I think they worked around the detonation problem by using massive concentrations of MTBE, methanol, and an organic manganese aromatic compound to keep corrosion at bay
Eh... the Methylcyclopentadienyl Manganese Tricarbonyl (MMT) seems worse to me. Instead of burning lead they're now going to burn organic bound manganese and manganese causes some god awful diseases.
I'm not so sure they're trying to compensate for any lubricating features of lead.
See my other message for what's really going to be in this fuel. They are using hydrocarbon enhancements that have already been a smaller natural component of unleaded gasoline since forever.
MMT could only have ever been a consideration after toxic lead was well accepted, and then it was too late to become mainstream.
MTBE is Methyl tert-Butyl Ether, which is a form of ether that does not evaporate as fast as the traditional Diethyl Ether which people might be more familiar with as a medical product.
The diethyl ether is almost like a gas, not nearly as much as butane but it's getting there.
In the laboratory the diethyl ether commonly comes in a metal can to protect from overpressure if it gets too warm. The MTBE can be stored in an ordinary bottle like alcohol.
But whew do people remark about about the sharp ether odor when you open a bottle of MTBE.
When MTBE was in lots of gasolines, and the underground tanks had been leaking down into aquifers further underground, that smell in peoples' water turned out to be the canary in the coal mine which indicated that other more toxic gasoline components were bound to be there too.
MTBE was shamed then lost more popularity than the gasoline itself after that, in an exaggerated way with political implications leading to ethanol. I don't think everybody would want the general public to be able to smell leaking tanks in the future as well as they could when this issue first came up anyway.
However there have been some experimental medical treatments which involved directly injecting patients locally with truly strong concentrations of MTBE as a natural liquid. Unlike the diethyl ether as an anesthetic which was basically breathed in as a gas.
