Leaded to Unleaded conversion

[skene]

Hi there folks,

Looking at getting a 1981 Fiesta Mk1 1.1 for a first car, found one I like, got cheap insurance and all that.

Only thing is though, being that age it will need leaded fuel yes? Which will mean either an additive or a conversion. I understand the conversion is quite hard to do? How much would a company take to do it and where would I go to find out? Based in NE Scotland by the way.

But, would it be worth it?

Thanks in advance

[Hooli]

Worth it depends on how many miles your doing. It'll need hardened valve seats which means head off & machining work. Tbh unless your planning to restore it & keep it forever I wouldn't bother. I used to run the castrol additive in my MG for years & it worked fine. You'll often find they've got so much lead burnt into the seats they survive on unleaded anyway, I found the octane boost in the additive stopped my midget pinking so I used it all the time.

[Big Daft Lad]

Don't worry about it. Buy the car, use it on unleaded and if the seats or valves burn out then get it sorted. You wont be doing any harm to anything you wont be replacing when you do the unleaded conversion. It'll be OK.

Good choice of car BTW I stared out in 1990 with a '79 1300 Sport. Flying machine!

[mrtwisty]

Run it without checking. If you're lucky it will either have had the exhaust valve seats hardened already or it won't be an issue at all. If you're unlucky it'll cost you about 100-150 quid to get it done at a decent indy machine shop (if you can get the head off yourself)

[davepoth]

I agree with the above. Unless you use it for 20,000 motorway miles a year you won't get any significant recession. BMW did a test and worked out that given a bit of "lead memory" the engine will do 100,000+ miles before needing work.

[ARH]

In all the years of unleaded petrol I have never used aditive and only destroyed one head this was on an a series engine. I normaly do about 4 or 5k miles a year in a car that is supossed to only run on unleaded. This is across a range of cars, triumph 6 cylinder jobs old fords etc. So don't worry save your money for a head rebuild if it becomes needed