Lancia Motor Club

I'm thinking about getting the valves seats hardened in my Flavia 2000 coupe, so it can run on unleaded - is it a straight forward job to remove the heads and are gaskets sets available?  Any guidance greatly received.  Mark

Lancia had a habit of fitting hard valve seats so maybe a waste of time unless your are going to spend the next 30000 miles hammering up and down the Autobahn!

But yes as a push rod engine albeit tight you can do the heads in situ and you can get gaskets (Omicron?).

Alloy heads aren't they? So it will have hardened steel valve seats already I'd have thought..

Both replies correct , completely unnecessary

Agreed,

With alloy heads the valve seats will have been hardened from new. Additionally, we only use our old Flavias for limited mileages at mostly gentle speeds, so I wouldn’t bother unless of course you have the engine apart to replace the head gaskets for example.

My current coupe has been running on unleaded since I imported it from Italy back in 2012 with no issues whatsoever.

Bob

Mention of mostly gentle speeds made me remember the scene in Rush:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Kl0UBS4ZaM

David,

I’ve never really driven any of my Flavia/2000s that quickly, except when I had my first 2000 coupe in my misspent youth 40 years ago, when I used to thrash it everywhere.

Nowadays the gentle speeds that I stick to reflect my old age and deference for my almost 60 year old coupe. Besides, I am just a mere mortal and not a legend like Nike Lauda.

It is a great clip from a smashing film though.

Bob

I'm not sure anyone has ever driven a 2000 that quickly.

There was an afternoon in Australia where I was relieving a man with his 2000 coupe from having to drive more, and we decided to see if the front end could be broken away on the winding, hilly roads through the woods. Try as we might, the front end just stayed stuck to the road (with a bit of squealing....). We weren't at Lauda speeds, but not slow either...

Thank you every one for your guidance - the car is running fine so not changing these will not only give me piece of mind, it'll save me a bob or two!

Mark

May I respectfully suggest you may be grateful for "peace of mind" not a "piece" of someone's mind, the two things being rather opposite to each other.    ;)

My mate Terry from the unit next to mine and his friend were extras in that film Rush for the scenes shot at Cadwell Park as part of a local classic car club as they wanted period cars in the background shots, whilst there they were asked if they wanted to be extras sat at trackside posing as fans waving programmes!
Spent about 3 or 4 days there filming all dressed up and in make up every morning by all accounts, not that he can even spot himself in the film  ::)
I'd have liked to have been there though, the cars were pretty special he tells me and had a team of mechanics on hand to fettle them..and were driven by some quick drivers, a great time had by all  8)

From a LMC Newsletter. The use of unleaded fuel in an engine originally designed for leaded fuel may well require adjustment of the ignition timing to compensate for a change in octane  rating. This is a relative simple  matter. There may well be other more subtle  effects.Briefly  The lead would also have acted as an internal lubricant particularly between valves and their own seats. In "leaded" engines these components must be made of materials which will not wear rapidly when this lubrication is absent. To achieve  this both inlet and exhaust valves can be made of an "austenitic" steel, and seat rings of "austenitic" cast iron, rather than the more common  grey variety.      Austenitic ferrous alloys are characterised by several inseparable physical  properties:-  they develop a  hard skin when worked, or rubbed on the surface (hence their wear resistance, and the difficulty in machining them cleanly) , they maintain their properties at quite high temperatures with no sudden reductions in performance, and they are ALL NON- MAGNETIC, which helps greatly when trying to identify  them. Common examples are the 18/8 stainless steels (18% chromium, 8% nickel), and the 21/4N valve steel. This later has further alloying elements to give it increased hot strength and corrosion resistance inside an engine. Its performance  for this duty is only significantly  surpassed by the Nimonic (Aero engine) alloys, which themselves have the drawback of not being compatible with traces of sulphur in the fuel. Austenitic seat insert rings have a slightly yellow tinge, rather than the normal silver-grey colour of cast iron. This slight colouring should not be confused with the brass-like colour of aluminium-bronze, used for the valve guides and also seatinserts in older engines. As a seat insert material, aluminium-bronze stands upto the heat well on the exhaust  side, but can wear surprisingly quickly on the inlet side, even with leaded fuel. My own observations on a few engines show that 1600 Fulvias have both austenitic inlet and exhaust valves, 1300's have austenitic exhausts but not inlets, and neither has any austenitic seat inserts (surprising with alloy cylinder heads). Aurelias all had austenitic inlet and exhaust valves originally, but some (Livia) replacements are not of this material. Seat inserts are either aluminium -bronze or grey cast iron.    I would suggest therefore that none of these engines are suitable for use with unleaded petrol, unless the relevant components are changed for those of more suitable materials. If this is  not done, rapid  wear of the valve seating faces may result, leading to reduction in valve clearances, gas leakage, and eventually failure of the valve. Not really to be recommended!  TIM BURRETT

Interesting reading. I had recently read something similar about valve seats being far more than just regular, differing alloy make ups so did wonder if my previous statement that it's an Aluminium head therfore they must surely be OK on unleaded with an pressed in seat was incorrect, seems it's far less simple!
May I suggest that an ignition timing adjustment coupled with some careful and regular maintenance checks on valve clearances may be a short term solution? Any valve seat erosion would show itself in tightening clearances wouldn't it?

Hi Kevin

I would think that might be one consequence, another may be reduction in sealing of the valve, so compression test may also be a good indicator?

Peter

 Might I recommend the use of Millers CVL (competition valve lubricant) it boosts the Octane rating by about 3 points and reduces valve regression. I have used it a lot on race engines and it works very well. I have no association to the company. A 250ml bottle treats 10 litres of fuel.
Jaydub.

Who has reported valve damage on this forum since unleaded became defacto. Tim Burrett is an excellent engineer but I suspect that the problems were occuring before unleaded anyway (do we remember our parents cars with burnt valves??). Anyway for modest use it is not going to be a worry so long as the engine is to a good standard. But for GT use one should ascertain the quality of the valve seats. I recently presented my Sport 1600 cylinder head (it had done 110,000 miles) to my engine shop to replace the valve guides (well worn), and to re cut the seats (nothing wrong with them) as you have to when replacing the guides and my shop said they have never seen such hard material and complained it was ruining their cutters...

I think you are right Tim. Valve seat degradation post leaded petrol was mainly limited to the cast iron heads of old British cars, even then I ran my Frogeye Sprite for several years on unleaded with the odd squirt of Redex with no issues. Our cars generally don't do the mileage for this to raise it's head even if it was an issue in the first place.

I've been running my 2c Berlina on straight unleaded fuel without any additive for at least 15 years and 25.000+ miles with no problems.
Brian
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