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Posts: 118
| Hello....does anybody have a fuel flow meter on their boat?......was wondering what brands are best and not too expensive....did you install it yourself or have the dealer put it in for you?......if you did it yourself, how tough of a job was it....thanks in advance?.........Bob | |
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Posts: 531
Location: Hugo, MN | Lowrance makes one that is networked into your GPS/Sonar unit if you have one. Not that expensive and kinda nice to have. | |
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Location: Green Bay, WI | Fuel Flow indicators are VERY nice to have, and can pay for themselves in only a couple years if you use your boat much. You would be amazed at the difference in FF that you'll see with only a 200-300 RPM difference in power setting.
I have had a Yamaha digital gauge, and it cost me about $450 installed as I recall. I now have FF on my Mercury SmartCraft, but that set-up cost quite a bit more than $450. But it came with the boat so I don't know how much it'd cost if installed after-market. I don't think the Yamaha gauge would be particularly difficult to install, but mine was installed by the dealer before I picked up the (new) boat for the first time. I recall that my dealer told me it only took his service guy about an hour to install it...
Lowrance does make a unit, but I've never talked to anybody using one. You might go over the the forums at http://thehulltruth.com and search in the archives for information about particular fuel flow gauges. There is a tremendous amount of information on the forum, and I would think you could find any number of threads discussing the different FF gauge solutions available.
EDIT: Here you go... http://www.thehulltruth.com/search.php?searchid=350992
TB
Edited by tcbetka 5/20/2009 6:19 AM
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Posts: 1663
Location: Kodiak, AK | I'll just post this fwiw. I'm repowering right now, so I'm thinking of upgrading my guage cluster and adding a fuel flow guage. I posted at BBC and a saltwater forum asking about them, and I've gotten more emails from people saying DON'T DO IT! I'd heard all the guys saying how nice they are and how much they help...and they do, I'm not doubting that. But I got emails off the forums because the guys didn't want to start an argument, as I hope I don't do here.
But I heard two things- first that the Yamaha guage pick up at least (don't know about other brands) is prone to the impeller derailing and causing issues, as is it clogging. The other issue that really talked me out of it was a guy who blew an HPDI because (as determined by Yamaha themselves) the meter somehow leaned the motor out and seized it. Now this is all information only passed to me, and not my personal experience, but since I asked the same question, and these are the answers I got, I thought I'd pass them along.
That's not to say they're not good or worth it. I know I've read tons and tons of guys who have and love them and have never had an issue. But I got five emails from guys who'd had issues with fuel flow guages. | |
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Location: Green Bay, WI | Wow...never heard that stuff!
I had my Yamaha engine for about three years, and put 150 hours or so on it. So I suppose it's possible that I simply didn't use it enough to have problems with the thing?
From what I have heard, the Mercury SmartCraft gauges seem to all offer fuel flow capabilities, but I haven't heard of any issues with those. I have run my Verado about 80 hours now, not really using it last year due to medical problems. But I will do a little research about this, and post again if I can add new information. I wonder--were the fellows that had problems with the FF gauges running 2-strokes, or 2 & 4-stroke engines? I don't know much about the direct-injection 2-stroke engines, but pretty much all newer 4-stroke engines (car, aircraft, boat) seem to be offered for use with FF gauges. You'd think you would hear about these kinds of problems if there were really that many? Are the 2-stroke direct-injection engines much more sensitive to FF than the 4-strokes are?
But thanks for posting these details--I will ask around a bit.
TB | |
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Posts: 1663
Location: Kodiak, AK | Yeah, and like I said, this may be in the minority, and out of a thousand fue flow guages, there's going to be a few guys that have issues.
But talking to these guys they pretty much told me that while the guages do show you what you're burning, and you can see a difference now they just look at their rpms, look at their speed and just balance the rpms with their speed, and save gas that way. I gather that basically once you understand that 300 rpm can make a big difference, then you don't need a guage to tell you to back off a bit to maintain the same speed. If you're cruising at 45 mph, at 4800 rpm you know to back it off to 4500 and see what you loose in speed. If it's a mph, then roll with it, if you drop to 41 mph then you know that 4800 is as slow as you can turn to maintain 45. Basically you pick your speed and get established, then back it off until you start to bleed mph then nudge it back up to where you're at your desired speed, and leave the throttle there, and that's your most efficient fuel flow. | |
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Location: Green Bay, WI | Well, the problem is that each time you go out, the boat is loaded somewhat differently. Different total weight & overall weight distribution, for starters. So even though I tried to match the same power settings, they wouldn't always translate to the same speed on the water, and they certainly wouldn't give me the same FF rates. So I always had to fine-tune the RPM somewhat.
I called my dealer's service manager after my last post, and asked him about any potential issue with FF gauges. He is completely unaware of any problems like you mentioned--and said that they have a number of customers running both Verado and Optimax engines, and using FF gauges without issue. So he had no idea about any potential problems like you were advised.
TB | |
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Posts: 1663
Location: Kodiak, AK | Well like I said, a few out of every thousand. I talked to my mechanic tonight (seems I talk to him every day now about getting this motor hung) and he said he'd only had one that clogged. Talking with one of the guys that sent me an email, he clarified as to why he recommended not using one. I'm not a copy and paste kindof guy, but it's easiest to just C&P his email-
'My ’06 HPDI blew for the 2nd time a few months ago, and my best friend who is a Yamaha Certified Master Mechanic told me that my #6 cylinder had leaned out. We were trying to isolate the problem. When we did the water test with the new powerhead he had a gauge system hooked into the fuel rail and it was loosing vacuum at hard pushes of the throttle. We removed the ep-10 fuel flow meter and vacuum issue went away….. Although we cannot be 100% sure, we feel this was the reason it blew THIS time. Again, install the fuel flow meter if you want, but be very wary and check your vacuum regularly. The little wheel inside of the meter comes off track easily and will also clog up from the smallest debris. This is where the issue lies."
That's the only instance I have of them potentially messing up a motor. The other emails just mentioned clogging, and they all chalked them up to Ethanol deterioration getting caught in the pick-up. I guess if you installed it behind the fuel/water separator, you could hope to avoid issues like this.
And I understand what you mean about the load being different every time out and so forth. I didn't mean to imply that your numbers would be the same every time. I guess my point is that for the $400 that a fuel flow guage would cost me, I can play with my rpms and speed on my own, and that $400 is the better part of a four blade prop. | |
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Location: Green Bay, WI | Yes, understood. By all means, get the prop you want. You can always add the FF gauge later. For the record, my FF gauge was installed just south of the filter, on the engine side, as I recall.
No one has told me so, but I bet the direct-injection 2-strokes are more sensitive to fuel flow. I haven't investigated them at all, but the things I have heard about the engines make me think that. With the Verado, the ECU monitors so many things that I bet you'd get an alarm in a the case where you were losing fuel pressure like that.
Let us know how the boat does with the new engine!
TB | |
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Posts: 1663
Location: Kodiak, AK | Will do. It's on it's way from Yamaha. No one around here stocks that motor of course, so it's on a semi somewhere on it's way from Yamaha. I expect to see it here mid- late- next week and once it get here my dealer's already got it slotted for Job #1, so I'm thinking first week of June on the water. | |
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Posts: 2753
Location: Mauston, Wisconsin | $45K Truck
$45K Boat
$450 Fuel Flow Meter for the Boat = Priceless!
Have fun!
Al | |
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Anyone have a fuel flow meter?