[lust4speed]

I had my own gate card at the local airport until 9-11, but they cancelled all cards after that unless you had an aircraft hangered there. I could still take the kids' old toy wagon with the gas cans and walk about a quarter mile to the pumps after checking in with the folks in the airport lobby, but that got old very quick. So I bit the bullet and lowered the compression in both the drag car and street car, and can run any crap gas California offers. You start adding up the cost of additives and the break-even point for the rebuild isn't that far away.

I put off installing hardened exhaust seats years ago with my machine shop saying that with my limited mileage it would take forever for the no-lead to wear the seats. Well... one look when the engine was apart for the dished pistons revealed that the seats wore quickly and were receding into the head. I now have hardened seats done on all the cast iron heads that go in for a valve job. Cost is around $6.00 a seat and about $6.50 each for installation. That comes out to about an extra $100 if added on to a valve job.

[hurryinhoosier62]

Originally Posted by lust4speed

I had my own gate card at the local airport until 9-11, but they cancelled all cards after that unless you had an aircraft hangered there. I could still take the kids' old toy wagon with the gas cans and walk about a quarter mile to the pumps after checking in with the folks in the airport lobby, but that got old very quick. So I bit the bullet and lowered the compression in both the drag car and street car, and can run any crap gas California offers. You start adding up the cost of additives and the break-even point for the rebuild isn't that far away.

I put off installing hardened exhaust seats years ago with my machine shop saying that with my limited mileage it would take forever for the no-lead to wear the seats. Well... one look when the engine was apart for the dished pistons revealed that the seats wore quickly and were receding into the head. I now have hardened seats done on all the cast iron heads that go in for a valve job. Cost is around $6.00 a seat and about $6.50 each for installation. That comes out to about an extra $100 if added on to a valve job.

Mick, this is the SOP at nearly every airport in a large metro area. There are a few airports in small towns and rural areas that will let you get away with buying 5-10 gals of Avgas but the FAA and TSA are taking an increasing dim view of this. When we lived in S.FL, getting 100LL was easy because of all the gas stations around Lake Okeechobee that carried it for airboat operators.