Hello, I'm about to become the owner of a 1965 S Type 3.8 Auto. No doubt I will end up with loads of questions but possibly the most pressing is: Can the engine in these cars run on e5 and e10 unleaded petrol or do I need to put in lead substitute additive or any other additive?

 

First welcome to the forum and enjoy your new S Type. Pictures would be nice.
Glyn will come forth and tell you more about the E5 and E10 fuels but that aside all Jaguar engines had hardened valve seats from the factory as they are an aluminium head with hardened valve seats inserted. If you had an older engine that was made of cast iron such as an MGB "B" series or Ford Kent engine then the valve seats were cut out of the cast iron (a softer material than the valves) and required the added lead for lubrication.
Both E5 and E10 are lead free. The "E" stands for ethanol and the numbers 5 and 10 just denote the percentage of ethanol in the fuel. The greater amount of ethanol in E10 effects older rubber materials turning them into a mush causing them to leak. All (he says with tongue in cheek) new parts sold should be E10 compatible, so fuel pipes, gaskets and any item that comes into contact with the fuel should be compatible. There are still NOS items for sale which are not, hence the tongue in cheek.
Can you update your location for us please . It is always nice to know where the person is you are speaking to.
Any questions are welcome so ask away. Also please check out the S Type forum and register at THE INTERNATIONAL JAGUAR 'S'-TYPE REGISTER FORUM - FORUM INDEX dedicated solely to the 1963 to 1968 S type Jaguar.

 

You're totally OK with unleaded fuel as Cass says, but you would be wise not to run it on E10, or if you do, to buy the new Castrol petrol additive for older cars running on E10. When I had my MG Midget, I always added Castrol Valvemaster to the petrol when filling the tank, as the engine did not have hardened valve seats. I had no problems in 10 years ownership. Of course these things mean your fuel costs more, but what the hell, you won't be using it as a daily driver, I'm, sure. And, of course, you have no VED to pay.

 

The car will be fine running E10 Unleaded petrol/gasoline ~ no additives required. (marketing nonsense). Don't use E85 unless the vehicle has been designed to run on it like some Benz cars sold in the US ~ notification inside the fuel flap). In the UK you shortly will have no option as with many areas in the US & SA inland in the Sasol supply area. In Brazil you will be forced to run on pure alcohol (both hydrous & anhydrous) in many areas (sugar cane growing areas) but vehicles have been modified to pure zinc fuel system components e.g. VW. Watch all elastomers/rubbers that come into contact with alcohol for swelling or leaks. Watch all flexible fuel hoses. Original nylon hoses tolerate alcohol well. Some newer milky clear hoses not. See below ~ swollen & cracked. Sold in the US as "the right stuff" by what is now Moss. I believe it has been withdrawn. Keep alcohol laced fuels dry (anhydrous) or they can cause severe corrosion especially if they phase separate in the presence of yellow metals in combination with other alloys ~ or the alloys themselves contain traces of yellow metal. VW Pierburg carburettors used to literally corrode & fall off the manifold in Brazil until we discovered they were suffering phase separation beyond the venturies at temperatures below freezing.

 

I drove my MGB daily for 31 years on unleaded fuel….no additives ever, and the engine was never touched and I had zero problems…so I rather suspect that rumours about needing lead additives were untrue. The Jaguar engines, though, indeed had hardened valve seats from the factory.

 

paranoia runs deeps in the car aficionado world, methinks.

 

As others have written, our cars have hardened valve seat inserts. Moreover, after years of running on leaded fuel, even non-hardened seats have a build up lead in the surface to protect them. So long as your car has the standard 8:1 compression ratio, it should be able to run on regular unleaded without risk of knock, though it's always good to listen for it, especially if you're not sure of the history of the engine. Personally, I use only premium grade from major oil companies, usually BP Ultimate or sometimes Shell V-power. They cost more, but contain cleanliness and other additives that are woth the extra cost. Ken Jenkins technical expert of the Jaguar Enthuiats' Club agrees with me and he's rebuilt more XK engines than most of us have had hot dinners. I don't worry about ethanol, certainly not at the 10% level. As far as damaging parts are concerned, it's extremely unlikely that original materials with have a problem. Of course that doesn't rule out replacements that previous owners may have fitted. In particular, lot of people seem think nylon and PVC are the same. They aren't: nylon has no problem with modern gasoline; PVC is hopeless.

