Take the ethanol problem very seriously - trust me, it is not overblown. Here is my first hand story.
I bought a 2004 330 Express in June of 2008. The boat had been sitting a long time but when I went to pick it up it both engines (F225's) fired up and ran like a clock. Note that it was about 50% full of fuel. So far so good. I motored up the coast for about 100 miles to my house and engines ran great. I am by nature a frugal guy, and rather than refuel on the water (usually non-ethanol fuel and costs a buck a gallon more) I fueled up using street gas which was E-10. Penny wise and pound foolish. I noticed the fuel bowls under the hood had water in them, so I drained both fuel bowls and both fuel filters. I did not replace the filters at that time as I had none on hand - the existing filters were Sierra 20 micron filters. I drained them all into a bucket so I could see what came out – a white milky looking fluid. That is definitely NOT what I am used to seeing come out of a fuel filter which is water and gas that separate nicely with some small amount of rust or dirt. It looked ugly and I assume that is what ethanol looks like after it phase separates with water.
Shortly thereafter the fuel feed pump fuse blew on my starboard engine. The local Yamaha service tech came out and replaced the pump under warranty. He suggested replacing the fuel filters with Yamaha OEM 10 micron filters, so I ordered some as well as the smaller paper filters that sit inside the fuel bowls under the hood.
I had been running on my Aux tank and made several trips without incident. On my last trip out the Aux tank ran dry, and I switched to my main tank. I ran for another hour back to the dock without incident. A week later I took the boat out and both engines died almost immediately. This time the fuses for the fuel feed pumps on both engines were blown. The Yamaha tech came this morning and pulled both pumps – both had seized up. We took them to the bench in my garage and got them freed up by applying power and alternating polarity – ie forcing the pump to run in forward and reverse until it broke free which it eventually did. We then flushed the pump, while running, with carb cleaner into a plastic container to see what came out. With both pumps it was pretty clear that rust was coming out. In the span of 1 week of sitting, both pumps had rusted in place and seized up.
There was no water in either the main fuel filters or in the under the hood fuel bowls, so how does water get to the fuel pump? There is only one way that could happen – Ethanol. The Yamaha tech shared with me the 3 pages in the Yamaha shop manual on the badness of ethanol. Ethanol’s is bad in two distinct ways:
1. It’s a wonderful solvent, so if you use E10 in an older boat that has previously run on good old regular, the E10 will dissolve all the varnish that has built up throughout the entire fuel system. It also removes oxidation – rust and corrosion. In the Yamaha manual there was a picture of a filter screen that was clogged solid with a white powder which I assume was aluminum oxide from the inside of a aluminum fuel tank. I saw the same white power in the filters that are under the hood of my engines. Note that all parts of the fuel system that come AFTER the filters will be donors of crap into the fuel pumps, fuel injectors or carburetors etc. so no amount of filtering can fully protect you from this first badness of Ethanol.
2. Water will dissolve into ethanol blended gas. Read this http://www.epa.gov/OMS/regs/fuels/rfg/waterphs.pdf if you want to get into the chemistry of it. Bottom line is that gas blended with MTBE (also bad stuff) can’t hold nearly as much water as gas blended with ethanol. Normally if you mix water and gas, most of the water phase separates and since water is heavier than gas it settles to the bottom of the tank, the fuel filter and the under the hood fuel bowl. But with Ethanol blended gas the water is fully dissolved into the gas and will be carried throughout the entire fuel system and finally exits the engine as water vapor in the exhaust. That’s all well and good while your engine is running but if your engine is not running bad things will happen. Warmer E10 gas can hold more water than colder E10 gas. So if you are running on a warm day and the gas in your tank is water saturated (meaning its holding as much dissolved water as it can) and later your engine cools off then throughout your entire fuel system phase separation will occur (remember, cold E10 gas can’t hold as much water as warm E10 gas) and water that was once dissolved in the E10 gas will separate out. It’s effectively the same as the condensation process we see every day around us. Warm air at 100% RH (ie saturated) comes into contact with a cooler surface and the water vapor turns into liquid water undergoing a phase transition. Neat, huh?
