Which Fuel

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Ahhh, the battle between Stabil and Sea Foam. Just my 2 cents for what it's worth.

Sea Foam: Love this stuff. BUT, it is more than just a fuel stabilizer though. It will actually clean the inside of your fuel tank and rid it of any sludge or varnish that may exist. Also, another point is that Sea Foam says it will protect the fuel for "up to one year". For most applications, this is fine. But Sea Foam can also be added to your engine oil to clean internally. Stabil can not be. With Sea Foam, I resurrected a '53 Chevy that had been sitting for 15 years. Went thru a LOT of fuel filters while the Sea Foam was doing it's job, cleaning the tank.

Stabil: It is just purely a fuel stabilizer and focuses on just that. The plus side of this is the original "red" Stabil can be doubled up and it claims to protect your fuel "up to 2 years". I don't think the marine Stabil makes this claim. I think it says one year but it does specifically treat Ethanol fuels, which is a plus with it.

Everyone is going to have their preference. Both of them are great products and have their own advantages. I personally run the ethanol free and Sea Foam in all my small engines and boats but I have had some say they only want the Stabil in their tanks.

I never heard anyone say mixing Ethanol and Ethanol Free creating a "Italian dressing" outcome, but I don't even use the same can for both. Interesting. I may take an old can an experiment now that it has me curious.
 
The houseboat I am a timeshare holder on is a 2001 with the 305 Chevrolet engines and throttle body injection. On my July trip one year we had vapor lock which I believe was due to ethanol. I have seen where owners have left the engine covers opened with wet towels over them to help prevent vapor lock. I am not a big fan of ethanol for my boats or cars, but use Stabil in my ski boat.
 
It really gets to be a pain in the butt trying to find ethanol free fuel for your toys. It is my experience throughout the years sinc they started manufacturing ethanol fuels to use the additives and forget the hassle. One important item is to run the fuel out of your engine when you retrieve the boat and don’t let the fuel set in the engine to gel up. If you use Stabil it stops the fuel from gelling but still run the fuel out of your motors. Change filters in your engines each Spring. After sitting all Winter outside is not good for them. Most motor manuals say to change filters every 100 hours of use. But if you don’t put 100 hours on the motor throughout the boating season you need to change the oil, oil filter and fuel filter. Just saying from experience.
 
BZeg said:
The real problem comes from mixing ethanol with non ethanol fuel. Your will end up with fuel that looks like Italian dressing and your engines will not run well at all. Eventually this led to us driving the houseboat over to Antelope marina and having all the fuel tanks pumped out. I never mix the two now.
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I don't think that your issues were from mixing the two, since you are basically just diluting the ethanol concentration by adding ethanol free. The issue is the phase separation. Ethanol loves water, and your fuel will absorb water. Once you get the separation, there is no way to get rid of it besides pumping your tank. I combine them all the time in my boat, and never have any issues (I use seafoam with every tank). But I never store the boat with ethanol fuel in the tank for any extended period of time.

I usually have some ethanol free gas left in my tank from the previous boating season when I go to LP in the spring (LP is almost always the first boat use for me in the spring). I just use the ethanol fuel when at LP, but run it out and use ethanol free when I get back home the rest of the season. Never had any issues...
 
Update to my post last week with current information. I topped off my genset tank at APM yesterday without looking at the price until it was too late. 87 octane was $5.37 per gallon, not $5.03 as their website states. I filled up my car for the drive home for $2.43. So apm fuel is 121% / $2.94 per gallon higher than in town at the moment. This is the highest variance I've ever seen. Actually PO's me that I paid this much. I could have waited. My error.
 
Dave I. said:
Ahhh, the battle between Stabil and Sea Foam. Just my 2 cents for what it's worth.

Sea Foam: Love this stuff. BUT, it is more than just a fuel stabilizer though. It will actually clean the inside of your fuel tank and rid it of any sludge or varnish that may exist. Also, another point is that Sea Foam says it will protect the fuel for "up to one year". For most applications, this is fine. But Sea Foam can also be added to your engine oil to clean internally. Stabil can not be. With Sea Foam, I resurrected a '53 Chevy that had been sitting for 15 years. Went thru a LOT of fuel filters while the Sea Foam was doing it's job, cleaning the tank.

