4 Star (or was it 5 star?) if you had a Jaaaaaaag ,Daimler, Aston etc. 'ol chap or like us, a rather ripping little 2 seater number. 5 Star was the car version of Avgas!
I think…as a guy locally who uses his Austin A35 van a lot (!) told me…2 star is about 95 RON.
I should mention, it is a stunning nut & bolt with an Oselli modded & bored 1275 TC Austin 1300 GT mill adapted into it.
With discs. About 85/90 BHP he claims…Big Valve head bla bla.
Wish I could recall what Dad put in our big 3.3ltr (?) Poxhall Viscount.
I still remember 5-Star petrol - can’t quite recall the RONs though.
I think they ceased production of that sometime in the late 70s, and people who drove Jaguars, the larger Rovers (like the 3500s), and everything I couldn’t afford at the time (being a lowly car mechanic !) were all panic stations, because they weren’t sure if their motors would run on 4-Star juice.
In 1966 I was putting 4* in my newly acquired but old Triumph at 3/9d a gallon (4.12p/litre) at the local cheap garage, and most annoyed when it jumped almost a shilling soon after.
In 1967 a garage on my way to Uni announced they would soon stop selling expensive Cleveland Discol 101 Octane and the little group of Triton bikers sharing our Hall of Residence bike shed with me bemoaned the lack of it.
However the young gardener was eavesdropping on their wailing and gnashing of teeth and heard how much better they thought their machines went on it.
He decided to try a tankful in his ancient but souped-up (twin SU carbs, branched exhaust manifold with straight through fat pipe) Austin A35 while he still could.
He took his girlfriend for a burn up and down the brand new empty bit of M4 for a few circuits and thought it was wonderful, but after about half an hour he noticed the engine was not so happy.
When he limped back he asked one of us (not me) to have a look at it. It turned out he had burnt the exhaust valves in only about fifty miles of misguided exuberance.
With the hindsight of experience I think there were a whole lot of other things wrong with his setup, but he blamed it on all the alcohol in the Discol (about E25).
See this article from 1934 Motorsport mag for a bit more about Discol, and how much ethanol was in it.
I remember my dad grumpily replacing burnt valves on his Hillman Minx and cursing the friend who had assured him it would run fine on 5 star. I never really understood what had gone wrong but he wasn’t exactly in the mood to explain even if he knew.
If you knew about these things, it was simple to adjust the distributor timing to suit the fuel, 5* more advanced, 2* less advanced.
The Lucas one had a little vernier wheel. On my bitsa I used to set it so the engine didn’t quite pink. This pic borrowed from mgb-stuff and found on a websearch
There was a news item a month or two back about that garage and the fact that the nearest motorway services (Frankley?) was cheaper than that garage, yes really!
Cars with knock sensors, like my nc2, should be able to take advantage of higher octane fuel by advancing the ignition, which should give some extra power
One of the racers on here reckons they got 10 extra bhp on a dyno from an nd, simply by sticking some VPower in it.
How much extra power you can detect by the seat of your pants is up for debate.
For many, many years we have run Shell V-Power in our MX5 mk 2.5, our Jaguar XK8 and our Morris Minor Traveller. I wouldn’t make any claims about improved mpg or power, but they all run much smoother on it. That having been said we have now switched to Esso Supreme Unleaded as it has 0% ethanol.
My employer was just starting to cave in to the Boris inspired “Lets get back to work!” from a couple of weeks ago (like we have all been watching daytime TV eating custard creams all day). Anyway roll on Plan B and the continuation of working from home.
I know what you mean about working from home, love it.
My employer is being more flexible now and most people are still working from home, but I had to go in last week for a team meeting. I definitely haven’t missed the traffic.
About 85/90 BHP he claims…Big Valve head bla bla.
