Redline Lead Substitute Dosage Change

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Dec 5, 2003
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New England, USA
Am I having a memory lapse or did Redline significantly change the dosage for their Lead Substitute?

I have used this for at least ~25 years and will admit to not really reading the individual bottles. I recently read the label on a recent 12oz/355ml bottle and it states "..treats up to 25 gallons." I was under the impression that the treat rate was 1oz to 10 gals. I distinctly remember the labels having 1oz graduations on them.

I did some web sleuthing and found this from a old UK article on lead substitutes: "Red Line: 01732 866885 (Scotland 01968 673127). Now available are 355ml bottles (545 litres)." Doing the metric conversion, this statement works out to approximately 1oz/10 gals as I remember.

Is the current recipe roughly 1/6 as potent as it was?? Disappointing if so......

I think I'll reach out to them and see what they say. They are usually very responsive.
 
The people I know that don't have hardened exhaust seats tend to use a little MMO with every fill up.
 
Out of curiosity, what does their lead substitute do?

It was one of the few that actually was actually proven to effectively reduce valve seat recession. The British Federation of Historic Vehicle Clubs performed a series of tests and found that Redline, and a few others, were effective while others were not. Of those shown to be effective, only Redline is readily available in the US.

A quick search should turn up the study, it is an interesting read.
 
The people I know that don't have hardened exhaust seats tend to use a little MMO with every fill up.

Cannot see MMO doing anything for valve seat recession. Valve stems and sticking valves maybe, but not seats. I do know folks who run it in old aircraft using 100LL fuel to prevent deposits and valve sticking....
 
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Cannot see MMO doing anything for valve seat recession. Valve stems and sticking valves maybe, but not seats. I do know folks who run it in old aircraft using 100LL fuel to prevent deposits and valve sticking....

Old timers just remembering when high lead content caused issues and the magic of MMO somehow helping with lack of lead too. Others who aren't brand conscious use 2 stroke oil. Truthfully, I haven't seen much in the way of valve recession but we are talking vehicles that don't see many miles.
 
It was one of the few that actually was actually proven to effectively reduce valve seat recession. The British Federation of Historic Vehicle Clubs performed a series of tests and found that Redline, and a few others, were effective while others were not. Of those shown to be effective, only Redline is readily available in the US.

A quick search should turn up the study, it is an interesting read.

Thanks, I'll look it up and see what they find.

In my mind, it's awfully difficult to prevent the microwelding that causes recession without either using "squishy" lead to cushion them...or of course alternatively using materials that are hard enough that the microwelding doesn't occur in the first place.

A lot of the lead replacement additives I've seen use an upper cylinder lubricant(I'll generically say kerosene since a lot are roughly in that BP range) plus something like toluene or xylene that should act as an octane booster.

At the end of the day, I can have a valve job(hot tank, mag, hardened seats, and new valves) done on a 4 cylinder OHV British head for about $500. I can also pull the head on a B series engine in an afternoon, and I'm slow, albeit that's the only British engine I have a lot of experience with. Given that at least the US smog heads on B engines can tend to crack around the seats anyway, particularly on the later heads with induction hardened seats, going ahead and doing a valve job makes a lot of sense to me to both keep the head in good shape and also not have to mess with additives. Granted I still drop Sta-Bil in every tank since I never know if I'll empty it in a week or 6 months.
 
Well, I received an answer from Redline indicating that the formula has changed and now treats "...25-50" gallons so it is roughly 1/5-1/2 as concentrated... I will ask if the underlying additive, sodium, has changed. The price sure hasn't decreased by 1/5-1/2 :) Bit disappointed.
 
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