ran redline then something else (i forget what) with ULP in my 1600tp after using 3 tanks of LRP and having to fix stuff up. Everything ran fine with NO problem's (and i am not gentle with my engines)

I have been running PULP ever since i got the 1835 without any additives as i know the heads are ready for ULP.

Best advice is ALWAYS use PULP and nothing else and if you dont know if your heads are ready for ULP then add some upper cyl lube just to be on the safe side.

:bounce:bounce:bounce:bounce:bounce:bounce:bounce:bounce:bounce:bounce:bounce:bounce

nobody should use LRP for anything, different petrol Companies use different additives which may not be compatibale, most use Mangenese as a component & this can leave reddish rust- like deposit which can cake up your combustion chamber & spark plugs. you should only use ULP or PULP depending on the Octane requirement of your car, with a reputable additive like Flashlube which was originally developed to lubricate valves & seats on cars running LPG, which is a "dry fuel" & therefore even worse than ULP. When ULP came out my wife & I were running 2 1964 Humber Supersnipes as daily drivers which DO NOT have hardened valve seats ,mine doing 19000km much at high speed & Jenny's 10000km per year, I decided to use this as a test & ran mine on ULP + Flashlube & Jenny's just on ULP with no additive, after 4 years there was no change in Jenny's valve clearances.
High revs & heat are the main cause of valve seat recession & as the VW a/c motor is not normally a high revving motor, it should be able to use just ULP with no additive.
we have never put anything but ULP in the Kombi
is that enough??

I just got in to work - no pc at home.

Thank you all so much for your great responses. I'm happy to hear that LRP is crap and will use ULP. I don't think I will use the PULP cause I don't know what compression my motor has.

Hey is Cylinder lube just added into your fuel tank like those Whynns products??

Generally all engines with Alloy cylinder heads regardless of when they are made should be able to run unleaded petrol with no ill-effect since engines with alloy heads have to have hardened valve seats anyway.

Okay, so for the newbies like me, having read the posts, and the longer linked discussion:

1. The lubricating element of "leaded" is not an issue for VWs so unleaded is fine .

2. But the non-Fuel injection raises questions about the octane rating - which is linked directly to potential engine damage :o

3. We're not sure about the amount of additives in fuel (which lowers the octane raiting) - so best to go with the higher octane rated fuel that you can :thumb

This right?

Peter

[Edited on 27-2-2003 by teamfaulkner]

Alloy heads go back to the '20s it is best not to assume that a pre mid 80's car has hardened valve seats in either a cast iron or alloy head, if you can't find out for a fact, then it is a safe & cheap bet to use an additive, Flashlube is used at 1ml per litre & costs about $20 a litre, beware of the really expensive highly visible additives that are around that can cost up to $10.00 a tank

Peter,
the additives do not affect the octane rating, although there are aditives you can get to raise it. It is best to use the LOWEST octane rating your car will run on (and much cheaper) use normal unleaded, find a hill & put the engine under a bit of load going up it, gradually putting you foot to the floor if it starts making a pinging (clattering) sound & your timing is right then you will have to use Premium unleaded, a standard Kombi in correct tune will only need normal unleaded as it has a low compression ratio. Octane requirements are determined by the compression ratio & combustion chamber design

After reading everyone&#8217;s opinion on this topic I decided to check with my mechanic at Manx Buggies @ Coopers Plains, Brisbane of his thoughts on the ULP vs LRP debate. He advised that his advice from VW is that unless you have a Cat Converter you should only use LRP.

I also sent an e-mail to Kruzinwagon at Kingswood, Sydney. This was their thought on the subject.

