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It's been rumoured for some time. It will be no loss as far as I am concerned - I've used unleaded plus additive in my Triumph 2000 since leaded went out. It runs better than on LRP, and works out cheaper.
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See
tinyurl.com/x2e0
for news on LRP's future.
I researched LRP quite widely on the Web when getting my Capri 2.8i back on the road. I don't think I found anyone with a good word to say about it. The Capri is running very sweetly on Optimax and Castrol Valvemaster, so sweetly that the tuning shop in Luton (PTS) found nothing to do to the engine beyond adjusting the spark plug gap by a thou or two (after 3000 miles since restoration).
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I kept looking for some carbide for my push-bike lamp, but in the end I had to admit defeat and buy a battery-powered lamp. Nowhere near as powerful as the carbide lamp!
--
L'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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Didn\'t look hard enough - any caving shop will sell carbide.
Carbide lamps are still used by the caving fraternity as it only requires water and a flint to make it work.
Also gives a non-directional light which is useful when caving.
You think that\'s bad - try getting the spokes tuned on a penny-farthing!!
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Mapmaker has some spoke tensioners - maybe he could help.
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Hmm - when I was a foolish young person I remember using carbide + water in a tightly sealed tin to make satisfyingly loud bangs!
Roger in Spain
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I've been running my vitesse on lrp for the last few years and I must admit it has been grumpy for some of that time. It runs on a bit and runs a little hotter than it should.
Do you use ordinary unleaded or super with the additive? As mine was designed for 5 star I am wondering whether super + octane boosting lead replacement would be the way to get it happy again and back on the original timing.
teabelly
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I drove all the way from Manchester to Cambridge on Boxing Day, stopping at virtually every service station along the way looking for LRP, without success.
An additive is about 1-2p per litre. No contest, really.
Teabelly - have you tried Optimax which has a higher octane rating? (It sounds as though you may have one of the 250 cars in Britain that might benefit from it...)
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The Triumph didn't need 5 star, just proper 4 star without the lead reduced, so our cases are not quite comparable. I use ordinary unleaded with Millers VSP - that gives valve protection plus octane boost, which I found it needed. I believe you can increase the dosage to get extra octane boost, but I'd check the literature on that one. If so, it might work out cheaper than starting with super-unleaded.
It depends whether you need valve protection, octane boost, both, and how much.
From experiment I've found that I don't need the full dose of additive - half the dose is enough to stop pinking, and there's 100,000 miles of "lead memory" too.
In the Triumph 2000 Register mag a few years back there was a lot of discussion about the hotter-running properties of unleaded. It was suggested switching to cooler plugs. Other tweaks were to change the distributor advance springs to give less advance at high speed, and also to block off the vacuum retard. I can't now remember the reasons for these. Maybe reduce the advance at low speed, but increase at high? Or vice versa!
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Is there any advice available on which additive is best for which car? A friend runs an old Nova (only 23k on the clock after 17 years!) which he currently runs on LRP as it pinks on UL. He's finding it harder and harder to get LRP locally as well so if anyone can suggest which additive it would be best to use, I'll pass it on to him. I'm not sure if the low mileage means the engine will not have as much 'lead memory' as it should.
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I'm happy with Castrol Valvemaster, but there are plenty of others around, including the Millers product mentioned above. Both Valvemaster and Millers (I believe) come in two variants: ordinary and, at perhaps twice the price, octane enhanced. One thing that is recommended by the experts is sticking to one product, because they all have different chemical compositions and it is unwise to mix them. Valvemaster Plus (including the octane enhancement) came out top in FBHVC tests of lead additives.
You can buy six bottles of Valvemaster for the price of five by calling 01954 231668.
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P.S. To get to the point belatedly, I doubt that any additive is more suitable than any other for any particular car, but others may know better. Sticking to one product is important though.
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>I doubt that any additive is more suitable than any other for any particular car
I should think that's right, as one brand of snake oil is much the same as another. The difference here is that the snake oil actually does something useful, but that doesn't mean that the different snake oils do anything different. As ever, I dare say that for 1 car in a million it will make a difference, and wait to be told!
To be honest, I never noticed any problem in mixing the additives, either - but then what would you expect? Purple smoke to rise up in Harry Potter fashion from the exhaust? I suppose I didn't run the car long enough to be able to notice a difference though.
