Av gas

[andycz1]

Anyone ever use Av gas in their bike?
Someone told me today it is more stable then regular gas and won't gunk up the carbs like regular gas due to some additives in it.

Is this guy full of it or not?

[ACME MOTORSPORTS]

AVGAS is 100 Octane "Low Lead", or "100LL". Funny how piston aircraft engines haven't been legislated into catalytic convertors...but I digress...

Avgas actually has more additives to fight moisture and line icing. If you have older carbs, it might deteriorate the diaphragms. But that's not the bigger issue...

There is a significant legal risk to purchasing avgas at an airport and not putting it into an airplane. Although almost $7  a gallon, there is no highway road tax...and dispensing into anything other than an airplane can get you jail time and hefty fines for risk of contaminating the fuel supply at that airport. As bizarre as it sounds, they feel "if you can get it from our tanks, you can contaminate our tanks".

Back in college, I had a friend with a blown '68 Camaro who ran on avgas. He got caught, got a five year suspended federal sentence, and the airport was barred from selling fuel for a year along with a huge fine for selling avgas for non-aviation purposes.

I would stick with street gas, Berrymans, and Sta-Bil.

[N8171S]

I am a licensed pilot and agree.  We had a plane that sat for 15 years and started right up.  I had a suzuki 650 L that pinged on high test pump gas.  I cured that by filling 6 gallon cans with 5 gallons of 93 octane and 1 gallon of 100 LL  av gas.  I curently have an ultra light that has gas in it from 1997 and it still starts up.  Why can't they make auto gas that is stable?  They now are threatening to raise the gas to E 15 which will void the warrantee on most autos.  Airports may not want to sell you av gas because no road tax is paid on it.  Tell them it will be used in your ultra light airplane.  Good luck.  Oh it now costs between $5.00 to $7.00 per gallon.

[John Schmidt]

As I recall it's something like 100 octane, don't know as I would use it. And in most states, the tax rate is different on avgas compared to auto fuel. In Florida, if you're an FBO and get caught selling it to anyone other than an a/c owner, you'll be hit with some severe back taxes at the "road" level, plus a fine and usually some kind of action on your fuel reseller's license. Down here that also applies to selling it to airboats, don't often enforce it though. Most FBO's won't jeopardize their operation but obviously can't watch the line boys 24 hrs. a day.

That reminds me of a guy in our car club when I was in the USAF. He had an old Chevy, about a '38, and wanted to put one of the new V8's in it the '55 Chevys came out with. So, just for kicks and giggles one day on the flight line, he siphoned off a few gallons of the 115/145 from the ground power unit. Took it home and dumped it in his old Chevy and cranked up the old engine. He put a brick on the gas pedal and waited, took about seven minutes as I recall and it burned out just about anything that moved inside that old gas burner before it froze up with a huge bang. The bang was parts coming out the side. We then pulled the engine and proceeded to clean up the mess, including repairing a hole in the fender where part of a piston went through it. That's an assumption, we never found it. Lots of fun though. 

[RP#62]

Reminds me of a story.  When I was but a lad, I was helping the boss repair the tanks on a Piper Cherokee.  We drained all the fuel out into buckets.  I asked him what I'm supposed to do with it since we weren't allowed to put it back into the airplane.  He told me to haul it out to the parking lot and fill all the cars there.  This was in the days before LL100, it was regular 100 octane.  Never heard any complaints. LOL

Same place, a friend of mine used to preflight the Stoofs (S2Fs).  One of the preflight tasks was to sump the wing tanks.  He always did a thorough sumping job and ran the 115/145 from the sumps in his stock car. 

-RP

[Challenger]

All of our new Lawn & Garden equipment comes in with AV-Gas in them after being run at the factory.  They can sit in the crate for a year or more and still not be gummed up. Good stuff, just too expensive and too illegal for me to run. I do switch to non alcohol 92 late in the season just in case she has to sit for a while.

[YoungPUP]

I remember being told at one point tht Av gas was a "dry" fuel, and would increase upper cylinder wear.  Any truth to that?

