Low mileage original--is gas additive needed?

H

hoss73ford

Senior Member
Close by neighbor bought a 1966 T-Bird with only 28,000 miles on it (still has the new car smell!) so therefore it does not have hardened valve seats. Does he need to put lead or some form of additive in the gas???
At least non-ethanol gas is plentiful in our area so that's not a problem.
 
It depends on the compression ratio. My first purchased car was a 1964 T-bird with the 390. It was originally a 300-HP with 10.1:1 compression ratio. I overhauled it back in the 70s and used the later cam for 310 HP with the same compression ratio. It didn't like regular at all. I ran the modern 93 premium in it and it did OK. They would likely last better with hardened seats but I never had a problem with the cast iron heads running 93.

The 66 390 had 10.5:1 compression ratio and the 428 had the same. They would definitely like the premo better. The 428 was a 345-HP option.
 
If this is just a hobby car I wouldn't worry about it. I overhauled a 302 Ford back in '94 or '95 that was a leaded gas engine. Didn't do anything to the valves or seats but grind them. Put that engine in a Ranger and drove it almost 100K miles before the body rusted away. I did that just to prove one way or the other if lead was needed. I found out that lead was not needed. The engine was still running fine when I junked the Ranger.
 
If a person runs an old FE Ford a lot then some day it may need stellite seats to repair for wear but I wouldn't do it until I had to.

A friend of mine worked with his dad on irrigation engines for a long time and they used to get the seats installed for the 428 FE engines that were running on natural gas. Those engines would run all summer long and the natural gas was hard on them but running pump gasoline should not be an issue.
 
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