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If you mix the additives then you upset the delicate balance of the car's karma. This results in the car suddenly vanishing into thin air.
:o)
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Safeway is currently running down all its LRP tanks and will be getting them converted to normal unleaded. No more deliveries will be received.
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Is that what I did wrong? They both had a brand new bottle of additive in the boot when they went.
;-P
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Ah - if they weren't actually mixed in the tank then it is Murphy's law at work instead, viz:
"A car will always be stolen immediately after placing a newly purchased or other valuable item in the boot, never immediately before"
Are you sure that you didn't also have a new plasma TV in the boot at the same time? You know - the one where the receipt was blown clean out of your hands while carrying it to the car.
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Ironically, both had empty tanks of petrol. The former only because Tescos 24 hour garage seemed to be shut.
A new whaty what what??? plasma = colourless fluid part of blood, lymph or milk. Yuk! You accusing me of wearing a skirt, too?
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I used to use lrp but have now gone over to unleaded and Tetraboost, genuine tetraethyl lead which gives the protection needed and a genuine octane boost. Nasty stuff so wear glovees and don't inhale when using.
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From the Tetraboost site: "It enables you to make 4 star leaded petrol from around 11p per litre over the unleaded pump price." That's pricey against the 2?3p per litre for the lead-substitute alternatives, but perhaps there is some evidence that it is justified, given its claim to be a genuine lead additive rather than a lead substitute.
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These particular snake oils really are different. The concensus in classic car circles a few years ago was that Manganese-based additives (eg Millers) were better than Potassium, as in LRP.
My own experience of briefly trying LRP in the Triumph was that LRP rotted the carburettor diaphrams after a few weeks, and did not give enough octane boost to prevent pinking.
Millers can be bought mail order in packs of 10 from Cardlite Oils for about £3.50 each, a bottle treating 40 litres of unleaded. That's less than a penny a litre. I have heard excellent reports of Valvemaster too.
I agree about not mixing additives- the rubber seals etc in carburettors and pumps seem very sensitive to different chemicals.
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Millers can be bought mail order in packs of 10 from Cardlite Oils for about £3.50 each,
Do you have any details of this please? I've done a google for Cardlite Oils with no result and I'm sure my friend would be interested as he reckons his local garage don't sell any additives at all.
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Further to Cliff's message, the Castrol Classic Oils site claims that "independent research shows phosphorous [in their Valvemaster] offers the best engine protection":
www.castrolclassicoils.co.uk/valvem_new.htm
and, as I reported above, the Federation of British Historical Vehicle Clubs reckons Valvemaster Plus (including octane enhancer) to be the best of the bunch. From the sites listed below, there does seem to be a consensus that sodium-based additives can cause problems.
Whether or not all this is true, Valvemaster seems much cheaper per litre of fuel than Millers, the Valvemaster £5 (after discount) bottle providing enough for 250 litres of fuel.
You can find more discussion at
www.rac.co.uk/carcare/advice/general_help/lrp_phas...t
and
www.theaa.com/allaboutcars/fuel/LRP.html
where the following are listed:
Millers VSP Plus, (manganese; Millers Oils Ltd. Freephone 0800 281 053
Red Line Lead Substitute, (sodium); Delta Oil Ltd. 01476 861 195
Superblend Zero Lead, (potassium); Superblend Lubricants Ltd. 0116 291 1700
Castrol Valvemaster & Valvemaster Plus (phosphorus); Castrol Ltd. 01793 452 222
Carplan Nitrox 4-Star (potassium) & 4-Lead (manganese); Carplan Ltd. 0161 764 5981
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>>I used to use lrp but have now gone over to unleaded and Tetraboost, genuine tetraethyl lead which gives the protection needed and a genuine octane boost. Nasty stuff so wear glovees and don't inhale when using.
Not true. Well, yes it is true, tetraethyl lead is nasty stuff. But... unleaded petrol is in fact arguably nastier. The high level of aromatics in unleaded (required to boost octane rating in the absence of the tetraethyl lead) gives rise to a phenomenally carcinogenic potion.
But some government or another was able to get a headline about 'nasty lead taken out of petrol' in the papers to prove its caring credentials.
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