The ethanol badness #2 is what had to have happened in my engines. How else can two fuel pumps seize from rust after sitting for only 1 week with fuel that has passed through not one but two water separators? Note that last week things cooled off quite a bit – hence the phase separation that took place throughout my fuel system.
And for the punch line, the Yamaha tech said that since this is a “fuel related problem” that it’s not covered under warranty. I am not quite sure how I feel about that. It seems to me that unless Yamaha modifies their warranty to specifically exclude Ethanol related failures that they would have to step up and fix it under warranty. If they did exclude ethanol caused failures we would all know to never use ethanol in our Yamahas. But seeing as their engines should be reliable when run on standard commercially available fuel I am leaning towards this being a problem they should fix?
If you are forced to switch to ethanol, do the following:
1. Buy a case of 10 micron fuel filters and keep them in your boat
2. Run your tanks dry. You can’t mix E10 gas with MTBE blended gas.
3. Change your fuel filters after your first tank of E10. Remember, Ethanol is a wonderful fuel system cleaner but all the crap it dislodges will wreak whatever havoc it can.
4. Store your boat with the fuel tanks 7/8 full. By minimizing airspace you will minimize the effects of condensation. Boats have vented fuel tanks, warm moist air comes in during the day and at night it hits the now colder sides of the fuel tank and condensates. So every day a little more water is added to your gas. By keeping your tank full you can minimize that.
5. If you see ANY water separating out of your gas in either your main filter or the under the hood fuel bowl then by definition your gas is fully saturated with water. That’s bad and will lead to things such as I have experienced, ie rusted and seized fuel pumps. You have to get rid of the water saturated gas ASAP. Best option might be to simply run the tanks down and refuel. But it could well be that the fuel you buy at the marina is already at 100% water saturation. I don’t know what advice to give here other than never buy Ethanol blended gas.
BOTTOM LINE
Ethanol blended gas is bad, bad, bad! Run, don’t walk, away from ethanol blended gas. Go way out of your way to find a source of non-ethanol gas. There is one where I live and that’s where I plan to buy all my gas going forward.
(ps – did I mention the fuel feed pump on a F225 costs $450 – that’s just parts, no labor
I bought a 2004 330 Express in June of 2008. The boat had been sitting a long time but when I went to pick it up it both engines (F225's) fired up and ran like a clock. Note that it was about 50% full of fuel. So far so good. I motored up the coast for about 100 miles to my house and engines ran great. I am by nature a frugal guy, and rather than refuel on the water (usually non-ethanol fuel and costs a buck a gallon more) I fueled up using street gas which was E-10. Penny wise and pound foolish. I noticed the fuel bowls under the hood had water in them, so I drained both fuel bowls and both fuel filters. I did not replace the filters at that time as I had none on hand - the existing filters were Sierra 20 micron filters. I drained them all into a bucket so I could see what came out – a white milky looking fluid. That is definitely NOT what I am used to seeing come out of a fuel filter which is water and gas that separate nicely with some small amount of rust or dirt. It looked ugly and I assume that is what ethanol looks like after it phase separates with water.
Shortly thereafter the fuel feed pump fuse blew on my starboard engine. The local Yamaha service tech came out and replaced the pump under warranty. He suggested replacing the fuel filters with Yamaha OEM 10 micron filters, so I ordered some as well as the smaller paper filters that sit inside the fuel bowls under the hood.
I had been running on my Aux tank and made several trips without incident. On my last trip out the Aux tank ran dry, and I switched to my main tank. I ran for another hour back to the dock without incident. A week later I took the boat out and both engines died almost immediately. This time the fuses for the fuel feed pumps on both engines were blown. The Yamaha tech came this morning and pulled both pumps – both had seized up. We took them to the bench in my garage and got them freed up by applying power and alternating polarity – ie forcing the pump to run in forward and reverse until it broke free which it eventually did. We then flushed the pump, while running, with carb cleaner into a plastic container to see what came out. With both pumps it was pretty clear that rust was coming out. In the span of 1 week of sitting, both pumps had rusted in place and seized up.
