Hey guys, first post. Was recommended to get on the forum by a friend. Really have enjoyed reading through some stuff. Hope to be on here often.
I'm in college and just bought my first bass boat, it's an old ranger. I've got a question specifically about the engine: it's a 1983 140HP Johnson Seahorse. It came with the original owners manual, and the manual specifically states to use leaded gas only, and that lead free gas should not be substituted. Does this mean I need to be adding lead substitute to the gas that I'm putting in the tank? Hopefully this isn't a dumb question, but I can't seem to find exactly the answer anywhere else. Right now I've only ran one tank of 93 octane unleaded gas from the pump with seafoam through it. It seemed to run pretty well? Any help would be appreciated. This is the first boat motor I've owned so go easy! Thanks!

That was back when unleaded was first being introduced. Specifically in 79 they started changing over and many thought you needed to add a lead substitute. I don't know if they started adding something else or found that it did not hurt to run unleaded gas but around 83 most people were just using straight unleaded. I would not worry about it.

What I have read, the lead was for lubricant but a 2 stroke didn't have the parts requiring it. There was also pinging problems in early unleaded but that has been changed. The manual, having been written before that, would not have a correction for it. I have never even thought about it before and used unleaded on old 2 strokes and never had an issue If it were me, I'd have no problem running unleaded thru it

Motor will stay happy running 89 octane minimum and Sea Foam.

Awesome. Thanks everybody