Hardened Valve Seats

[EJ_Dave]

To echo RETs comments, greys were designed to run on standard fuel and should run fine on normal ULP as long as upper cylinder lubricant or hardened valve seats are used. The octane rating of Standard was only 79 until 1963 (the year the greys were phased out- coincidence?), was then increased to 85 and some later time to 92. The 91 octane rating of ULP is actually a fair bit higher than 'Standard' fuel sold in the 50s. This means that it will burn slower and for optimum performance you can advance timing a bit more than the original recommended settings. Maybe this slower burning would explain some of the problems with Optimax mentioned elswhere in this thread.

Dave  

[Tumbles]

I've heard about these fuel star set ups has any one been using one for a fair while? How does it go? Does it stop valve seat recession?   Spend $400 on the head and get seats done or $400 on a fuel star, like to know more about it if anybody knows.
  4hammers, have you heard of anybody useing mitsubishi E300 con rods in a grey, bring rod ratio from1.79:1 to about 1.9:1, but might have to get custom pistons. Will the Vauxhall main caps fit the standard grey crank?
Cheers Tumbles

[4hammers]

Hi Tumbles.
No, I haven't heard of that, but it may be possible. Surely after years of Jap motors, one has something that can be used in a Grey. The fellas I know are always looking for ways to improve the Grey.
As for the Vauxhall caps, that is a negative. They don't fit. You have to re-align the standard caps (Not to mention the pistons) to fit the Vauxhall crank. Robbie went through 5 blocks until he found one that worked. Only to find a month or so later, one of the bores started seaping water. He got it resleeved.

Rob J

[RET]

I've heard about these fuel star set ups has any one been using one for a fair while? How does it go? Does it stop valve seat recession?   Spend $400 on the head and get seats done or $400 on a fuel star, like to know more about it if anybody knows.

My Dad's FC (179HP) has one of these FuelStar set-ups on it, and he's been pretty happy with it.  I'm not sure how many miles he's done in the last 3 or 4 years since it was fitted, so it may not have done enough to exhibit valve seat recession anyway.  But those things are guaranteed for some ridiculous number of miles - a couple of hundred thousand or something.

Anyway, the way I see it, the FuelStar kit has these pros and cons:

Pros:
- doesn't require any engine dismantling
- is reasonably portable (ie you spend $400 on getting a head done, that's a $400 investment in that unit that you can't recover if the head cracks later on.  You can also move the kit from one car to another.)
- doesn't require maintenance or topping up.

Cons:
- obvious modification in the engine bay (it has to be mounted there because it requires the engine vibration to function)
- relatively expensive compared to FlashLube/Valvemaster for cars that get infrequent use (ie $400 would buy enough FlashLube for over 30,000 litres of petrol, or 6,700 gallons or 750 tanks full)

Hope that helps.  Here are some other Useful Links:
MotorMouth on FuelStar.
FlashLube info

cheers
RET

[Tumbles]

  Thanks for that Ret, I reakon that it might be worth a bash, it's just strange that something that is supposed to be so good isn't seen all that often, were flash lube ect are an every day thing.
  The link to the fuelstar page didn't work ???
Rob. J that crank sounds like a hell of a lot of mucking around, sounds like it would almost be cheaper to have a crank made up from scratch :-/  I have heard around the traps that you can use a Jag vibration damper on the grey, any thoughts on that?
Cheers Tumbles

[DJ]

I don't know if this is the most recent discussion on the topic but what do people think about FlashLube & FuelStar these days?
It's harder to find much about FuelStar now - perhaps the initial outlay.