"Lets clarify something here first, Expert, hahahaha, we are Enthusiast here, not experts. We play with them all day everyday, we actually reconstruct buses here bit by bit, everyday, and we think we know them pretty well now days, but I don&#8217;t think we are experts, we don&#8217;t know everything there is to know about Volkswagens and their workings. Thanks for the prase though. To the Fuel problem though.............
Well this new fuel is still all a bit new and knowing the end result of anything it does to the motors is difficult unless some one is doing a fair dinkum test, using one motor for ULP and one for LRP and stripping them down after maybe 20k klm at a time. I am no real expert on that subject and that makes it hard to pass an honest and accurate opinion.
Consider this though, ULP does require a CAT converter, (that&#8217;s actually the Law. EPA) as it is more cancerous than LRP or even leaded fuel that&#8217;s why CATs are required by law on new Vehicles and its a large fine if you are caught without one.
ULP does make the motors run hotter, we have noticed, after talking with customers about the use of ULP in their buses. We actually don&#8217;t recommend the use of the ULP to our customers with reconditioned motors, only because we haven&#8217;t tested it 100% as yet, and because of the legality side of the pollution laws, and its harmful without a Cat. I don&#8217;t feel I have the right to advise someone to use something that could harm them or their family. You know that rotten egg gas you smell behind a new car when it first starts up.. Don&#8217;t breathe it in, especially your kids, the CAT is not at operating temp, so it&#8217;s not burning off the poisonous gas, but emitting into the atmosphere.
That Ethanol they have been caught adding to the fuels will cause dropped valve seats, as it will over heat the heads and will perish the fuel lines very quickly, we have noted that quite often.
See we don&#8217;t really know if it&#8217;s the fuels or the ethanol that blowing the heads to bits, at this point in time.
In saying all of that.. We have been testing one of our own 2ltr Buses on the ULP, but we haven&#8217;t stripped the motor as yet and it hasn&#8217;t done very many miles/kilometers to date, so we don&#8217;t really know the end result. We are filling this bus from the same Mobil service station only, all the time and it drives several hundred K's a week. If it becomes noisy by 20k K's we'll pull it down and check it out, if its still sounds and responds Okay, we'll have another think about it then.
We also have a 1600 bus that we are running on Lead Replacement and are doing the same sort of test, filling at another Service Station, and using that one every time, for the LRP.
So.........Bill, so much for our expertise, But I can not give you a 100% honest, accurate opinion just yet. I can speculate all day, and tell you all sorts versions of things I have read in Magazines, but that wouldn&#8217;t be Honest and accurate, as an expert would tell it.
Sorry Bill for not making it black and white, and thank you for considering us experts..
Cheers Kimm Garland."

I have been worried as to what fuel I can safely run my Kombi on, I dont wish this to be interpreted as any attack on anyones opinion, I just thought that the manufacturer (factory) should have the best knowledge and advice, so I Emailed Volkswagen, and asked them, this is a copy of the letter I recieved!

Dear Miss White,
Thank you for your resent correspondence regarding unleaded fuel for
your 1977 Kombi microbus.

The use of standard unleaded fuel has the potenial to cause long term engine
damage with your vehicle.
It is recommonded that you continue to use leaded or lead replacement fuel
in your vehicle.

Volkswagen Group Australia, in conjunction with our dealer network, remain
committed to ensuring our
customers receive the highest levels of service and support. I assure you
that Volkswagen Australia's
commitment extends to ensuring both quality and service levels remain
commensurate with the prestige
and quality of the Volkswagen product.


Sean Quigley
Technical Support Specialist

VOLKSWAGEN Group Australia
Unit 5/476 Gardeners Road
Alexandria NSW 2015

Telephone: +61(2) 8304 7915
Facsimile: +61(2) 8304 7980
http://www.volkswagen.com.au 

Now I just HAVE to weigh in on this topic.

I have been driving the SAME VW for over 30 years, I have owned old Holdens and 3 LPG powered vehicles (including my wife's current vehicle), and have studied fuels for many years.

The USA has had unleaded fuels for more than 15 years and do not have LRP - all their VWs have to run on unleaded or stay in the garage! That's ALL aircooled VWs, including the pre-65 engine with "softer" valve seats (read on).

