Re: 359 Straight Eight Engine
Posted by Rusty O\'Toole On 2010/12/26 17:50:26
Quote:
Gary Marshall wrote:
Yes Rusty, sounds like a big understatement. Normal British thinking they have best when truth they have worst . Although I did like the Truimph 2000 Roadster. And the Bently and MG.
The Packard must be the Bently of America.
Do any members convert there engines to run on unleaded fuel ? Or best left alone?
Your engine should run fine on unleaded gas. The old flathead engines came from a time when gas had very little lead anyway. Only the high compression OHV engines require a lot of lead and their heyday ran from 1955 to 1970.
One rule of thumb is your octane should look like your compression ratio. The highest compression ratio used by a flathead was 8.7:1 on the 54 Packard. This would require 87 octane or thereabouts. It would probably be quite happy on anything down to 80 octane.
If you are concerned about valve wear and upper cylinder wear you could add a shot of Redex, Marvel Mystery Oil or the like to each tank of gas. Not a bad idea to help prevent wear on an old engine in any case.
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