ANOTHER Ethanol Tale...

Well, I have run my motor all season on ethanol free 89 octane gas from my marina. Occasionally on 91 or 93 octane ethanol free gas from the local gas station. Always ran perfect, never failed to start and always ran smooth from idle to WOT.

Today, I went to check my crab traps and found that the marina was now on winter hours and the fuel dock was closed.

So, I took my tanks to the nearest station and all they had was e10 gas regardless of octane rating. I filled up with 87 octane e10 and mixed in the same brand of 2 cycle oil I've been using for two years.

About 3 miles out at WOT the engine starts missing and bogging down. I throttle back into neutral and check the primer bulb. Pump it full and watch the motor idle. Motor idles fine so I thottle back up and keep n going. As soon as I reach 5800RPM (6200 RPM is max with current setup) the motor starts missing again. So I throttle back down to 4500 RPM and the miss goes away.

I position the tank so I can pump the primer bulb and throttle up to WOT again. The engine again starts missing, pumping the bulb has no effect.

So I cruise back in at 4000RPM listening closely to the motor for any abnormal sounds.

What do you think? I'm thinking that the ethanol loosend up some crud and now I need to rebuild the carbs and replace my fuel filter... Luckily the boat is coming out of the slip and back to my yard this weekend.

Re: ANOTHER Ethanol Tale...

The lesson here is that the non-ethanol fuel created the crud in the first place because a fuel system treatment was not used. The ethanol just loosened it up and deposited it in the fuel filter and perhaps some did get through to the carbs, OR that the crudded up carbs now were cleaned by the ethanol. So you see, had you switched to E10, done the preventive stuff, you would not now have the problem you have. Or had you used SeaFoam all along you would also not likely had the problem. OR, this could just be co-incidence and the problem is not related to E10 or the previous fuel. You won't know until you diagnose the problem . See how quickly E10 is blamed for issues before that issue is fully diagnosed.

Re: ANOTHER Ethanol Tale...

totally true^


i think the same thing has happened to my atv

Re: ANOTHER Ethanol Tale...

gotta agree with silvertip.
its time to diagnose the issue before blaming anything.
3 miles isnt very far and ethanol doesnt dissolve stuff quite that fast.

Re: ANOTHER Ethanol Tale...

True, it may not be the ethanol but it was the only thing different about last night. Also I was thinking to myself "I hope I don't run in to any ethanol issues with this gas" and then I had a problem. My first thought was that it was the fuel.

I'll pull the carbs apart this weekend and take a closer look. I still think the most likely suspect is the fuel, whether is was dissolved solids clogging things up or water contaminated / poor quality gasoline.

Re: ANOTHER Ethanol Tale...

I'm going to relate a similar story involving a vehicle I once owned. Filled up my van before a road trip and a matter of a few miles down the road passed another vehicle. As the revs climbed the engine suddenly became very lazy and reluctant to gain speed. As long as I was light footed it seemed to be ok but when pressed for power it simply wouldn't deliver. I pulled over to take a peak under the stubby little hood and as soon as I got out the rig smelled hot although the temp gauge didn't indicate a problem. The problem was the when I passed the vehicle, a downshift occured during which some scale in the exhaust system came loose and clogged the screened outlet at the end of the tail pipe. Ever stuck a potato in an exhaust pipe? Same effect. So in this case "co-incidence" had me initially thinking I had received a load of bad gas. Stuff happens! When it happens generally has nothing to do with anything else that happened a short time before. You leave your garage with a perfectly good set of tires and two blocks down the street one goes flat. It just happens. For all you know, the tank you pumped the fuel from may have just received a fresh tanker of fuel or it may have been nearly empty. Either scenario stirs up debris at the bottom of the tanks. That too is coincidence.