[Grumpy]

We have a Vans rv4 at Pilot country, when we were ready for its first flight, I drove to Hernando County air port and purchased 25 gallons of 100LL av gas. Never was questioned about where it was going.  Pilot country at present does not have fuel. As to accelerated wear, I do not think so. The majority of air craft engines are air cooled and seem to hold up really well. I agree that it keeps very well, have worked on a couple airplanes that sat for several years, got them cranked up and ran just fine. No problems with carbs getting gummed up. One note about 100 LL av gas, it is now dyed blue, so is easy to spot for what it is.

[old2soon]

Reminds me of a story.  When I was but a lad, I was helping the boss repair the tanks on a Piper Cherokee.  We drained all the fuel out into buckets.  I asked him what I'm supposed to do with it since we weren't allowed to put it back into the airplane.  He told me to haul it out to the parking lot and fill all the cars there.  This was in the days before LL100, it was regular 100 octane.  Never heard any complaints. LOL

Same place, a friend of mine used to preflight the Stoofs (S2Fs).  One of the preflight tasks was to sump the wing tanks.  He always did a thorough sumping job and ran the 115/145 from the sumps in his stock car. 

-RP

  You know from talking with me on an earlier post that i was around Stoofs for 2 years or so in Uncle Sugars Canoe Club.  And when you mentioned drawing the fuel samples i saw the 1 liter glass bottle and the aluminum tube used to push up the valve in the bottom of the wing to release the fuel thru said tube and into the bottle. We had 11 stoofs and when ashore we drew fuel twice a day. 44 liters a day. My corvair got 2 to 4 liters a week depending on how much driving i was doing. NEVER hurt that flat 6 air cooled engine at all.  Ralph Nader was WRONG about the Corvairs. I owned 4 of them thru the years. RIDE SAFE.

[NITRO]

See if any of these grab you: http://www.vpracingfuels.com/motorcycle-drag-racing.html

[signart]

Forget about Techron, Seafoam, etc. Pour some in a glass jar, let it evaporate, nothing left but glass in the jar. Leave the Av gas all winter, best tune up you ever had. Had a local airport for my stock car sponsor years back and carried over to my mud boggin. Ran all the Av gas I could race with. A little left over for my m/c. Run a gallon mixed in your Valk, then tell me high octane doesn't run better. The exhaust smell is, well it makes me want to go racin.

[Patrick]

About the only avgas available today is 100LL [ 100 octane low lead]. Avgas has a completely different hydrocarbon chain than auto gas ,and so, for some reason it doesn't deteriorate like auto gas. After-all it can't be allowed to deteriorate, that has really really bad consequences when your feet are a long way off the ground. I used avgas for years in certain engines and small equipment with no ill effects. It appears that avgas is pretty easy on seals and gaskets compared to auto fuel. Every auto fuel aviation conversion I'd seen or done requires changing seals and gaskets, even some carburetor floats.

[Hoser]

Reminds me of a story.  When I was but a lad, I was helping the boss repair the tanks on a Piper Cherokee.  We drained all the fuel out into buckets.  I asked him what I'm supposed to do with it since we weren't allowed to put it back into the airplane.  He told me to haul it out to the parking lot and fill all the cars there.  This was in the days before LL100, it was regular 100 octane.  Never heard any complaints. LOL

Same place, a friend of mine used to preflight the Stoofs (S2Fs).  One of the preflight tasks was to sump the wing tanks.  He always did a thorough sumping job and ran the 115/145 from the sumps in his stock car.  

-RP

 You know from talking with me on an earlier post that i was around Stoofs for 2 years or so in Uncle Sugars Canoe Club.   And when you mentioned drawing the fuel samples i saw the 1 liter glass bottle and the aluminum tube used to push up the valve in the bottom of the wing to release the fuel thru said tube and into the bottle. We had 11 stoofs and when ashore we drew fuel twice a day. 44 liters a day. My corvair got 2 to 4 liters a week depending on how much driving i was doing. NEVER hurt that flat 6 air cooled engine at all.   Ralph Nader was WRONG about the Corvairs. I owned 4 of them thru the years. RIDE SAFE.

