Honda Car Forum

Urban legend my ass. I owned those cars and that is how they worked. And
all the other cars subjected to city driving worked that way as well. What
is your experience?

Yes. The switch away from leaded gas was for the purpose of reducing lead
in the atmosphere. It was just a nice side effect that once the lead was
gone and the cars were redone to run on the unleaded stuff, the bi-weekly
blow-out was no longer necessary. I'm sure they didn't plan it that way.

On 8/28/03 1:25 PM, in article KOr3b.11633$j26.4238@lakeread02, "JoeBLow"
<joeblow@noblow.net> wrote:

> you are totally wrong and seem to know nothing of what you are talking
> about, basing all of your comments on "urban legend"
>
> Lead in gasoline has nothing to do with "black smoke" that comes out of a
> car. Black smoke comming out of a car is poorly combusted gasoline, due to
> an over rich mixture. This is a carburator problem, and has completely
> dissappeard (will 99.9%) with EFI.
>
> Lead in gasoline is actually MUCH BETTER for ALL ENGINES because it was the
> lead that had a propensity to deposit on the intake/exhaust valves (not in
> the cylinder/pistons because temps too hot), you were basically assured a
> lifetime of properly seating (soft) valves. When the switch from lead was
> made we went to (hard) valves which now must be adjusted and their seats
> replaced eventaully. The ONLY reason we switched from lead gasoline was
> because the content of lead in the soil of highly populated areas was rising
> signicantly as the automobile #'s in the U.S. skyrocketed in the
> 40's/50's/60's.
>
>
>
> "E. Meyer" <e.meyer@ieee.org> wrote in message
> news:BB6D0517.D666%e.meyer@ieee.org...
>> On 8/23/03 10:35 AM, in article
> bi81lm$679b0$1@ID-177997.news.uni-berlin.de,
>> "bob zee" <cam509@linuxmail.org> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> "E. Meyer" <e.meyer@ieee.org> wrote in message
>>> news:BB6C4C80.D56B%e.meyer@ieee.org...
>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Blowing out the carbon ceased to be necessary when they switched to
>>> unleaded
>>>> fuel. That being said, I still do it whenever I get the chance, just
>>> 'cause
>>>> its fun.
>>>>
>>> not to pick on *you* directly, mainly i needed to put my opinion out
> there
>>> for the world to see. :~)>
>>>
>>> there has NEVER been a reason to blow out the carbon on any engine. if
> it
>>> is tuned right, it will never have any carbon to deal with! this is
> true
>>> from the ancient in-the-block-valve technology of my lawnmower right up
> to
>>> the I-VTEC technology of my honda. carbon is an symptom of a problem
>>> elsewhere. mixture too rich, engine never up to operating temperature,
> etc.
>>>
>>> oh yeah, since i brought up the briggs & stratton engine, ever notice
> the
>>> spark plug on your mower just loaded with carbon? yes, they set them
> things
>>> up at the factory to be extremely rich. how do you blow the carbon out
> of
>>> it? :~)>
>>> they are set rich so that they run cooler (ever notice your mower seems
> to
>>> cut better when it is cold outside?) a lean briggs on a 95 degree (F)
> day
>>> will melt in no time!
>>>
>>> my wife would never buy the 'blow the carbon out' trick...
>>
>> You obviously never owned a '55 Oldsmobile back in the days of leaded gas.
>> Two weeks of city stop-n-go driving in that car and you were lucky if 6 of
> 8
>> cylinders still fired. The '63 was no better. I used to enjoy watching
> the
>> local cops floor the '66 Dodge patrol cars at each traffic light to try to
>> blow them out. But all that ended in the early '70s when the switch was
>> made to unleaded gas. No more lead deposits in the cylinders.
>>
>> I agree with you now. Modern engines (using unleaded gas) do not build up
>> carbon deposits anymore unless they are seriously out of whack.
>>
>>
>
>

On Thu, 28 Aug 2003 13:25:48 -0500, "JoeBLow" <joeblow@noblow.net> wrote:

>you are totally wrong and seem to know nothing of what you are talking
>about, basing all of your comments on "urban legend"
>
>Lead in gasoline has nothing to do with "black smoke" that comes out of a
>car. Black smoke comming out of a car is poorly combusted gasoline, due to
>an over rich mixture. This is a carburator problem, and has completely
>dissappeard (will 99.9%) with EFI.

Hmmm, maybe... EFI can go wrong as well but, yes, the black smoke is poor
combustion.

>Lead in gasoline is actually MUCH BETTER for ALL ENGINES because it was the
>lead that had a propensity to deposit on the intake/exhaust valves (not in
>the cylinder/pistons because temps too hot), you were basically assured a
>lifetime of properly seating (soft) valves. When the switch from lead was
>made we went to (hard) valves which now must be adjusted and their seats
>replaced eventaully. The ONLY reason we switched from lead gasoline was
>because the content of lead in the soil of highly populated areas was rising
>signicantly as the automobile #'s in the U.S. skyrocketed in the
>40's/50's/60's.

While there had been pressure on the refiners to reduce lead content for a
while, the first and primary reason we went lead-free was because it
wrecked the catalytic converters. As for lead being better, there
certainly was more deposits in every part of the combustion chambers,
including piston crowns, with lead. That engines were cleaner on no-lead
was known long before we went lead-free, due to Amoco's lead-free gasoline,
which preceded the regulations by a number of years. A de-coke did not
involve removal of carbon alone - it was the lead which caused the
deposits.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??