Posts: 3480
Location: Elk River, Minnesota | Hi Jerry,
You and I both know we have seen the conversation of what fuel is best to use many many many times over on this site and on many others.
I will admit, I have been very very fortunate with the outboards in my family with the only issues coming up with my father's older 1985 mercury 50hp he had. He'd use it for a big trip right after school was out, but then the boat would sit until fall...no stabilization to the fuel, so he had multiple trips to the repair shop to rebuild carbs. What is goofy is years before, he would always run the fuel out of his engines before pulling them after a trip, and never had an issue. His 1973 20hp has only been rebuilt one time, and the only other issue with that motor was in 1983 when he had to send it in for new points. I follow this procedure for my carbed kicker motor and it runs really well. My main motor, though, I stabilize the fuel for the last tank of the season and then when I store the motor, it's all set to go. I've been doing that for the last 20 years with no issue up to this point and I just changed over from a carbed main motor last year.
I really think the key issue is proper maintenance of our engines... I run both 87 and 91 octane at times...many times run 91 because I like how the engine runs on it...it just runs smoother because the fuel is just that less volatile than 87 octane and even though I may not notice any HP difference, I do understand it has a better output than the E10. That is definitely not a knock against 87 E10 octane as I usually will run that on a trip because in a week I'll burn through 80 - 100 gallons of fuel and that can be a significant savings on the trip.
I do feel that everyone makes their decisions based on personal experiences and your's is unique to you as are mine to me. I would never say one is wrong or right...it's just what we have had to deal with and we adjust what we do accordingly. And I do think you are right...it's all somewhere in the middle and we can find arguments in both directions which are most likely biased for a reason to lead us one way or another...that is the power of statistics...You can get statistics to pretty much say anything you want regardless of how objective the tests might be.
I think the biggest issue overall is proper maintenance and with it....the engines usually will not have issues. Now and again, I think we all can run into a bad batch of fuel from a station for whatever reason, and no doubt it can be very costly, and no way to tie it to a particular station, and it can definitely affect our decisions going forward.
So long as our engines don't sit for a long long time, things "should" be good to go, but if it sits any longer, I will stabilize regardless if people say I would need to or not. I do it for peace of mind, and if that is what it takes for me to feel positive for my engines to stay in top running condition, I'll do it. I think the small fee for a little stabil or seafoam is well worth it rather than a costly tear down and rebuild of a fuel system.
A good filter system (including fuel water separation), stabilization as one sees fit, and just overall using our motors consistently are the key elements to keeping things running well.. All my opinion, though going off of my own personal experiences.
Steve
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