I worry about the day when they outlaw ethanol free fuel. I have three service boats that I operate for my marine repair business. All three are old, and all are carbureted. I have had a few times, while stopping to refuel (on the way to a job) that the station was out of ethanol free gas. No worries, I’ll just run ethanol this time… what I found on my 165 Mercruiser inline 6 cylinder was this.. During winterization season here on the lake, we go by boat to various locations to prepare boats for winter storage. I usually pull in to the dock, shut off the engine, and the service boat sits for about 30-45 mins. while I work. I noticed with ethanol, the old 165 6 cylinder would fire right up when I hit the key to leave, then die. One more restart and it was fine. Fuel mileage seemed to be down a little, but not to bad. Now on the next trip, I refilled with ethanol free fuel. The engine would restart immediately, with no die outs. Fuel economy was back up too. The engine ran great, and I could tell the difference. Now I’ve owned this boat since 2004, and have burned a ton of gas through it. I’ve tried ethanol gas several times with the same results. I’ve seen so many other problems with this stuff that I’ve grown to hate it. However, it does bring a lot of work in for boat shops. I don’t like the high price at the pumps though, but I just bite the bullet and go with it. This is just my 2 cents on this subject, working on engines full time for a living.
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