Running 100LL av gas?

be_lain

Currently sending it
Location
Oregon
I have access to a bunch of free 100LL aviation fuel. Any concerns with running this in my ski (other than environmental concerns)? I have a JM ported 61x. Thoughts?
 

DAG

Yes, my balls tickled from that landing
Location
Charlotte, NC
I'd be concerned why its free.. sounds like somethings wrong with it being that it cant be pumped into a plane.
 

be_lain

Currently sending it
Location
Oregon
I'd be concerned why its free.. sounds like somethings wrong with it being that it cant be pumped into a plane.

My brother works at a private airport. They have super strict fuel standards so they discard some of the fuel that might have some small particles or water in it. But we have a system of filtering it to screen it of anything.
 

Mike W

Infidel
Location
North Florida
That’s what I’ve been running for years with no issues. I don’t run any of my 2 stroke with any fuel with ethanol but I can only get that at 89 octane.
 

OCD Solutions

Original, Clean and Dependable Solutions
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Location
Rentz, GA
I used to get a few free drums a year on a similar deal. I had a water strainer and could process a few drums an hour.

My ski engine was a limited spec ported 701 and it loved a bit of AV gas. I usually mixed one gallon of AV to 4 Gallons of regular.
I ran the same mixture in my sled and that engine was spotless still after 5000 miles.
 
I use to drive around to the maintence hangers at my local small airport and ask if they had any. Once they drain the fuel from a plane for maintenance they have to discard it (so i was i told). I’ve ran a few drums this way with no problems. If i couldn’t find any I’d buy it at the pump, and ran it for years.
 
Knowing why it fails is a huge factor in determining if it's acceptable to use in something else. If it's just water strains that bitch out and brap the fok on

An airplane can't just pull over to the side of the road when the engine dies... They are very very cautious about everything airplane related.
 

bored&stroked

Urban redneck
Location
AZ
Dude its airplanes. If you check the oil level with the dipstick and aren't a certified mechanic that then logs it, the plane isn't going anywhere until a tech ok's it.
Has a slight question about anything? Replace it.
I feel jetski's are 180* from them. Simple, don't even have valves, run whatever makes the engine go brap haha
 
Item X is deemed bad when there's moisture present or has been sitting a while. Just picked up 300 litres of avgas for free, looks like the lawn mower is going to be smelling pretty for a while
 

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The AV I was getting came from remote fuel dumps. They have strict and clear rules.

All fresh drums are sealed and stored on their sides.
- if it standing upright, it’s done.
- they can only be tapped once. Whether you take one gallon or all 45, it’s done.
- if the seal is broken or damaged in any way, it cannot be tapped. It’s done.
- 2 year rotation on remote fill sites, (specs say it’s stable for 10 years), older than 2 years gets rotated out of stock, regardless if sealed or not.
- dented sides of the drum, it’s done.

I’m sure there are more but those are the basic rules I was told. They take zero risk.

I had drums full of rust that I had to return.
Not exactly scientific but I always burned a sample from each tank to make sure it wasn’t totally dead.

For the most part, as long as it was clear and blue, it was good to go. It’s a very stable and well engineered product.

I didn’t really find it was a performance gain at all but it helped keep everything running clean and it greatly reduced my fuel costs.

One of my sledding buddies owned the Bulk plant in our area and kicked us all the AV we could handle. The last batch I got was 11 drums, (2 of which were still sealed), that I was able to render down to 6 full drums. I ended up giving most of it away when I moved.
 
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For the guys questioning the source of the Avgas. It has already been touched on here by different people but I know something about this.

When aircraft have to be de-fueled for maintenance reasons to inspect the tanks, change a fuel pump etc the fuel cannot be put back in the aircraft. On smaller aircraft like a 172 or a Piper you could easily have 10 gallons at a minimum in each wing going into mx up to full. On planes like a 182 full could be around 90 gallons. These are small planes. On larger twin pistons it can be more.

All that fuel goes into a bowser and is basically wasted but there is really nothing wrong with it. On jets it can be worse. They can easily pump at a minimum of 100 gallons out of a small jet up to 500 gallons depending on the size and type. The larger jets they will transfer the fuel from one tank/wing to the other via on board systems to avoid de-fueling but the smaller ones have to de-fuel. Still they carry a significant amount. So a lot of people burn Jet-A in their diesel trucks and farm equipment. Bear in mind when they do that they usually mix in some oil with it as JetA is "dry" compared to diesel. All diesel airport fuel trucks I have seen are running on Jet A.

Another source for this is the airport has to "sump" the tanks at the fuel farm. To sump a 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 gallon tank you gotta let out a significant amount of fuel. As in gallons not a few cups. They do this at my airport every load of Avgas they get and/or every week. They usually get a few loads of Avgas a week so they are sumping 5-10 gallons a week alone.

If you know someone at a mx shop or on the airport that is doing the sumping there is your source. All you need to get to do it is get a fuel filter/water separator like that is used on an outboard motor and run it through there before using it to be safe. Usually there isn't any water in it but there can be trash in the bowsers you will want filtered out.

I wouldn't run Avgas in anything with a muffler with small passages like a weed eater. I was mixing 50/50 (for the smell) for a few years. Eventually the lead clogged up the small passages on the muffler and it wouldn't rev up all the way. I had to get a new muffler and that fixed it. Your mileage may vary on that.
 
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