Two stroke oil for Superchargers

Sir,

What art extraordinarily interesting magazine it is you publish; so often one comes across gems of letters and other information of erudite and expert knowledge which one can hardly expect to find in any other motor magazine.

I was particularly fascinated to read Mr. Michael Bingley’s letter, which in view of the fact that he has a number of highly educated letters after his name suggests that he is not talking through the seat of his trousers. The reason I say this is that for some time now I and a number of chums who run supercharged Lea Francis cars have used petroil mixture in a fairly standard two-stroke ratio. For years I ran on the recommended SAE 30 mixture but while traversing the Continent on my way to the Mille Miglia Storica I was Constrained to put some random multi-grade oil in the petrol. Apart from causing a great deal of trouble, Dr. William Sellers, who was my co-driver, suggested that we should use proper two-stroke oil in the petrol mixture to lubricate the supercharger because of its hypothetical properties of separating out under pressure. Having cleaned out the fuel lines and the fuel tank we acted on this excellent advice and found that the car went enormously better using the two-stroke oils which one could buy freely on the Continent.

Subsequently, the car has gone on to just as great achievements as it did in Italy, where apart from having a stupendous dice (which we won) with a Lancia Asturia over the Futa Pass we did the last 85-odd kilometres in 42-odd minutes. It was fun. Subsequently, the car won its class at VSCC April, was used as a hack throughout the summer and then surprised quite a number of people at Llandow. However, the person it most surprised was the owner of the BMW 2002 Ti who utterly failed to keep up with us between Aigle and Gstaad. So much for your Kraut Krapp.

Perhaps the 45-year-old 1½-litres will go even better if we can lay our greasy maulers on some Uni-Pac.

The point I seem so laboriously to be trying to make is that we have found proper two-stroke oil to work much better in supercharged cars and it is nice to hear that what we have discovered by trial and error and perhaps a modicum of old wives’ tales is technically true.

The other fascinating thing about Mr. Bingley’s letter is the point about his anatomy and his Sports car. I cannot agree more. If a traveller comes to See me in the surgery complaining of a had back, I can almost invariably say what sort of car he drives. No prizes for guessing the make. I usually advise him, apart front the usual. rigmarole, to change his motor car to a BLMC of some sort because they almost invariably have rather brisker suspension which tones up the muscles which hold up one’s back.

Again, very Many thanks for an excellent magazine.

Robert Elliot-Pyle (Dr.) Robertsbridge