V Power or similar in a classic

[skeeterm5]

Hi all,

I have a 1968 Ford Cortina 1600e which hasn't really run for about a year and is in storage. I am going to pick it up this weekend and had a question about the fuel; the car has a head converted to run on unleaded.

As it has stood for about a year I expect that the fuel in the tank will have "gone off" a bit and thus to make it easier to start I am going to take some new fuel with me. I thought I would take a couple of gallons of V Power or similar, my thinking being the extra octane would help invigorate what is already in the tank as it all mixes together.

The alternative is to drain the tank and start again, but clearly if my thought above is right it is far easier.

Mad, inspired or lazy?

S

[a8hex]

skeeterm5 said:

Hi all,

I have a 1968 Ford Cortina 1600e which hasn't really run for about a year and is in storage. I am going to pick it up this weekend and had a question about the fuel; the car has a head converted to run on unleaded.

As it has stood for about a year I expect that the fuel in the tank will have "gone off" a bit and thus to make it easier to start I am going to take some new fuel with me. I thought I would take a couple of gallons of V Power or similar, my thinking being the extra octane would help invigorate what is already in the tank as it all mixes together.

The alternative is to drain the tank and start again, but clearly if my thought above is right it is far easier.

Mad, inspired or lazy?

S

I'm not sure whether it would help. The mostly likely parts of the fuel to evaporate off would be the lighter hydrocarbons, so it's possible that leaving fuel in the tank for a long time would increase the effective octane rating.

[Lotobear]

I've tried higher octane petrol in my classic Mini and Lotus Elan and it makes no difference.

Also keep in mindthe ethanol content is high in these designer fuels and that does your old school fuel hoses and seals no good at all.

[austin]

There is a lot of chat about this in various forums.

Personally in my old cars 1930s & 1960s I use "super" fuel, I've found the standard stuff goes off after about 2 weeks and makes starting & running really lumpy.

[Pericoloso]

You don't have anything to lose by just trying to start it with the fuel already in the tank.

[aeropilot]

skeeterm5 said:

As it has stood for about a year I expect that the fuel in the tank will have "gone off" a bit and thus to make it easier to start I am going to take some new fuel with me. I thought I would take a couple of gallons of V Power or similar, my thinking being the extra octane would help invigorate what is already in the tank as it all mixes together.

The alternative is to drain the tank and start again, but clearly if my thought above is right it is far easier.

Well, how much did you leave in the tank when you left it?

With a steel tank, you should have left it as full as possible as corrosion protection, and thus you'll be needing to drain fuel and then put in fresh stuff.

[Riley Blue]

My '63 Riley spends up to six months each winter in its garage with a partly filled tank of Momentum. It starts afterwards without too much trouble and runs perfectly well as soon as it's warmed up so I doubt you have anything to worry about.

[InitialDave]

My experience is cars will generally run at least somewhat reasonably on even quite old fuel, so while I think topping it up with fresh fuel is a good idea, it wouldn't concern me too much.

I recently took one of my cars out after not having been used for 8-9 months, ran it down to about half a tank and topped it up with fresh. It didn't seem to have any complaints.

[Ardennes92]

Not sure about improved starting after laying up as I tend to run mine all year when lack of salt/water allow but a lot of these fuels have increased ethanol in them which have a tendency to break down rubber/plastic as well as having water separating properties over time, so increasing rusting in steel fuel tanks; not looked for awhile but essential had the least ethanol in their premium fuels, so I use this with anti ethanol juice. The other tendency of these “improved” fuels is that the engines tend to run hotter, not a problem with moderns but not always good in older classics

[wibble cb]

Pretty sure V power doesn’t have ethanol in it (yet), it why I use it in my frogeye

[aeropilot]

wibble cb said:

Pretty sure V power doesn’t have ethanol in it (yet), it why I use it in my frogeye

It does, up to 5% as confirmed by Shell.

I believe Esso Supreme might not have any ethanol content (except in Devon & Cornwall for some reason)

Edited by aeropilot on Wednesday 3rd July 08:06

[PH5121]

I dug the mini out of the garage and got it MOT'd on Monday.
It had sat with the battery disconnected for 3 years and it started and ran fine passing the MOT with no issues.

I don't know about 1600E's but spi minis seem to be fraught with issues and it was fine so hopefully the 'tina will be okay.

I topped up with fresh fuel and drove 80 miles on Monday evening and it went great.

[300bhp/ton]

Lotobear said:

I've tried higher octane petrol in my classic Mini and Lotus Elan and it makes no difference.

Depends on the car in question and state of tune.

Something intended for 5 Star fuel may well prefer higher octane fuels today.

When I had a cammed Rover V8, it definitely ran a lot better on 98-99 octane than 95.

[aeropilot]

300bhp/ton said:

Depends on the car in question and state of tune.

Something intended for 5 Star fuel may well prefer higher octane fuels today.

When I had a cammed Rover V8, it definitely ran a lot better on 98-99 octane than 95.

Same with my old Sunbeam-Lotus, it ran like crap on 95 on the few occasions I had no choice but to use it, otherwise only ever ran it on V-Power or one of the other makes 'Super' unleaded fuels. Never used any supermarket fuel in it ever.

[SAS Tom]

The Jensen interceptor I hired ran like crap on standard fuel. It just started pinking at higher loads. V power helped it massively.

[grumpy52]

Anything with a bit of get up and go from the past that would have been recommended to be run on at least 4☆ in old money should be run on super or premium fuel . They used slightly higher octane in the past .
Strangely my Alfa 164 2L twinspark didn't like super unleaded and used to play up until it got a dose of regular .
You could always stick a drop of octane booster in with the old fuel .
We used to like racing over at Criox in France as the pumps at the circuit could supply you with 105 octane which made a big difference to some engines.

[RobXjcoupe]

I’ve got an old j reg Range Rover gradually dissolving in my back garden. The fuel in it is about 6 years old as that’s when it was parked up. With a fresh battery, it still starts up and runs ok.

[Lotobear]

Both Elan (original Lotus TC 0.40" with hotter cams and ported head) and Mini (MG Metro engine) really don't notice higher Octane fuel - I've wanted/expected them to but it just makes no difference (which is a suprise).

However my 09 2.0 legacy Estate certainly does prefer higher octane and is very, very fuel sensitive

[mgv8]

Any classic would need to be tuned to the type of fuel put in it. Moden cars the ECU should be able to detect the change and adjust as needed. High compression setup would see the most difference.

[eccles]

My '84 Mercedes W123 definitely loves the super unleaded. If you put standard in it, it seems really sluggish.