 

And in the US & some other countries, fuels at the pump treated by the oil company with Techron is proven unbeatable/unsurpassed ~ Texaco, Chevron etc. BP are the nearest rival but way behind mainly on the combustion chamber cleanliness side. Outside the US the Caltex Techron brand is the same thing & unmatched. The only fuel additive approved by Benz. (the BASF brand is bought in Techron from Chevron & available in bottles after a major court case protecting our IP). I don't usually bring brands onto this forum but Peter opened the door. Agree stick to the major oilco's that can afford these treatments especially in countries where the price of fuel is controlled by Govt. A listing of additised fuels is published in the US but no comments on quality & efficacy of the dosed fuel. With direct injection cars & keeping inlet systems clean all depends on design. e.g. VW have mounted a further LP injector upstream to effect this. Ford & Benz multipulse that cleans/washes the inlet valve tulip etc. when open. Many DI car brands require a walnut shell cleanup of the inlet system every 20,000 Km's.

A certain Porsche SUV DI inlet system at 20,000 Km.



The VW DI system.

 

That looks like worn valve guides seals rather than fuel deposits.
There has to be more then 20,000k on those guides and seals.

 

Sorry, I mentioned BP and She'll probably as they have the most filling stations where I live. There are also Texaco and Exxon. Most people in the UK buy from supermarket pumps. They are cheaper, but I don't know what they sell and, after queuing inside the supermarket, I don't feel like enduring another outside for fuel. OAPs have other things to do in our lives! Techron is available here over the counter. The marketing is as a cleanliness additive especially for direct injection. Prevention of the much hyped ethanol phase separation receives an occasional mention.

 

No sir ~ 20,000Kms from new. Direct injection is a whole different animal. That's what comes down the guide with nothing to wash it away & the VI Improver sits & bakes onto the tulip & surrounds. I'm afraid all that comes down the inlet tract with DI is air and that's what happens. Porsche also runs pretty wide valve overlap for performance.

That is a good valve. It gets far worse. Anyway it's been fixed with an LP injector upstream as part of the VAG group fix.

 

Back in the 1970s, in spite of the advantages for knock and hydrocarbons, we didn't think GDI was a good way forward, mainly due to the particulates and cleanliness. I guess that now it will get the industry past legislation until it's all electric.

 

Techron was originally developed as a port injected & carburettor inlet tract cleaner with little concentration on combustion chamber in the early days. Of course it can't clean where it doesn't get. It has been steadily improved. We don't sit on our hands. But thusfar have achieved to stay unsurpassed ahead of the competition. Last test program completed 6 months back at a certain impartial university.

Corrosion is a very real problem that has generally been mitigated by change of materials today. I sat on the multi oil company group in the early days of E10. Everything from carb corrosion, to terne plate stripping of fuel tanks to Ducati fuel valve leaks due to incompatible elastomers, and everything in between. Manufacturers today have fixed most of their problems. E10 gasohol was launched in SA well over 30 years ago (closer to 40yrs) where Sasol had surplus long chain alcohols from their process that they did not know what to do with. Fortunately they have now found more lucrative markets that have kept the dosing down to 10%. max permitted 12%

The OEM's were given a multi year warning of what was to come & as much free fuel as they wanted for testing. They were slow to react & ended up with a bucket full of trouble. Right down to the paint used on GM products.

Today all that worries me is corrosion with our old girls which is untested. Hopefully we will not experience issues.

My car is now out of the alcohol area & we have a refinery on our doorstep.

