Unleaded petrol in the USA?

[burgundyben]

Am I right in thinking that you guys in the USA have had lead free petrol for a long time?

If I bought an engine in the UK that had come out of MGB that had originally been shipped to the USA would it be able to run on unleaded or would I need to have the head fitted with hardened valve seats etc to run unleaded with no harm?

Thanks again!

 

[Stewart]

if its from a 76 or later there's a good chance but prior to that they were not hardened.

 

[David_DuBois]

It is not a big problem regardles of how the head is configured. Unless the car is being raced, the heads without hardened valve seats will wear a bit faster, but we drove our MGB without hardened valve seats for some 20 years before it was necessary to have hardened seats installed. The problem with non hardened valve seats and unleaded fuel is entirely over rated (again, unless one is racing the car).
Cheers,

PS - the MGB has been our primary transportation vehicle wince we first bought it.

 

[tony barnhill]

David's correct - I've been driving my '67 on unleaded for many years & have had no problems with seats...drive it until you detect problems & then change them out

 

[DrEntropy]

Same here. Last rebuild on an 18 GB without putting seats in the head, just a re-seat. 80K on it, no problems. That was also my daily for five+ years doing 100-mile/day round trips. Great car!

 

[burgundyben]

Thanks all, that pretty much confirms what I thought.