We lost Lead in fuels 2-3 years ago and many VWs here (including mine) have run on unleaded since that time with no ill effects.

The UK has just lost lead in their fuels and a lot of VW owner's are jumpy because they are getting mixed messages about the leaded/unleaded issue.


Here's a a brief ouline of what I know about fuels and the VW engine:

1. Tetra Ethyl Lead (TEL) in fuels did three things - increased the octane number, provided protection against Valve Seat Recession (VSR) and provided some lubrication to valve stems.

2. The VW engine does NOT need lead in fuel, for any of the reasons above - it has hardened valve seats (even the early bugs less hard seats are still HARD), the bronze alloy valve guides don't need TEL lubrication, and the octane requirement is met with normal unleaded petrol (91 RON Octane).

3. LRP is similar to PULP but has (in Australia) an additive called Methylcyclopentadienyl Manganese Tricarbonyl (MMT). This replaced the VSR protection that TEL used to provide. But it's not as effective, and it has less of a residual effect compared to TEL (Source: - BP and Shell Technical Advisory Service), so if your engine NEEDS VSR protection, then you must use LRP all the time. Only cars with "soft" cast iron heads need VSR protection - the VW engine does NOT need LRP. Because the VW engine runs hotter than it's water cooled cousins, it causes the MMT in LRP to foul plugs, causing hard starting and rough running. DON'T use LRP in an aircooled VW engine.

4. Oxygenates in fuels cause problems for carburetted cars. Adding Ethanol or Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether (MTBE) to petrol reduces the amount of "fuel" in the fuel, since they contain used oxygen, but in small quanities, they can have a beneficial effect on the envionment and help raise the octane number of the fuel (Ethanol is about 129 RON octane and MTBE is about 116 RON octane). Modern computer equiped cars cope with these fuels by richening the mixture on the run, but aircooled VWs which HAVE to run on these fuels will need a larger main jet, otherwise the engine will run lean and hot. E10 (10% ethanol) petrol is available in the eastern states, and some stations around Sydney have been adding up to 20% ethanol to petrol and not telling the motorist - the VW engine will REALLY suffer if run on these fuels. WA and SA have no ehtanol in their fuels - it's outlawed. Woolworths PetrolPlus fuel contains up to 7% MTBE. WA and SA have outlawed the used of MTBE in their fuels.


Quote from the post above:

>ULP does require a CAT converter, (that's actually the Law. EPA) as it is more cancerous than LRP or even leaded fuel that's why CATs are required by law on new Vehicles and its a large fine if you are caught without one.

Oh please - it's the other way around. Catalytic converters were developed to help clean the exhaust of the worst pollutants, and it was found that lead in fuels quickly destroyed the CAT - coating the precious metals used (the actual catalyst), and rendering them useless - so THAT's why unleaded fuels were developed.

So it's not the law to use a CAT with unleaded fuels, but it's a requirement of CAT equiped cars that you DO use unleaded fuels otherwise you'll kill the CAT.

The problem is that the components in petrol with the highest natural octane numbers are the aromatic compounds like Benzine, Toluene and Meta-Xylene, but these are also the worst environmental components of petrol. So the first unleaded fuels needed more Benzine, compounds to replace the missing lead so that the octane number stayed high, but those same benzines were causing the most envionmental damage (they are carcenogenic).

The fuel companies these days are trying to reduce the amount of aromatics in petrol, but it's difficult to do so whilst keeping the octane number up to the required number.

PULP is a higher octane unleaded fuel - 95RON.

BP Ultimate, Shell Optimax and Mobil Synergy 8000 are even higher octane unleaded fuels - 98RON.

Just putting a higher octane fuel in your car will NOT make it go better - the octane number is just a number which describes the fuel's ability to resist detonation, and if your engine needs only 91 octane, it will not run better with 95 or 98 octane.

