Fuel usage

[krudville]

Just bought a nice used 1994 Four Winns Horizon 180 SE with a V8 EFI engine, not sure of engine I think its a 302. Question is how much fuel do these things use. So far it looks like im using better than 5 gph. Normal?

 

[pmat1]

Re: Fuel usage

better than 5 is good. remember boats are money and gas pits.

 

[QC]

Re: Fuel usage

Well I am not sure how to answer "normal", but that may be right for very low cruising speeds and represents about 50 of your available horsepower. It will use as much as 20 GPH at wide open throttle as there is a general rule of thumb that your GPH is about 10% of your horsepower, or simply drop the zero on the end . . .

With some more model info we could narrow down what engine it is. Volvo and OMC were using some Fords at that time, but Mercruiser was not.

 

[pmat1]

Re: Fuel usage

20gph? that is un imagineable!

 

[45Auto]

Re: Fuel usage

An average of 5 GPH is actually pretty good for a small block V8 in a boat. Maximum gas mileage will be around 5 MPG at 25 MPH, which is 5 GPH. Average will generally be lower than that. So if you're averaging 5 GPH you're doing real good, once you include some no wake zones, a few high speed runs, etc.

You will see some posts by people who claim to use much less fuel than you do. For instance, they'll claim they use 1 GPH. What this means is that they run for an hour going out, park the boat for 8 hours, then run for an hour coming back. So since they burned 10 gallons in 10 hours, they therefore averaged 1 GPH, right?

Boattest.com has actual fuel consumption tests of lots of boats similar to yours. Oldest ones are only a couple of years old, so no Fords (if yours is a 302 it's a Ford), but if you look you'll see that the current 5.0 Mercruisers (GM 305 engine) get their best gas mileage of around 5 MPG at just over 25 MPH.