 

That won't happen for many years to come outside the UK & the future likely lies in hydrogen. Got the latest data from Infineum last night.

On a cradle to grave basis electric cars are not green globally. The Lithium pollution cycle alone is bad enough, otherwise you are just moving the pollution from the city to the power station unless you are Norway where most electricity is generated from Hydro. And don't tell me that nuclear is green.

I doubt the UK will meet it's target. Politicians are not exactly au fait with reality. The UK can't even keep a Prime Minister for longer than a few days. They have bigger fish to fry.

 

When did reality come into consideration? What captures the minds of politicians is all that counts. I was very restrained and didn't use words like corrupt or incompetent.

 

Indeed you did not! Great minds think alike ~ we shall not contemplate the alternative regarding fools..

 

Did you know that the AA and RAC vans in the UK are called out to electric vehicle breakdowns now. 90% of which according to my mate who is an RAC mechanic, are due to the car running out of charge. The solution is that all AA and RAC vans now carry a diesel generator in the back which allows them to charge the electric car at the roadside. How is that green fuel when you are burning diesel to create the electricity. As Glyn says the UKs gas fired power stations are not green, neither are the nuclear power stations.
The concept of having a green electric car that runs from solar or wind generated electricity is fine but that is not what is happening. Bring on the Hydrogen, the most abundant gas in the atmosphere, carbon free and you can still run a V8 off it. Why waste time trying to create an infrastructure of charging stations for electricity knowing that if all cars go to electric the draw on the power stations would be so great they would not be able to produce enough electricity to cope.

 

Port Injected Techron vehicle. See where the injector sprays . Valve tulips spotless as is upper manifold.

See dark filthy bottom where no fuel sprays & Techron can't do it's work as it sees no fuel due to injector placement and spray pattern.

 

I didn't know we were talking about direct injection, the diagram posted looks as if the injector was spraying the valve.
I know all about the problems with direct injection, one of which are the injectors getting all sooted up with carbon from combustion.
I still say that all that mess should not be there, at least to that extent just because the injector isn't cleaning things off.
The inlet valves on my Bentley sure don't look like that.
It's not fuel injected, but it has lots of vacuum to pull any oil past the guides.
With everything up to spec and with new stem seals in place, there isn't the mess I see in your photo.
I would say that engine has too much oil getting past the guides, and at least it needs the stem seals replaced, or maybe it doesn't have any, does it ?

Perhaps the car gets driven very hard and I could see that happening, but still, it's pretty bad.

 

Absolutely Cass. Electric vehicles are not green. The Lithium mess/pollution alone is dreadful from cradle to grave. One has to dispose of all those buggered batteries or repurpose them to squeeze a little more life out of them as the Japanese are doing with their traffic lights now that most are high intensity LED's, & we won't talk about the mining mess. Electric motors are about 98% efficient so there is little room for improvement there.

If charged from renewable energy such as Norway with all its Hydro power then it's a deal. Most of the world is not like Norway. 3 Gorges dam in China provides a fraction of their power requirement and look at the disruption of flooding whole cities. which is why they brought online 53 coal fired Power Stations in 1 year. Siemens Westinghouse & partners largest contract ever. 1 per week. Of course they took a lot longer than that to build. China is continuing with its Hydro at a rate of knots. They have plenty of large rivers & will flood a whole lot more cities. You can't do that in a democracy or you would be out. Imagine trying to dam the Ganges river in India much more than it is already. Heads would roll.

Solar, wind & sea are other options. But then you have to store that energy as it's unreliable. Pump water uphill all day & run it as Hydro during the night or whatever process meets demand. Then efficiency drops off. Fuel from microbes & algae is in it's infancy.

Hydrogen is the answer but cost of splitting off the Hydrogen is still too high. All of us oilcos are working flat out to achieve lower cost because we have the obvious distribution network in place already. Keep good crude oil for cost effective lubricants. Like the ISO de-waxing process Group II.

Then we have Bovine Flatulence to overcome although the Aussies are doing great research on that.