Stabil: It is just purely a fuel stabilizer and focuses on just that. The plus side of this is the original "red" Stabil can be doubled up and it claims to protect your fuel "up to 2 years". I don't think the marine Stabil makes this claim. I think it says one year but it does specifically treat Ethanol fuels, which is a plus with it.

Everyone is going to have their preference. Both of them are great products and have their own advantages. I personally run the ethanol free and Sea Foam in all my small engines and boats but I have had some say they only want the Stabil in their tanks.

I never heard anyone say mixing Ethanol and Ethanol Free creating a "Italian dressing" outcome, but I don't even use the same can for both. Interesting. I may take an old can an experiment now that it has me curious.
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I am a big fan of seafoam and use it with ethanol and non ethanol gas, I have revived old lawn mowers, tillers, outboards, weedwhackers and other small engines that were not running well by adding a good dose of seafoam ( more than standard amounts recommended, at least double is what I do). I Use it in my 50 Hp 4 stroke mercury all of the time. I try to use Ethanol free fuel as much as possible. I have mixed ethanol and non ethanol fuels in the tank when I did not have access to non ethanol and I have not had any issues with the fuel turning to "Italian dressing" as mentioned above. From a mechanic I talked to the biggest problem with ethanol fuels is time sitting in the tank not getting burned. He said when they run it in their rental ATV's no problem as long a machines are in constant use. The minute the slow season comes and the gas sits for even just a little longer in the tanks and carbs, they start having problems. He was a big fan of seafoam and they use it, then and drain tanks in off season. Stabil would probably be a safe bet for off season storage. I have used it most of time for my ATV's and Outboards over the winter and all is well in the spring. The mechanic told me the ethanol gas goes "bad" much faster than ethanol free, also I have heard that it can absorb moisture from the air because of the alcohol and that affects the quality. A full tank has less air exposure so more moisture would be more likely to be absorbed in a gas tank that is not full ??
 
Mildog said:
I am a big fan of seafoam and use it with ethanol and non ethanol gas, I have revived old lawn mowers, tillers, outboards, weedwhackers and other small engines that were not running well by adding a good dose of seafoam ( more than standard amounts recommended, at least double is what I do). I Use it in my 50 Hp 4 stroke mercury all of the time. I try to use Ethanol free fuel as much as possible. I have mixed ethanol and non ethanol fuels in the tank when I did not have access to non ethanol and I have not had any issues with the fuel turning to "Italian dressing" as mentioned above. From a mechanic I talked to the biggest problem with ethanol fuels is time sitting in the tank not getting burned. He said when they run it in their rental ATV's no problem as long a machines are in constant use. The minute the slow season comes and the gas sits for even just a little longer in the tanks and carbs, they start having problems. He was a big fan of seafoam and they use it, then and drain tanks in off season. Stabil would probably be a safe bet for off season storage. I have used it most of time for my ATV's and Outboards over the winter and all is well in the spring. The mechanic told me the ethanol gas goes "bad" much faster than ethanol free, also I have heard that it can absorb moisture from the air because of the alcohol and that affects the quality. A full tank has less air exposure so more moisture would be more likely to be absorbed in a gas tank that is not full ??
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You bring up a good point that wasn't yet addressed in this thread. From my past google research on this subject, it is recommended that if you use ethanol-free fuel, store your fuel tank full so it can't absorb as much moisture from the potential condensation on the walls of the tank during the winter; if you use fuel with ethanol in it, leave it as empty as possible so the fuel can't absorb as much moisture and can be filled with 'good' new fuel to start the season. There are many articles out there discussing this - here is a link to one: Using Ethanol Gas in a Boat
 