There was no water in either the main fuel filters or in the under the hood fuel bowls, so how does water get to the fuel pump? There is only one way that could happen – Ethanol. The Yamaha tech shared with me the 3 pages in the Yamaha shop manual on the badness of ethanol. Ethanol’s is bad in two distinct ways:
1. It’s a wonderful solvent, so if you use E10 in an older boat that has previously run on good old regular, the E10 will dissolve all the varnish that has built up throughout the entire fuel system. It also removes oxidation – rust and corrosion. In the Yamaha manual there was a picture of a filter screen that was clogged solid with a white powder which I assume was aluminum oxide from the inside of a aluminum fuel tank. I saw the same white power in the filters that are under the hood of my engines. Note that all parts of the fuel system that come AFTER the filters will be donors of crap into the fuel pumps, fuel injectors or carburetors etc. so no amount of filtering can fully protect you from this first badness of Ethanol.
2. Water will dissolve into ethanol blended gas. Read this http://www.epa.gov/OMS/regs/fuels/rfg/waterphs.pdf if you want to get into the chemistry of it. Bottom line is that gas blended with MTBE (also bad stuff) can’t hold nearly as much water as gas blended with ethanol. Normally if you mix water and gas, most of the water phase separates and since water is heavier than gas it settles to the bottom of the tank, the fuel filter and the under the hood fuel bowl. But with Ethanol blended gas the water is fully dissolved into the gas and will be carried throughout the entire fuel system and finally exits the engine as water vapor in the exhaust. That’s all well and good while your engine is running but if your engine is not running bad things will happen. Warmer E10 gas can hold more water than colder E10 gas. So if you are running on a warm day and the gas in your tank is water saturated (meaning its holding as much dissolved water as it can) and later your engine cools off then throughout your entire fuel system phase separation will occur (remember, cold E10 gas can’t hold as much water as warm E10 gas) and water that was once dissolved in the E10 gas will separate out. It’s effectively the same as the condensation process we see every day around us. Warm air at 100% RH (ie saturated) comes into contact with a cooler surface and the water vapor turns into liquid water undergoing a phase transition. Neat, huh?
The ethanol badness #2 is what had to have happened in my engines. How else can two fuel pumps seize from rust after sitting for only 1 week with fuel that has passed through not one but two water separators? Note that last week things cooled off quite a bit – hence the phase separation that took place throughout my fuel system.
And for the punch line, the Yamaha tech said that since this is a “fuel related problem” that it’s not covered under warranty. I am not quite sure how I feel about that. It seems to me that unless Yamaha modifies their warranty to specifically exclude Ethanol related failures that they would have to step up and fix it under warranty. If they did exclude ethanol caused failures we would all know to never use ethanol in our Yamahas. But seeing as their engines should be reliable when run on standard commercially available fuel I am leaning towards this being a problem they should fix?
If you are forced to switch to ethanol, do the following:
1. Buy a case of 10 micron fuel filters and keep them in your boat
2. Run your tanks dry. You can’t mix E10 gas with MTBE blended gas.
3. Change your fuel filters after your first tank of E10. Remember, Ethanol is a wonderful fuel system cleaner but all the crap it dislodges will wreak whatever havoc it can.
4. Store your boat with the fuel tanks 7/8 full. By minimizing airspace you will minimize the effects of condensation. Boats have vented fuel tanks, warm moist air comes in during the day and at night it hits the now colder sides of the fuel tank and condensates. So every day a little more water is added to your gas. By keeping your tank full you can minimize that.
5. If you see ANY water separating out of your gas in either your main filter or the under the hood fuel bowl then by definition your gas is fully saturated with water. That’s bad and will lead to things such as I have experienced, ie rusted and seized fuel pumps. You have to get rid of the water saturated gas ASAP. Best option might be to simply run the tanks down and refuel. But it could well be that the fuel you buy at the marina is already at 100% water saturation. I don’t know what advice to give here other than never buy Ethanol blended gas.
BOTTOM LINE
Ethanol blended gas is bad, bad, bad! Run, don’t walk, away from ethanol blended gas. Go way out of your way to find a source of non-ethanol gas. There is one where I live and that’s where I plan to buy all my gas going forward.
(ps – did I mention the fuel feed pump on a F225 costs $450 – that’s just parts, no labor