When I was an airdale at NAS Corpus, the Stoof was what I did electrical maintenance on in VT-31 for three years.  I was a flight line electrician, so I did a lot of parts replacement, the guys over at the main shop did all the repair and return.  There were three sqaudrons of Stfs of fifty planes each, plus a couple squadrons of t28s.  Hoser

[RP#62]

Reminds me of a story.  When I was but a lad, I was helping the boss repair the tanks on a Piper Cherokee.  We drained all the fuel out into buckets.  I asked him what I'm supposed to do with it since we weren't allowed to put it back into the airplane.  He told me to haul it out to the parking lot and fill all the cars there.  This was in the days before LL100, it was regular 100 octane.  Never heard any complaints. LOL

Same place, a friend of mine used to preflight the Stoofs (S2Fs).  One of the preflight tasks was to sump the wing tanks.  He always did a thorough sumping job and ran the 115/145 from the sumps in his stock car.  

-RP

 You know from talking with me on an earlier post that i was around Stoofs for 2 years or so in Uncle Sugars Canoe Club.   And when you mentioned drawing the fuel samples i saw the 1 liter glass bottle and the aluminum tube used to push up the valve in the bottom of the wing to release the fuel thru said tube and into the bottle. We had 11 stoofs and when ashore we drew fuel twice a day. 44 liters a day. My corvair got 2 to 4 liters a week depending on how much driving i was doing. NEVER hurt that flat 6 air cooled engine at all.   Ralph Nader was WRONG about the Corvairs. I owned 4 of them thru the years. RIDE SAFE.

When I was an airdale at NAS Corpus, the Stoof was what I did electrical maintenance on in VT-31 for three years.  I was a flight line electrician, so I did a lot of parts replacement, the guys over at the main shop did all the repair and return.  There were three sqaudrons of Stfs of fifty planes each, plus a couple squadrons of t28s.  Hoser

They were great old airplanes courtesy of Grumman ironworks.  My oldman used to be a radioman in Stoofs in a VS outfit.  When I worked on the base, OMD was using them for SAR birds but they were designated US2Bs (we called them used-to-be's).  Its very sad when you drive by Davis Mothan and see what's left of them.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=tucson&hl=en&ll=32.147543,-110.856763&spn=0.001312,0.002064&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=56.112526,135.263672&t=h&hnear=Tucson,+Pima,+Arizona&z=20


-RP

[old2soon]

I would not be the least bit surprised if one of the 11 i worked on at one time or another was staring back at me. I wonder how many hours i spent with Turco and a couple rags wiping off the exhaust trails on the engine nacelles?? I'd also like to know how many times we loaded a 20 man life raft into the torpedo bay for S A R missions?? I saw more than 1 of our birds trapping that lost a Havar pod or a 5" rocket go bouncing off the end of the angle deck!! Some of the ordanance didn't go off til it hit the water. The rest didn't go off at all. My squadron V S-23 was responsible for the Cruiser Indianapolis?? i think it was the Indy-had to completely change the mid watch. We had nailed them with the EXTREMELY bright spotlight the Stoofs carried!!  Man oh man-i are really diggin in to the memory locker.  RIDE SAFE.

[gordonv]

Bother-in-law suggested I run 1 litre of av gas in my MC tank to clean out all the gunk from the carbs. Sounds like from the posts here that this would work.

[YoungPUP]

This post got me thinking.  With Crap Auo gas going for $3.15 a gallon locally, and Seafoam at$7.00 a can, and time to rebuild messed up carbs nonexistent, would there be any reason not to run avgas as it is available locally. I understand I would have to run road fuel when on the road, but around home, and for when she sits, this seems like a really good idea. My only concern is that a few summers ago I accidentally got 100 octane road fuel and the Valk didn't like it.  HAd an intermittent backfire and would cough from time to time.