Pegasus said:
You bring up a good point that wasn't yet addressed in this thread. From my past google research on this subject, it is recommended that if you use ethanol-free fuel, store your fuel tank full so it can't absorb as much moisture from the potential condensation on the walls of the tank during the winter; if you use fuel with ethanol in it, leave it as empty as possible so the fuel can't absorb as much moisture and can be filled with 'good' new fuel to start the season. There are many articles out there discussing this - here is a link to one: Using Ethanol Gas in a Boat
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Good info and some links to troubleshooting boat engine issues were on there as well. Found some good info on that site you linked to that may help us out working on a buddy's boat.
Anyone here with any input would be welcomed. I am helping a buddy with his older 50 HP Evinrude, it runs great at low speed but bogs down when giving it more throttle. We removed carbs and cleaned them and it made little difference. It appears to us to be fuel flow issue.
When he runs it with the key pushed ( referred to as the choke, but in checking it is actually an electric primer of sorts and adds more fuel directly into the carb) in it will run at higher rpm's. From what we read it could be an air leak which could lead to fuel flow issues or some fuel flow restriction. That website listed some things to check so we will. We have found that the gasket around the air intake was not totally intact, that could be a source of an air leak so a new one is on order. If that and a couple ideas from that website don't work, then it is time to take it to a shop.
 
Mildog said:
Good info and some links to troubleshooting boat engine issues were on there as well. Found some good info on that site you linked to that may help us out working on a buddy's boat.
Anyone here with any input would be welcomed. I am helping a buddy with his older 50 HP Evinrude, it runs great at low speed but bogs down when giving it more throttle. We removed carbs and cleaned them and it made little difference. It appears to us to be fuel flow issue.
When he runs it with the key pushed ( referred to as the choke, but in checking it is actually an electric primer of sorts and adds more fuel directly into the carb) in it will run at higher rpm's. From what we read it could be an air leak which could lead to fuel flow issues or some fuel flow restriction. That website listed some things to check so we will. We have found that the gasket around the air intake was not totally intact, that could be a source of an air leak so a new one is on order. If that and a couple ideas from that website don't work, then it is time to take it to a shop.
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I imagine you already know this but years ago when my 35 would not run, kind of like what you are describing I had an old fellow [like me now] take the primer bulb that you squeeze to fill the line with fuel and he cut it open and the inside of the bulb had separated and it would collapse and not let fuel flow through. Just a thought if that one even has a primer bulb on the fuel line. It used to be fairly common to have that happen.
 
Mildog said:
Good info and some links to troubleshooting boat engine issues were on there as well. Found some good info on that site you linked to that may help us out working on a buddy's boat.
Anyone here with any input would be welcomed. I am helping a buddy with his older 50 HP Evinrude, it runs great at low speed but bogs down when giving it more throttle. We removed carbs and cleaned them and it made little difference. It appears to us to be fuel flow issue.
When he runs it with the key pushed ( referred to as the choke, but in checking it is actually an electric primer of sorts and adds more fuel directly into the carb) in it will run at higher rpm's. From what we read it could be an air leak which could lead to fuel flow issues or some fuel flow restriction. That website listed some things to check so we will. We have found that the gasket around the air intake was not totally intact, that could be a source of an air leak so a new one is on order. If that and a couple ideas from that website don't work, then it is time to take it to a shop.
Click to expand...

I had a similar problem with my motor when I bought it (it had sat unusused with ethanol fuel for 2 years in the tank and carburetor). I had it taken apart and cleaned (I did not do it myself). The mechanic added new fuel, and conditioner etc to the gas but did not drain the tank. It would run, and accelerate if you hit the choke, but would not keep going. I pulled the connector off the end of the fuel line, and completely drained the tank, added fuel conditioner and it has worked perfectly ever since. Is the gas in your buddies boat fresh?
 
Dorado said:
I had a similar problem with my motor when I bought it (it had sat unusused with ethanol fuel for 2 years in the tank and carburetor). I had it taken apart and cleaned (I did not do it myself). The mechanic added new fuel, and conditioner etc to the gas but did not drain the tank. It would run, and accelerate if you hit the choke, but would not keep going. I pulled the connector off the end of the fuel line, and completely drained the tank, added fuel conditioner and it has worked perfectly ever since. Is the gas in your buddies boat fresh?
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Thanks for the reply. He says it is " good gas" but I don't think he drained and filled with new?? The next test trip out after we replace the air intake gasket we are going to run it on a separate spare auxiliary gas tank with fresh ethanol free with additive so we are 100% sure and also eliminate the possibility of issues with the built in tank pick up hoses etc. Some one mentioned on a tank/motor that old it may have an anti siphon decive that can get gummed up and restrict fuel flow ? Thanks again for the info.
Mildog
 
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