Hey Andy (and gang),

All very interesting reading indeed.

If you haven't had the chance to take a run out to the airport you might want to call ahead. The ESSO FBO phone is 268-7212.

Redex I believe is an overseas name for Marvel Mystery Oil or at least an equivalent. I have started to put a bit of MMO in my diesel mix lately and have noticed some of the old carbon comming out of an old PAW and others seem to run a bit cleaner. Wishful thinking maybe, I don't know. Especially in light of Kelly's comment on MMO in an earlier post.

Also, with Kerosene base fuels with no ether we not be able to use Castor oil. My understanding is that Castor oil and Kerosene are both soluble in Ether but caster oil alone will not go into solution with kerosene alone. So petroleum or synthetic oils would be our choices.

I read in some post somewhere about some team racers using very low ether fuel and highly nitrated fuels. Highly nitrated meaning high percent of amyl nitrate or iso-propyl nitrate or similar. So, the idea has been around for some time it has just taken Andy, his experiments and his willingness to exhchange ideas on the subject to spark this current spike of interest.

As to Andy's comment on the little engine starting and running briefly on WD40, that is not the first I have heard of that. I had tales related to me and I have witnessed on a couple of occasions were someone has been using WD40 as an after run treatment to have the engine start and run briefly on the WD40 when they have turned it over with a starter.

I did some reading yesterday. I am not an orgaic chemist so my understanding of the this subject is limited. However I did find some interesting bits.

WD40 is primarily what is refered to as Stoddard Solvent which includes other common names as White Spirits, Mineral Spirits, High Flash Naptha and is in between Naptha and Kerosene in properties.

Coleman stove fuel is pretty much naptha and the properties of these two are pretty much the same. Lighter fluid and charcoal starter fluid are also pretty much the same as naptha and Coleman stove fuel and have an Octane rating of around 50. Kerosene and diesel fuel have an Octane rating of around 15 to 25 and a Cetane rating of around 40 to 45. Jet-A would about the same as kerosene or diesel.

Interesting thing is that castor oil has a Cetane rating of around 40 to as high as 49. There are a log of vegetable oils that have a fairly high cetane rating as well ranging from around the high 20's to the high 40's. I have somewhere a posting (on SmallNET I think) from some time back (may have also been in a magazine as well) from someone in the UK on an etherless fuel where he used a vegetable oil as the base for his fuel. I will see if I can find it and re-post it.

I have an old PAW 2.49CC that I will try a few experiements on. I suspect however that being old and well used and with it's compression not being what it used to be, that it will not respond as readily to the low or no ether fuels as well as an engine with better compression. Which brings up another question, how to rejuvenate an old engine like this? A piston cylinder set is half the price of a new engine, throw in the cost of a con rod and I have to think that one over. However, would one of these PAW respond well chrome plating the cylinder? Never had that done to an engine and might be a good experiment to work through. Any comments on that ?

cheers, Graham in Embrun near Ottawa Canada