But if your current unleaded fuel has ethanol or MTBE in it and you switch to PULP or optimax for example, you might find an increase in performance, not because of the higher octane number, but because of the fuel composition - all hydrocarbons rather than being mixed with oxygenates for example. So you have to be very careful when talking about an engine's fuel requirements that you are not mixing apples with oranges.

There's a lot more about VW engine and fuel in my lengthy article at
http://www.geocities.com/aussiebug1970/octane1.html 

[Edited on 28-2-2003 by aussiebug]

Thanks to Robo for the address of VW in NSW - I've fired off a fax asking them to clarify what they said above (lots of stuff similar to the info in my post above) - I'll let you all know the minute I get a reply (don't hold your breath).

Volkswagen Australia know absolutely stuff all about anything that is not on their showroom floor today.... Well in fact thats not entirely true. When I was asking questions about the turbo passat they knew stuff all about that too.

From a different point of view the flashlube (or sumthin) rep all but told club vw sydney that you dont need it. And he sells it for a living!

I was talking to a mate who works for a VW dealer last weekend at Bulli. If they come across something obscure they are left on their own to figure it out, despite having god knows how many millions of cars worldwide that have already had the same problem.

I would like to know what the response would be if you wrote to VW asking the firing order of a 77 kombi!

I have used every single type of petrol in my VW. and to be honest I never noticed any difference in running. Some people say they run crap on the LRP, I never noticed that, although I didnt use it for long. Just experimental. The optimax is also said to give more power and economy. I say bollocks, but thats my opinion. It does leave the insides of your engine shiny and clean though. LRP, no name fuel, woolworths, unleaded, premium. never noticed any difference in any car. Only thing I notice is the hole in my wallet. I think its foolish to spend more than you have to. I use normal unleaded from wherever is cheapest on the day, with the occasional tank of optimax when cheap to clean things up a bit.

I also think this current ethanol debate is stirred up by the media and is a load of crap.

Quote:

Originally posted by blue74l ALL VWs since 1967 came with hardened valve seats. Leaded petrol has not been sold in the USA for approx 15 + years. You will do NO damage with ULP. If you run stock compression <8:1 you can run ULP > 8:1 CR and i would strongly suggest PULP If you run LRP i will NEVER talk to you again and i will personally come around and take your VW off you Next question?

Well, it seems most points were well covered, but I'll argue a couple of points anyway (because I enjoy it.)

Firstly: Someone said LRP should not be used for anything. This is not true - it's perfectly OK for cleaning parts (or making molotovs, creating firebreaks and disposing of lawyers.)

Second: A number of people have commented on the use of hardened seats being the reason '68-on heads are OK for unleaded. Actually, as someone else wrote, VW heads have always had hardened inserts: In '67 they moved to an even tougher material (but the earlier seats have never suffered recession to my knowledge) and in '68 introduced hard-chromed exhaust-valve stems. As the latter-style seats and inserts are used on any properly rebuilt heads, unleaded fuel can be safely used on any VW. If you happen to have original pre-68 heads, the difference in life will probably not be noticable - if you are driving a completely original vintage dub, flashlube is the favourite of such clubs.

Thirdly: Does this really matter - LRP is due to start disappearing in the very near future...

:beer:beer:beer

[Edited on 28-2-2003 by 70AutoStik]

LRP disappearing will be great !-we wont have this same arguement next month.
The only thing will be " do I have to use additive ? " so lets answer in advance " NO".

I had Wolf serviced on Friday... when I pickedhim up, my mechanic said the valves were REALLY tight... and asked if I had been using LRP. I said I was a while ago, but had stopped. He said they are now recommending NOT to use it because of the evidence they are seeing in peoples engines.

My 2c

Jay

My car is unleaded being wrx powered. A number of my friends have early model cars and simply run a fuelstar cell in their fuel line.

Have a read of the attached link for info.

http://www.hicloneqld.com/fuelstar.htm

i'm skeptical of catalysts. if it was that easy wouldn't the refineries use this technology or production cars be fitted with them?