Fuel for MFI engines

[TonyC]

Guys

I have been reading a fair bit about MFI lately and contrary to what I thought, there is a wide view that these cars were designed to run on lower RON fuels - like 87 - 90.

I have been running both cars on 98RON Caltex, with no problems (plus regular Venom etc).

But as fuel is getting more expensive, seems that it might be a good idea if there are no issues.

Ryan?

Mike...Lisa...hellloooooooooooooo?????

tonyc

[CamBiscuit]

I noticed the product 'Venom' has cropped up a couple of times on the site.

Can anyone shed some light for the uninitiated what this stuff is and does and where you get it from? :shock:

Thanks..

[Terminator]

Spyder where are you? Its for you


ULP works fine on all my cars but with upper cyclinder lubricant of some sort

[OBRUT]

hey tony

i use ULP and, for reasons i can't really remember, avoid Shell. i stick to ULP (normally BP because its close) because the RS rep is around 10.5:1 and the 930 has a bigger turbo etc.

however, i think a stock MFI car (having 8.5:1 compression) would be ok on standard unleaded.

[Terminator]

Tony my ULP stands for unleaded petrol I think Ryan means PULP Premium Unleaded petrol which I don't use.

[OBRUT]

oops

yes, is use PULP (the supposedly higher octane stuff)

(also used AVGAS once - the only difference was the smell)

[NT911]

Ditto Ryan's comments.
Kind of a pointless post really, it's just that I haven't posted in a while. :P
Cheers,
Nick

[NT911]

I should probably re-phrase that last post - My post was pointless... not the authors.

[TonyC]

Been away for a few days.

Thanks for the replies guys.

So Clyde you use standard ULP with Venom and Lead Replacement additives - in all cars irrespective of compression ratio?

And to confirm - Ryan, you use a higher octane fuel in both your cars but reckon standard ULP is OK in lower compression engines.

Yes? So it seems its OK for me to switch to ULP and continue with the Spyder additives in the recommended dosages.

tonyc

[Terminator]

Think you have it now Tony both your cars are 8.5:1 and so onleaded petrol should be fine but keep some additives in for lubrication that the lead used to do

[CamBiscuit]

Heeellloooooo people...

Please help the uninitiated ( and thick maybe?) with this Venom stuff?

What is it and where does it come from....?!

[e72phil]

Cameron, its a fuel additive to replace the lead removed from ULP and Spyder sell it in Melbourne. Not sure how you would get it up to darwin.

There are lots of lead substitues around and there was considerable discussion on this subject on the old Yahoo chat board. maybe do a search on this forum and see if we talked about it more.

[CamBiscuit]

Thanks Phil

How do I get to the old chatboard?

[Spyder Automobiles]

Long response...sorry but you did ask!

Firstly apologies to Tony C, Cameron (and Clyde)...sorry we went AWOL but if you read the Spyder post in the for sale section it explains somewhat where we've been at of late ops: . Thanks Phil for explaining a little about the 'Venom' for Cameron...

I agree the price of fuel is making us all rethink our choice at the bowser...I put nearly $100 in the tank today (BP Ultimate)!

Firstly, Octane rating is not everything. Obviously our fuels of today are without lead, but unfortunately our modern & supposedly cleaner burning fuels are laced with other nasties like sulphur (more in ULP than PULP). Certainly there is agreement and stringent guidelines set to lower the amount of sulphur in fuels by the powers that be. The first round of this has already occurred with more to follow. There are other nasties too...rumour through the private petro-chemical industry says that the "big guns" who participate in the large supermarket chain discount docket scheme found a very good way to keep their profit margins. The allegation is that waste oil is used as a "filler" in ULP :shock: . We've heard this from more than one knowledgable source and it makes some sense as we no longer pay for removal of our waste oil and haven't for some time now. Lead may have been bad for our respiratory systems among other things, but I find the fumes emitted from a car exhaust belching suphuric acid in my face much more menacing. In taking out the lead, the oil companies were forced to find economical ways to maintain octane and in doing so we now find many other nasty chemicals in our fuel. Be aware, as the sulphur levels drop in fuel so will the octane rating. There are options available to the oil companies to maintain or improve current octane levels once lowering the sulphur level, but they are expensive and apparently not economically viable. The jury is still out on ethanol too. There have been extensive trade articles denouncing it by very knowledgable experts. I would like to see lots of testing for long term effects on engine wear/component failure etc before I would use fuels with substantial amounts of ethanol included. (See below for Shell 100 warning).

In most instances, the higher the octane fuel, the cleaner the fuel is. BP Ultimate is reportedly the cleanest and greenest fuel available to the common motorist. But it is 10c per litre more than standard ULP. (I paid 145.7c a litre today :shock: ). I find that it does return better fuel economy in all our cars, they all run much better on it than any other fuel too. When I can't find a BP I head to a Mobil station for Synergy8000 (also 98 RON). But again, as the price of fuel skyrockets one can't help but weigh the attributes against the $$$.

Under no circumstances should Shell Optimax be used in any early 911. In simple terms the fuel is too dense for the ignition system to burn and this results in fouled or wet spark plugs. Carbies, MFI, K-Jetronic do not like it at all. Motronic onwards copes very well with it, so if you have a 3.2 Carrera or later it's a good fuel to use. Shell technical advice to us was not to advocate the use of Optimax in these types of cars. Also, do not even go near the new Shell 100 Octane! Porsche issued a release stating that no model is suited to this fuel. As a sideline to this, V8 Supercars were using the 100 rated Shell at the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide (and in a couple of previous rounds)...it all came home to roost for several teams at the Clipsal resulting in dead fuel pumps and all sort of other problems (a little V8 Supercar birdie told me).

2.4 engines and on were de-tuned and decompressed. In theory they should run fine on ULP....it's the other garbage in standard ULP that needs to be addressed. Even though hardened valve seats were used in all Porsche models, lead lubricated the entire workings of the engine and therefore our view is that a lead substitute should be used in all leaded models. Flashlube is utter garbage - it was designed for LPG engines and does nothing as a lead replacement despite the advertising hype. Valvemaster is OK, is purely a lead replacement and has no residual qualities at all so you need to dose in the required quantities each and every fill.

We looked closely at these and other fuel problems, firstly for our own cars. The 2.0L S engine in the Abarth was not responding well to any fuel on the market and thus we explored options of manufacturing a product to remove the unnecessary and damaging fillers from fuel, have some lubricating qualities and a small amount of octane boost so it could be used across a range of vehicles. This is the product you are enquiring about Cameron - "Spyder Venom". It is not a lead substitute as we use it in both leaded and unleaded engines. The lead substitute we stock and use is made by the same manufacturer to work in conjunction with the "Venom", named Petrol Max Lead Replacement. Both have residual qualities, do not require measuring and mixing etc with each fill. Basically you dump the bottles in and follow a refill card we provide on which you tick off your number of fuel fills and replenish either or both products as per the cards. I have attached the information sheets for both as further explanation for you. The PDF file for the "Venom" is too large, so I have attached a jpeg (sorry). Not sure about getting this stuff to Darwin though - a whole mixed box of both went AWOL on its way to Sydney a couple of weeks ago :evil: .

As Phil has said, the fuel issue/debate was discussed at length on the old board. I don't think you can access the posts though unless you were/are a registered member as the board structure is different to this one.

Hopefully I have done less to confuse and more to enlighten....

BTW Clyde - you should be using good quality PULP in the Targa at least (I would be using it in the RS too if it was me). Think about it - you should know why :wink: .

Lisa

[CamBiscuit]

Thanks Lisa, good luck with the cleanup, cataloging, & stock take.

Cheers