I just received this article from our neighbor. He is a boat builder and writes a weekly article in one of our local papers. His shop also does a lot of maintenance work. I mentioned some of what he has written in the past; his words here...
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COLUMN NAME: “AT THE HELM”
ARTICLE TITLE: More Ethanol Bad News For Boaters
BY: DOC
Right about now, I’m thinking that this column is starting to sound like a broken record because it seems that hardly a month or two doesn’t go by that the harmful effects of ethanol fuels in marine motors doesn’t pop up its ugly head with even more bad news. Over the last year or two, I thought that every possible nasty topic had been covered and that by now boaters would have taken all of the necessary steps to protect their motors and fuel systems, but unfortunately that isn’t the case and now there’s even more ethanol bad news for boaters.
For those boaters, and landlubbers, who haven’t come up to speed on this California, EPA and Governmental mandated ethanol laced fuel that was intended to reduce harmful emissions in both gasoline and diesel internal combustion engines while at the same time improving fuel efficiency, here’s a quick review of what this alcohol cocktail has to its credits thus far.
The gas and diesel you buy nowadays contains at about 10% ethanol, or more, and is called “E-10”. This ethanol is primarily made from fermented and distilled corn, although other organic plants can also achieve the same results it is corn that is more abundant and less expensive to produce, which really made a lot of farmers happy. Ethanol, a type of alcohol, does in fact burn cleaner than good ol’ gasoline, but that’s pretty much where the good news stopped. Ethanol, that was initially thought to be cheaper to produce than gasoline ended up being subsidized with our tax dollars to try and keep fuel costs in line, if you can believe that.
One of the first drawbacks noticed regarding ethanol laced fuels was that it produced less power than regular gasoline, which meant that to travel at the same speed and pull the same load, you’d have to give your vehicle more throttle, ultimately using more fuel and putting out more emissions. Following that, researchers found that ethanol readily absorbed moisture, water vapors, right out of the air at an alarming rate, so much so that all marine motors must now be equipped with fuel/water separator filters and the filters need to be changed at least every 90 days, if not sooner, to avoid serious motor damage and poor performance.
Next came the fact that the combination of water and ethanol are highly corrosive, so much so that it will damage, eat away and destroy metal parts in motors, fuel systems and even older metal fuel tanks. Over the last couple of years there has been an uptick in leaking metal fuel tanks and boat fires attributed to the effects of ethanol fuels. To make matters worse, because ethanol molecules are so tiny, basically microscopic, they can pass right through standard fuel lines and hoses and both metal and plastic fuel tanks. “Permeation” as it is called, not only put more harmful vapors into the air, but also has increased safety concerns because of an elevated risk of fires and explosions onboard.
To combat permeation, California and EPA have mandated that only Type A-1 (alcohol resistant) fuels lines are used; plastic fuel tanks to now be double-walled and metal ones to have special liners, coatings or bladders, but the regulations didn’t stop there. If the current regulations remain unchanged, in the next couple of years all marine fuel systems will be required to have anti-surge valves, charcoal filters and possibly catalytic converters, that as you might imagine will significantly raise the price of a boat’s motor and fuel system…for what?!
Another one of the most well-known nasties about ethanol fuels is that they break down much faster than good ol’ gasoline. It’s called “phase separation” among other things and while I won’t go into all of the technical mumbo jumbo, basically the fuel goes bad in about 3 to 4 weeks in marine fuel systems, causing a multitude of motor problems, some catastrophic!
Older, 2-stroke carbureted motors primarily experience gummed up carburetors, loss of power and performance, and occasionally damaged internal motor parts, but it’s the newer fuel injected 2-stroke and 4-stroke motors that are getting the raw end of the deal.
For those older carbureted motors, cleaning the carbs is relatively inexpensive, but when its fuel injectors, high pressure fuel pumps, vapor separators, fuel regulators, burned valves and the like, now we’re talking major bucks.
Since ethanol fuels are going bad in such a short time, there’s no need to waste your hard-earned money buying additives, because nothing will prolong or stop the inevitable breakdown of the fuel, especially in warmer and more humid areas such as ours. So, the only cure for this is to religiously get rid of your boat’s fuel once a month. For those who pre-mix oil with the fuel, I don’t know what you can do with it, but for oil injected and 4-stroke motors, you might want to pump it into your land vehicle where it’ll be used in a day or two.
Okay, now for the most recent bad news about ethanol fuels. First of all, all internal combustion engines operate on a precise mixture or fuel and air (oxygen) to create the explosion in the cylinders. Too much fuel and the motor bogs down harmlessly, but if there’s too much air, detonation can occur and this results in burned pistons, cylinder walls, valves and cylinder heads. Normal detonation happens fairly quickly as any boat or automobile racer knows when they get greedy trying to get more power out of their motor by ramping up the octane (an oxygenator), adding nitrous-oxide, methanol or even nitro to their fuel. If the motor isn’t designed for this excessive heat and power, that’s when they go “BANG”!
The same thing happens in marine motors too, but we now have a new type of detonation that many of the manufacturers’ techs are calling something similar to a “plasma cutter”. This new type of detonation happens very slowly over an extended period of time during the first millisecond of each startup of the motor. It’s caused by an excessive amount of air in the fuel mixture that gets there from four sources of oxygenation, the octane and ethanol in the fuel, regular air supplied by the motor, and from the tiny air pockets left behind as ethanol evaporates and permeates. The result is that the piston can slowly be eaten away on the side nearest the exhaust port or valve, and finally loses total compression. While nothing else is normally damaged, the repair bill will destroy your wallet.
According to these same factory techs, the only preventative measure a boater can take is to always prime their fuel system 3 times, waiting 30 seconds or so between each of the priming’s, before starting the motor. For those with fuel injected motors, the third priming should take place after turning the ignition key to “On” and before starting the motor. This hopefully pressurizes the fuel system completely and gets rid of the excess air. I know this sounds like a pain to do, but think of the alternative!
AS ALWAYS, STAY SAFE & HAPPY BOATING!!!
