I had an interesting flight today. A 260 mile trip into a 15 mph headwind (I saw some 78 mph ground speeds).
I leaned the old SWAG way; pulled the mixture out till the engine almost died, then pushed the mixture in till it smoothed out. I got to thinking about running too lean while I was just setting there trying to hold a heading and altitude (its was about 5:30 and bumpy). That's my first question: can I run too lean when I'm only generating 80 hp and do i need to worry about detonation?
Now for question 2: 24 Miles fron my destination airport I chickened out and diverted to another airport to buy gas. When I got on the ground the airport was closed (Garmin database was wrong again), I called the emergency number and ended up waiting almost two hours for the attendant to show up and sell me some 100 low lead. The first guy I called was long gone and far away but he offered to call one of his buddies and have him come over and sell me a little premium car gas to get me to my destination. I declined, but kept thinking about it till I finally got fueled up. That's question 2: Would a few gallons of premuim car gas have worked or would it hurt the engine? One final note: It only took 17 gal to fill her up. I could have made it to my destination easily. But I don't feel bed about that. Live coward, dead hero and all that stuff!