leaded or unleaded fuel.

My take on this lead in gas is issue is that lead was added as an octane boster now we use alcohol. Lead had the added benifit of helping valve seats by cushing the valave when it shut. That really was helpful for only cars that machined the seats out of cast iron which is soft and distorts easily. All manfactures use harden seats except for old US built engines ( Chevy, Ford V8s etc.) So there is in my eyes no benifit of lead in a Ferrari engines other than as an octane boster..

 

Tru Dat and old US V8's can be fitted with hardened seats and run on unleaded no problem.

 

All cars built after about 1974 are okay to run on unleaded fuel. The valve seats were the issue but low-lead or unleaded fuel was on the way both in NA and Europe by that time. Even my Lotus Twin Cam would run unleaded okay.
Ken

 

The first Elite's Coventry Climax engine in the late 50's had hardend seats from the factory and will run unleaded gas as will all the 907 engines. I belive the only cars that ever had an issue with unleaded gas were cars from the US "big Three" becouse they were the only manufactures to machine the cast Iron of the heads for the valve seats and on top of that the valve guides were also just a hole machined in the same material of the head.

 

GM made the switch to unleaded, or "low lead" back in 1971.