nacho
06-19-2014, 04:08 PM
Note, that this is not about octane. The question is, has anybody noticed if premium gasoline prevents the build up of carbon on internals such as valves, and pistons better than regular gas? First, I KNOW that gasoline should NOT be used as a solvent/parts cleaner, but I have used it for this purpose. By accident, I noticed that premium will dissolve certain substances better than regular gas. I was rebuilding a carb and had it in a bucket of with some regular gas in order to clean the grime off of the exterior before disassembling it. Anyway, I decided to flush the tank while I was at it. The tank had a little bit of premium gasoline left in it which I drained into the same bucket that the carb was in. I noticed that some tarnish/varnish/or something was coming off the carb body as if I had sprayed it with carb cleaner. And no, there were NO additive in the gas, it was straight premium gas. The carb looked cleaner after it sat in the premium gas than it had when I cleaned it with regular gas. To make sure it was not a freak thing, I started cleaning other things using both types of gasoline, and each time the premium removed build up that the regular gas left behind. I have done this several times after refilling my gas cans with fresh gas to eliminate the possibility of it being from a particular batch. The results were the same. I have heard on more than one occasion that it is good to run premium in small engines for this very reason. But now I actually have evidence that MAY support this claim. Any thoughts?