Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

Quote: FWIW, I sometimes see severe wear on both the seat and the exhaust valve mating face. Studebaker V8 exhaust valves wear more than Packard V8s. It is probably the Packard script on the valve head which protects it to a small degree.

FWIW, retarded ignition timing, such as when a distributor vacuum advance canister diaphragm is perished, will cause elevated exhaust temperatures at high speed cruise.

jack vines

Quote:

When were those days, Jack? I can't remember any 100 octane pump gasoline for passenger cars-- and I remember back quite a ways. Av Gas was 100+ octane, but nothing else except "racing" gasoline.

I can't believe any cars with 11:1 compression ratio or lower would gain a whit of performance with anything over about 97 octane, and they'd probably get poorer mileage with higher octane gas.

These days, many people are still wasting their money on "mid-grade" or "premium" fuel for cars that run just fine and will actually have less carbon buildup and better mileage on typical regular 84 octane.

"Knock sensors" and other electronic gadgetry contribute to today's cars running well on lower octane gasoline, but some of the same advantages of correct octane (which is probably not the highest available) apply to the old analog cars as well.

I certainly remember 101 octane pump gas, ARCO (Atlantic-Richfield) Purple for one. And there were others.

Sunoco on the east coast had a multi grade pump with about 5 or 6 different octanes. the 260 was at least 100 octane. but the 352 and 374 also did will on a medium and regular grade as i remember. the noticeable difference was the tone of the exhaust. on the Sunoco 260 the tone deepened. If i was filling the tank it was cheap gas. If i was charging it on the old mans account it was the high end.

I can remember, just, when Sunoco sold 103 octane Blue Sunoco gas. This was about the time I started driving in the late sixties. It cost 50 to 55 cents a gallon when other lower octane brands were 45 to 50.

In the early 70s leaded gas was banned or at least, the lead content reduced and 103 octane gas was one of the first casualties.

A Union 76 station not far from my house had 100 octane until just a few years ago. However, it WAS very close to Portland International Raceway - which may of had something to do with it.

One thing to keep in mind about those "over 100 octane" pump gasolines of the 60s is that the octane rating was derived by the ASTM "motor" method, and hence the ratings would be different if done by todays average of "motor" plus "research" method.

PS - One of the examples cited in Wikipedia's discussion of various octane methods is "BP Ultimate 102" which had a motor octane # of 93-94, and a research octane # of 102. So by today's R+M/2 method it would have been rated at a bit above 98 octane. The Wikipedia read is a good one if you're interested in that, especially the differences available in different parts of the world, a regional differences in the US.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octane_rating

For once, maybe I'm too you to remember something that others do. Feels kind of good! I wasn't driving until about 1972. JUST in time to get some high speed practice before the freeway speeds dropped to 55. I took full advantage of it. My '65 Electra cruised just right at 85, right where the gas pedal told me the mechanical secondaries would start opening.

Leaded gas was around for quite some time into the late seventies, as many cars still used it. The filler neck of the catalytic converter equipped cars of course had the restrictor that would not take the nozzle from the "regular" pump.

I don't remember what the octane was, but we always filled the high-comp cars from my dad's Phillips 66 "Flight Fuel" pump. BTW, no matter what you might hear otherwise, "66" in the Phillips petroleum name was for the octane rating. 66 was considered high at the time of low comp cars. I wouldn't be surprised if that's where Union got the "76" name, but don't know for sure. My dad sold Phillips products for 35 years, so I'm sure he had the story about "66" right by the time he retired.

The following story about how Phillips 66 gasoline got its name is from Wikepedia:

The company that makes Phillips 66 gasoline began in 1917 as Phillips Petroleum Company, founded by L.E. Phillips and Frank Phillips of Bartlesville, Oklahoma. In 1927, the company's gasoline was being tested on U.S. Highway 66 in Oklahoma, and when it turned out that the car was going 66 mph (106 km/h), the company decided to name the new fuel Phillips 66.[1]

66 Octane, if in fact it was, was probably pretty hot stuff back then when compression ratios of cars on the road probably topped out at less than 6 to 1.

In the 1980's when the CL215 waterbombers powered by the Pratt&Whitney radial engines the engineers saved me the leaded 100 octane aviation gas they drained from the tanks each morning and I used it in my 66 Corvette.