lead was added to fuel to prevent pinking and valve seat wear. now that valves and their seats are harder wearing, lead is no longer needed. as far as I understand it, using lead will not do harm to an engine, but would completely shag a catalyst. if you check the spark plug, you'll find it is grey-green for leaded rather than greyish for unleaded.
more important than lead/no lead, you need to consider pre-ignition and whether to retard your ignition or to reduce the compression to compensate for low octane. what bike are you riding and what load will you be carrying? not all bikes need any mods - my XR400 handled Algerian 80-odd leaded fuel just fine last year - but you can get retarded ignitors/CDIs for high compression KTMs and BMWs
Rich
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