Attack of the bad gas! (Solved)

ric · **Posted:** Wed Aug 07, 2013 10:17 pm

Could it be something as stupid as the anti siphon valve? Gots me thinking. (I'm bored and GF is in Spain)

schoolsOut · **Posted:** Wed Aug 07, 2013 10:30 pm

french829 wrote:

Curious if anyone else has ever noticed more exhaust with the lower octane gas?

Funny you should ask, I noticed more exhaust on my 210 last week while I was waiting for the Admiral to drag me around on the tube. This was after filling up at the gas dock. I am not certain what grade fuel was used, but I would guess 87. I usually run 89. I wonder if it is from the gas or if I just never took notice of the exhaust before. Should I be running 91 in my 5.0 gxi?

298VISTA2000 · **Posted:** Thu Aug 08, 2013 4:10 am

ric, are you willing to finally admit that the cause of the water in your gas was ethanol related? Or, are you still a proponent of that government mandated piss-water and chalking up the subsequent engine problems as nothing but bad maintenance on behalf of the boat owner?

ric · **Posted:** Thu Aug 08, 2013 7:41 am

Ethanol had nothing to do with it. My father just got done helping another friend drain his tank because the marina left the cover off the storage tank and rain ruined their supply. At least he got compensated.

ric · **Posted:** Thu Aug 08, 2013 12:17 pm

Good news. Anti siphon was full of shit. Bad news. It broke off

ric · **Posted:** Thu Aug 08, 2013 3:47 pm

One new fuel pickup tube, one new anti-siphon valve and the boat purrs like a kitten!

Doesn't even vibrate one ounce at idle like it used to, it's silky smooth. Under power it's nice and quiet, no pinging under acceleration like it used to (when it did run before). Gets on plane in seconds. I used never-seize on those parts so I never have to go through the nervous headache of aluminum fittings breaking again.

Glad it was something stupid that only cost me $30 in parts and a few trips to the boat store. I'm still going to rebuild the carb anyways, it looked like a pile of autumn leaves of dried gas varnish in the original anti-siphon and the gas pickup tube was deformed. Not to mention it had the original 2003 fuel filter. For some reason the gas level sensor didn't like being removed and isn't currently working but the terminals were massively corroded. I will sand down the contacts and put new terminals on everything later. If it didn't survive, it's only $20 at the local boat store.

Words of the wise folks, use your boats. They don't like to sit around. If you're wondering, yes E10 is to blame but not for the reasons you think. It loosened dried out gasoline varnish from the fuel tank that non-ethanol based fuels create when left sitting for long periods of time. My battle might not be over yet if it gets clogged again, at least I know to clean the valve. I might end up putting a standard hose nipple on it and just let the fuel filter do it's job but I like the idea of staying USCG legal.

ric · **Posted:** Sat Aug 24, 2013 5:23 pm

Not solved!!! Today another issue I suspected would happen is rearing it's ugly head from whatever the heck I pumped in my tank a month ago. The float is sticking in the carb. Engine is running like crap so I pulled off the air filter and set it at 3000rpms. Fuel is randomly dripping out the venturis in the carb. Next time I go out I'll give her a good tap with something metallic see if it clears up and seats it down. Time to order a rebuild kit! I hate mercraps, I wish I had $$ for a holley conversion.

298VISTA2000 · **Posted:** Sun Aug 25, 2013 12:24 pm

ric wrote:

Not solved!!! Today another issue I suspected would happen is rearing it's ugly head from whatever the heck I pumped in my tank a month ago. The float is sticking in the carb. Engine is running like crap so I pulled off the air filter and set it at 3000rpms. Fuel is randomly dripping out the venturis in the carb. Next time I go out I'll give her a good tap with something metallic see if it clears up and seats it down. Time to order a rebuild kit! I hate mercraps, I wish I had $$ for a holley conversion.

ric, how long have you had this boat because it sounds like the previous owner ran non-ethanol fuel and now you are using ethanol? Like you stated earlier, it is the switch that kills these boats because of the de-varnishing. I lost a whole season when our yacht club switched on us (needless to say the peddling of that government mandated piss-water didn't last). Not fun!!

ric · **Posted:** Sun Aug 25, 2013 1:24 pm

Yes it's devarnishing. Hardcore. About 3-4 months. I should check the anti siphon its probably full of shit like last time. Might have to put a normal barb in there.

ric · **Posted:** Sun Aug 25, 2013 2:03 pm

Just pulled the anti siphon. Some crap in there. I can only imagine what the carb looks like. Apparently it sat around for a long time.

MikeZ0759 · **Joined:** Mon Aug 26, 2013 8:03 am **Posts:** 7

use a product called E-Zorb it emulcifies the water and allows it to be burned more efficiently

LouC · **Posted:** Mon Aug 26, 2013 12:21 pm

I had this back in 03/04 and was getting red crud in the bottom of the fuel filter. Once it changed over, I have not seen anything like that since then. No operational difficulties either and I pour out the gas from the filter every season when I change it to check. I would for sure take off the fuel gauge sending unit cover and shine a really bright LED flashlight and see what you see in there. If you see clumps of water in the bottom you might be better off getting it cleaned. I was surprised I have never had to get mine cleaned and its the OE tank 25 years old.

ric · **Posted:** Mon Aug 26, 2013 12:56 pm

Well, I just got offered a contract today for good ass money. I do VOIP work. I'm going to go ahead and swap it over to an edelbrock performer manifold, holley marine 600cfm carb with the GM Performance 350 RAMJET crate motor camshaft in the next few weeks. It's the same camshaft in the Mercury 350MAG MPI. In the automotive world that combo on Vortec 305's brings them to around 350hp and 400lb torque. It's 220 right now. With the vacuum secondary holley it should actually get better GPH than with the mercarb.

ric · **Posted:** Tue Aug 27, 2013 12:41 am

I totally forgot it's Labor Day weekend coming up. Really need this thing running good. For arguments sake I'm going to replace the 3ft or so of rubber fuel line. There's been instances of it collapsing causing similar issues I've been reading all over the web. It has to be something stupid because after I drained the bad fuel, replaced the crapped up anti-siphon it ran good for a solid week or 2 and it magically started running bad again. Just like it did when the anti siphon was full of varnish bits.

deafwish · **Posted:** Tue Aug 27, 2013 6:25 am

ric wrote:

Well, I just got offered a contract today for good ass money. I do VOIP work. I'm going to go ahead and swap it over to an edelbrock performer manifold, holley marine 600cfm carb with the GM Performance 350 RAMJET crate motor camshaft in the next few weeks. It's the same camshaft in the Mercury 350MAG MPI. In the automotive world that combo on Vortec 305's brings them to around 350hp and 400lb torque. It's 220 right now. With the vacuum secondary holley it should actually get better GPH than with the mercarb.

Do you plan on upgrading to a better designed exhaust manifold or staying with OEM?
I trust you're doing the lifters, pushrods & springs with this upgrade? :wink:

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Attack of the bad gas! (Solved)

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