I heard today that Sunoco leaded fuel is no longer availabe at Road Atlanta or Lanier National (across the street).

Have any of you racers (actually racing as opposed to project-building and dreaming about racing like me) had to run on unleaded fuel?

My machinist says I should put hardened valve guides in my head to cope with unleaded gas. Since they cost the same from Victoria British, it sounds like a no-brainer to me.

I'm planning on running a high-compression version E88 with a stock block and standard rings. In the next block rebuild, I will probably bore it .040 and use a set of oversized pistons from my first race car.

Based on this and the possibility I'll have to run leaded fuel, do I need to do anything special to the head other than the valve job with hardened guides?

When I had my Hi-comp E88 head rebuilt by Dave Rebello (http://www.rebelloracing.com/ ) he recommended hardened Valve SEATS not guides to deal with unleaded gasoline. It's the seats, not the guides that get pounded upon.

I second what Carl said!!! Dave Rebello is a very knowledgable guy with tons of race engine experience. Someday, maybe soon, I'm going to break down and buy one of his 3.0 L 285 HP 50mm su'd motors for my 240. The additional 125 HP will be sweetamous!

Right...I wasn't looking closely enough at the VictoriaBritish catalog. So I guess I will want to put in new hardened valve seats as well as premium manganese-bronze valve guides. Thanks for straightening me out on that aspect.

I used to see different "lead additives" in the stores and in magazines, but that was in the 90s, and I haven't seen it since. I t was mainly for the British cars, because they didn't havet he parts available to convert the engines to unleaded fuel. I think those parts are now available, so the lead additives are gone

How serious of a problem is this? How bad would the wear be on an engine that has spent most of its life running on un-leaded gas?

Serious is a relative term here, without hardend valve seats a valve job will last a little more than half of what it would have with hardened seats, so if you don't plan on keeping the car forever or don't mind doing a valve job every 30-40 thousand miles with "normal driving" it's not that big of a deal.

To answer your question..

YES they still sell leaded "race" fuel...

go to the airport... any airport with a container.. and you can get 100LL or even 110LL octane.. usually BLUE in color...

same stuff as automotive fuel.. just AVFUEL.. which has color added in it.. more oxygen and lead

Right, Avgas is color-coded, so you know what type is is. If you mix grades, it turns clear:

80/87 Red

110LL Blue

100/130 Green

A recent issue of Racer magazine still had an advert from Sunoco listing several race fuels they supply. NASCAR still uses one of them.

Most of us bring our own race gas. VP fuels C12. Just because we like the sweet smell.

PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong....

My head is original, I've never put lead in it...I was told a long time ago the L series aluminum heads have hardened seats by default.

My head has over 125,000 miles on it with unleaded gas, totally original head. No problems with the valves.