Ok I know this sounds like a dumb question but here it is. What kind of gas do you guys put your all original model a ford. 1928 four banger to be percice. I have herd of lead additive and things like that but. what about pump gas with ethenol and is octane a factor. please explain to me what is the best way to go about fueling up for best performence and power on the street with out hurting the engine. sorry to all you racers out there but alcohol and nitro is a little extream although that would be cool. A stock a bone on nitro
Riiiiiiiight, well okay I put regular pump gas in all the bangers I've ever built...but they're all Ford 9N tractor bangers and I'm a cheap bastard. I've never had any problems. NOW, that I've said that, somebody with far more experience in those OTHER bangers will totally answer your question and make me look the dumbass.... You're welcome, its not often I take one for the team. If that fails, pm Weeks46
Gasoline today is way better than the gas these engines were built for in the 20's and 30's. That being said these engines like fuel. You won't get great gas mileage. There is no problem running them on our unleaded gases even with the 10% ethanol. Been doing it for years with no problems whatsoever.
Back then pump gas WAS anything, you never knew and it didn't matter. And yes, they didn't get great mileage then and don't today either, it IS better than then but not great.
Regular 87 octane pump gas is fine. I add 1/2 oz or less per gal. of Marvel Mystery Oil to the mix. I think it helps keep things lubricated better and also cuts down on vapor lock. Some of my friends ad a little 2 stroke oil.
Go out to the wellhead and get a little drip gas for that extra pep. The old oil field boys will know what I'm talking about.
Please forgive my ignorance. I thought flat heads needed the lead in (old-style) regular gas to help the valves seat themselves. I think you can run unleaded fuel if the top end has some type of sleeve in it, or if not you can use a fuel additive. Does this sound accurate to you guys? I am really not sure.
Regular unleaded is fine; "Ethyl" didn't become available until sometime in the '40's I think. And a properly tuned A should have no trouble getting 20mpg on the highway. Turn the GAV (mixture control) down a little if your plugs are showing too rich. Many A owners today run 'wa-a-a-y too rich and complain about rough running. Fearless
Absolutely, there was a gas well on dad's farm that would make about 30 gallons a night if it was real cold. That's all I ran in my 29 banger when I was in high school.
A stock Model A engine will be pretty happy with today's 87 octane gasoline. That's what I run in mine. Try to stay away from the alcohol if you can. If you really feel guilty, add around an eighth of a cup of kerosene once in a while to 3/4 tank of gas and it will lubricate the valves. Makes the car smell funny, but seems to work. If you are going to run the motor hard for long periods of time, then I would recommend that you install hardened valve seats and use stainless steel valves, but generally you will be able to use straight pump gas in a stock engine with no problem.
Gasoline with tetraethyllead or TEL was developed for aircraft engines in the late 1930s. The bigger the cubic inch displacement the more the TEL was added. By the end of the war in 1945 Avgas was all the way up to 115/145 octane for the large round motors on DC-4/6 and the large bombers. Regular auto gas was near 90 octane and Ethyl was near 95 by 1949. I wish it was still 25 cents a gallon for regular.
In a motor with that low of a compression ratio it NEVER DID matter. The octane don't matter. Alcolol don't matter. The only thing tetraethyl did when they had it was a downer(for a Model A motor), it's corrosive effect burned out the muffler and tailpipe quicker. It just don't matter.
LOL....you could always tell when someone was running "drip" because just like race gas, it has a distinctive smell......just not near as good! Yeah, we had a well on the farm where I grew up, so I know what you are talking about! Back to the topic, I've run whatever was available in my Model A's. Jim
cool thanks everyone. has any one ever run nitro in a modela 4 banger? not that I am planning on it but just wana see what kind of crazys we have out there.
Story in H4H4 a few years back told about Roy Creel (I think it was) ran 40% in his banger and it ran fine...So he went to 42% and it broke clean in half (well, not too clean, but you get the idear). Fearless
Yeah, pretty much any available gas will work, the cheapest gas will run just fine. But as others here have already said, modern gas runs pretty dry, so a bit of two stroke oil in the gas will lubricate the valves. If it is already burning a tiny bit of engine oil, don't even bother with that.
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